September 30

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Guy Morpuss

Try to imagine being tasked with the responsibility of filing the shelves of a brand new library. You can add any books to the shelves but you want to ensure only the very best titles are available to readers. That was the challenge I set myself back in January 2021. It didn’t take long for me to realise I could not possibly fill a library without enlisting some help – the Decades Library was born.

Each week I am joined by a guest curator who is asked to nominate five books which I add to the Library shelves. My guests are authors, publishers, bloggers and journalists – all booklovers. There are just two rules governing the selections:

1 – You Can Select ANY Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

Rule two is why my library is called the Decades Library – apparently restricing choices to one book per decade over (any) fifty year publication span causes some head scratching. The end results are always fascinating.

This week I am delighted to welcome Guy Morpuss to the Decades Library. I loved Guy’s debut novel (Five Minds) which was published in 2021. Five Minds blew my mind with the fabulous concept of multiple people sharing a body, each of the people get their own window of awareness over the course of a day. It’s one of the most memorable books I have featured in 8 years of blogging.

Time to pass the curators hat to Guy and let him introduce his selections….

 

Guy writes speculative crime fiction: twisting one aspect of the real world, adding a dead body, and playing with the consequences.

His first novel, Five Minds (2021), is about five people sharing one body, one of whom is trying to murder the others. It was a Financial Times Book of the Year and a Kindle Number 1 Bestseller in Technothrillers and Post-Apocalyptic SF. Translation rights have been sold in seven territories.

His recently-published second novel, Black Lake Manor (2022), is a locked room murder mystery set on Vancouver Island, where the killer can unwind time – which makes it difficult for the detective trying (repeatedly) to solve the murder. It was a Financial Times Book of the Month.

Before taking up full-time writing Guy practised as a barrister/QC in London.

DECADES

In adding to the Decades Library I have chosen books that inspired me to read – and ultimately, therefore, to write. I started out with my father’s library of fast-paced detective stories and thrillers; and then I branched out into science-fiction.

Sadly, though, I have no space for some fantastic authors that I grew up reading: Alistair MacLean, Captain W.E. Johns, Desmond Bagley, Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Orczy, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Iain M Banks.

Although, curiously no Agatha Christie, which didn’t feature on my father’s bookshelves. It was only after Viper Books offered me a publishing deal that I confessed to my editor that I had never read any of her books – an omission which I have since corrected.

I have chosen the 1920s to the 1960s, as the end of the classic crime era and the rise of science-fiction neatly mark my journey as a reader.

 

1920s

The Door With Seven Locks (1926) – Edgar Wallace

Although probably best known now as a co-author of King Kong, Edgar Wallace was one of the most prolific crime writers of the early twentieth century. His output was prodigious, with many of his novels being written over two or three days. It is said that a friend phoned him once to be told that he was in the middle of writing a book, and responded: ‘I’ll hang on till he’s finished it.’

I was tempted to add Room 13 – the first outing of his brilliant detective JG Reeder – but in the end opted for The Door With Seven Locks, written in a year when he published more than one book per month.

The intriguing title also sums up the premise of the book: a Scotland Yard detective is told by a small-time criminal of his failed attempts to open the door in a tomb which has seven locks. The lock-picker is murdered, and the detective gets caught up in a search for the seven keys. This is typical Edgar Wallace: fast-paced, easy to read, a crime thriller with a dash of romance thrown in.

 

1930s

Adele & Co (1931) – Dornford Yates

One of the first books I ever read on my own was Blind Corner by Dornford Yates: a chase across Europe in the hunt for treasure hidden in a secret chamber at the bottom of a castle well.

However, I have opted to include Adele & Co, which neatly combines the two sides of Yates’s writing: on the one hand the ‘Chandos’ books (such as Blind Corner) – fast-paced thrillers often compared to the works of John Buchan; on the other the ‘Berry’ books – humorous laments to the declining fortunes of the English upper-classes after the First World War. I remember reading Berry & Co in class once, and being unable to stop laughing out loud.

In Adele & Co Major Bertram Pleydell (Berry) and his family wake in Paris to discover that they have been drugged and had their jewellery stolen. There follows a chase across France which culminates in the Pyrenees. It is both tense and funny, best showcasing Yates’s skill as a writer.

As with Edgar Wallace, Dornford Yates was a very popular author whose books have largely fallen out of favour: partly, it has to be said, because of some of the attitudes displayed particularly in his later books. But they were part of my childhood – and I firmly believe that we can learn from other writers even if we don’t agree with everything they said.

