The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

You know those books that once you put them down, you take a step back and think ‘That shit was whack”? This, dear friends, is one of those books. There were some deeply disturbing and disquieting scenes that hinted and suggested deep dysfunction rather than told you everything, and that sometimes is more effective than spelling out the awful truth.

It’s a book that dismantles the notion of fulfilled relationships, and looks under the carpet where people sweep their disappointments and deepest regrets to create a big stinking pile of sad dust. Pippa Lee is a complex woman, married to an older man who has ‘tamed’ her – but is it just an act? Is the whole wife and mother act just pretence? And the bigger question is – do all women feel this way, trapped and dishonest in their roles as wife and mother? Do their real selves cease to exist once you have children? Yep, told you it was whack.

There are some fascinating relationships and characters in Miller’s debut work, and while not all are fully formed (the ending for example is wrapped up in a ridiculously short fashion – a sign of an over zealous editor or an out-of-ideas author?) it’s very commendable for going to some dark and interesting places when it could have quite easily become chick lit twaddle.

The Two Mrs Grenvilles by Dominic Dunne

This book is the literary equivalent of ordering a dirty martini from an old school Manhattan bar (yes Amber, I’m thinking of The Algonquin and that chilli martini and the old men in their ties with the napkins. Take me back NOW).

Dunne is totally old school, a writer who wrote for Vanity Fair for decades when there was no demarcation between the stars and the writers, and paparazzi was not a dirty word. Set in 1940s New York, showgirl Ann Arden mets Billy Grenville, a young rich and directionless heir who falls in love with her mystique and wild ways. They marry, much to the disdain of Billy’s family who can spot Ann’s social climbing ways a mile off, and simultaneously bring her into the family while keeping her at arm’s length. Ann is a willing student of the school of snobbery, and turns into the very person Billy thought she was not. Throw in some fabulous parties and the mother-in-law from hell and you have a very absorbing read.

It’s full of bitchy comments and snarky observations on the elite, and those who compromise themselves irrevocably to join them. Like a good martini, this has a delicious kick to it.

What is the What by Dave Eggers

I actually read this about six months ago, but think I was so overwhelmed that I couldn’t quite put my thoughts in order enough to write about it. Then I saw it on the bookshelf and realised it had slipped through the C.M.L cracks.

Mr Eggers is feted as a saviour of modern literature, who burst onto the scene with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (which I am ashamed to say have not yet read – I blame his second novel And You Shall Know Us By Our Velocity which I could not make heads nor tails of for putting me off), edits slightly wanky McSweeney’s and the more useful Voice of Witness series that uses the written word to highlight human rights atrocities.

This is the story of Valentino Achak Deng from Sudan, and his journey as a refugee and boy soldier. It’s told in first person, but Eggers, who has ghost written it, inserts a clever caveat at the start of the book classifying it as a novel – the main events are true but conversations may be ‘as remembered’. There are many parts in this book where you think that this must be fiction, but it’s horrifying to realise that so much of this book is true. The idea of millions of people living in an arid and desolate refugee camp for decades, children being eaten by lions on their three month long walk across Sudan, seeing family members macheted to death; it’s more than my brain, and even the most fertile patches of my imagination, cannot conjure up and would not want to.

Just as heartbreaking is the obstacles that Valentino faces once he does achieve his dream of being sent to America to start his new prosperous life. He becomes one of the ‘Lost Boys’, a term to describe the thousands of young men like him who have been displaced by war and cannot settle in their new lives. The modernity and bureaucracy of the United States is too much for many, who rack up thousands in mobile phone calls to Africa because they can’t read their phone contracts; menial jobs are the only ones on offer; well meaning volunteer sponsors quickly tire of the Lost Boys constant and sometimes unreasonable demands.

But Valentino never gives up. His unwavering optimism and grit to keep going when everything seems hopeless is absolutely awe-inspiring and really gave me some perspective on the hipster saying ‘first-world problems’. I challenge anyone not to read this and then complain about their lot in life.