This is the easiest post I have ever written. Probably because I did not actually write it, my good friend and author Nancy Cullen did. Actually, she wrote me an email in response to my question – any fiction you could recommend? and then gave me permission to use her words …..
“Oh My Darling is an excellent recommend and very few will have read or heard about it because it’s short fiction. It’s brilliant and filled with peril and really captures this middle class Canadian domestic moment in time when everything feels like it’s going to shit.
I would also recommend “Americanah” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She’s a Nigerian/American writer. She’s young (maybe just 40, if that) and very glamourous and feminist. Americanah is a sweeping love story that travels from Nigeria to the USA and back again and takes on two immigration narratives (one successful, one failed) and the experience of being a non-American Black in the USA and hangs it all on a love story. It is very contemporary and witty and really tells us about an urban Africa we probably didn’t even know existed. But mostly, it’s just a damn good story.
I love a novel called Longbourn by Jo Baker. Longbourn uses the story of Pride and Prejudice to tell the story of the Bennet family’s hard working (over worked!) maid, Sarah. The events in Pride & Prejudice and the Bennets themselves are the background to Sarah’s story. It’s all about class and freedom and it’s a terrific, fun read that prompts the reader to consider the wealth and the privilege of the Bennet girls in contrast to the drudgery, but relative freedom of the housemaid.
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff was President Obama’s favourite read of 2015. It tells the story of a happy marriage first from the husband’s point of view and then from the wife’s. Sounds boring. I sure thought it would be but Groff is inventive and really plays with the idea that you can never really know someone, even someone you love. I mean I’m sick to death of stories of marriages, like gag me. But this was a really good novel. “
I’m sure dear reader that you have counted 4 things in this post – I asked Nancy for five and I added one too so – these four made the list. I may save the others for a future book post!
I just could not edit when it comes to books, anyone else have that problem? 🙂 I can’t wait to read these books.
Thank you Nancy! – love you. K