 

1940s

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) – George Orwell

I was torn between this and Animal Farm, but the dystopian themes of Nineteen Eighty-Four make it the better book in my view.

As someone who will try pretty much any genre one of my frustrations is people who say: ‘I don’t read science-fiction.’ For me Nineteen Eighty-Four is the perfect illustration of what they are missing. It changes the world in a way that only science-fiction/speculative fiction can do – by imagining a future in which political ideas have been taken to a more extreme, but entirely plausible, level. It then explores the consequences in a way that sheds light on our own world.

It is an eye-opening and ultimately rather depressing book. But still, to my mind, a must-read, especially for those who think they won’t like science-fiction.

 

1950s

Flowers for Algernon (1959) – Daniel Keyes

Algernon is a laboratory mouse who is super-intelligent following experimental surgery. When Charlie, a janitor with low IQ, has the same surgery, his IQ triples. At first this seems like a good thing, but his newfound genius brings its own problems.

And then Algernon starts to decline.

This is another book which is ultimately sad. However, it raises profound issues of mental illness, happiness, scientific ethics, and foreseeing one’s own end.

Flowers for Algernon was first published as a short story in the 1950s, then expanded to a novel in the 1960s. Whilst both are worth reading, for me in many ways the short story is better: it deals with all the same issues as the novel, but even more succinctly.

 

1960s

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (1966) – Philip K Dick

I can’t remember the first book by Philip K Dick that I read, but once I’d found one I wanted to read them all. At the heart of his writing is the question: ‘What is real?’

Many of his books are now better known by their film titles: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, The Adjustment Bureau. The books are often very different – and generally better.

We Can Remember It for You Wholesale (the inspiration for Total Recall) challenges the reliability of memory, and questions identity. It also neatly turns the classic boyhood dream – ‘I want to be James Bond’ – into reality. The protagonist, an office worker with a desire to visit Mars, discovers that he is actually a secret agent who used to work there.

I like the idea of playing with the human mind, and it is something I have tried to explore in my own novels. If you can’t trust your mind and memories, what can you trust?

 

 

My thanks to Guy for these fantastic additions to the Decades Library. I suspect Flowers For Algernon will trigger some strong memories for many readers. And I feel I should have known Philip K Dick wrote the story behind Total Recall – this is why I could not be trusted to make the Decades selections alone.

 

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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September 23

Decades – Compiling the Ultimate Library with Chris Curran

Imagine you had a brand new library but you didn’t have any books yet. Rows and rows of empty shelves all demanding books to fill them. But which books?  This was the question I first asked back in January 2021. If you could assemble a new library of nothing but the very best books where would you start?

I knew I could not answer that question alone so each week I invite a booklover (authors, publishers, journalists or bloggers) to add new books to my Ultimate Library. I call it my Decades Library for reasons I shall soon explain.

Each week my guest is asked to nominate five books which I will then add to my Decades Library. There are just two rules which govern their choices but it can apparently cause a bit of head scratching…

1 – You Can Choose ANY Five Books
2 – You May Only Select One Book Per Decade From Five Consecutive Decades

This is why my collection is called the Decades Library.

 

This week I am thrilled to be able to pass the Decades curator hat to Chris Curran. Chris has selected five brand new reading recommendations for the Decades Library and I know you’re going to love them as much as I do.

Chris Curran’s sixth psychological suspense novel, When the Lights Go Out, publishes on December 2nd . Chris also writes as Abbie Frost and her latest under that name is The Guesthouse. Her books have been praised in the media as: truly gripping (Sunday Express), dark, claustrophobic and full of suspense (The Courier) addictive and fun (Daily Mail), addictive (The Sun), chilling (Waitrose Magazine) thrilling (Sublime Horror)

Best selling author, Alex Lake, describes The Guesthouse as a: full of suspense…gripping mystery. And Edgar Award winner Alex Marwood calls When the Lights Go Out: wonderfully mystifying and claustrophobic; and sad and thoughtful to boot.

Chris also writes short stories and has twice been shortlisted for the CWA Margery Allingham award.

Find out more about Chris/Abbie and all her writing:

on Twitter: @FrostyAbbie

Instagram: Chris Curran (@chriscurranwriter) • Instagram photos and videos

Website: https://chriscurranauthor.com/

 

DECADES

 

1950s

Tom’s Midnight Garden – Philippa Pearce

I had to start with the 1950s in order to mention this one because it could well be my favourite book of all, surpassing even Rebecca which I adore. I taught young children and when people discovered that I also wrote stories, they always  assumed these were for children. The truth is that, while I love children’s books, I have never tried to write one because the best of them are just so good! And the best are definitely not only for children.

I’ve read Tom’s Midnight Garden many times and it never fails to enthral me and to leave me thinking, smiling and crying all at the same time. As I grow older the tears flow more easily and I find more and more things in the story that speak to me. Like all great children’s books, it is both simple and profound. In a tale of two lonely children, playing together in a garden, Pearce manages to illuminate some of the great mysteries of life and living. She capitalises the word Time throughout the book, as well as Past, Present and Future because at its heart the story is about the passage of time. About childhood and aging, love and loss and how time alters us completely and yet leaves us the same.

Tom Long is forced to spend the summer with an aunt and uncle he barely knows in a flat, that, although part of a once grand house, has no garden. Banished from home because his brother is ill with measles, Tom is distraught at the loss of his playmate and of all the adventures they had planned together for the school holidays. But when the clock down in the entrance hall strikes thirteen one night he discovers a door to the wonderful midnight garden. Here he meets another lonely child, an orphan called Hatty. They spend nights exploring the garden and its surroundings as Time behaves as mysteriously as the appearing and disappearing garden.

Tom gradually comes to believe that Hatty must be a ghost, but is surprised to find that to her it’s he who is the phantom. They discover the truth during a resolution that is poignant perfection.

 

1960s

The Ivy Tree – Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart had huge success in the ‘50s and ‘60s, with her sparkling thrillers, but seems to have been forgotten by many readers today. I could choose any of her novels as a favourite, and her first, Madam Will You Talk? encapsulates everything I love about her books. But that was written in the 1950s so I’ve gone for The Ivy Tree from 1961. The books are often called romantic thrillers, but I think this is misleading. Whilst they all contain at least a hint of romance, along with beautiful settings, what matters is the adventure. And it’s always the heroine who pushes the story onward, not in pursuit of a man, but in her determination to solve the mystery. She faces the dangers independently, relying on her own courage and ingenuity.

The Ivy Tree is darker than many of its predecessors and, instead of the exotic locations (for the time) that Stewart often used, it’s set in the Northumberland countryside, which was deeply familiar to Stewart. The book is in the tradition of Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar (and Stewart acknowledges her debt) and Du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, where a lookalike is persuaded to take the place of a missing person from a wealthy family.

Annabel was the much-loved granddaughter and heir of Matthew Winslow and, with Matthew close to death, Annabel’s cousin, Connor, persuades Mary Grey, a Canadian visiting England, to impersonate Annabel and claim the inheritance. But can Mary convince those who loved Anabel that she has indeed returned?

When it becomes clear that Connor and his loyal sister, Lisa, who have trained Mary to mimic Annabel, are ignorant of important aspects of Annabel’s life, Mary realises their plan is in jeopardy. Anabel’s  other young cousin, Julie, reveals that Anabel had an adulterous affair with local landowner, Adam Forrest. Both Julie and Adam loved Annabel so will they, or her grandfather, see through the subterfuge?

As Mary’s suspicions about what actually happened to Annabel grow more disturbing, she fears there is no one she can trust. But can any of them trust her? Stewart keeps us guessing until the thrilling ending.

 

1970s

The Walking Stick – Winston Graham.

Most well-known nowadays for his Poldark series, Graham also wrote amazing psychological suspense and The Walking Stick, is a twisted love story. Deborah Dainton has a withered leg as a result of childhood polio and, as the daughter of two high-powered doctors, she fears her parents see her as their failure. She is attractive, but her lack of confidence means she can only watch as the men swarm around her two beautiful sisters.

On the surface she is resigned to a life without romance and focused on her job in a renowned auction house. But in reality Deborah longs for love and begins to believe she has found it with unsuccessful artist, Leigh Hartley. He’s a bit rough around the edges for her family and even Deborah can see that he has some dubious friends, but she warms to his vulnerability and his tenderness towards her is irresistible.

Leigh lives in a bohemian warehouse apartment in London’s Docklands (a great portrait of that area before gentrification) and when they are there the fairy tale feels utterly real for Deborah. So real that she is willing to compromise all her principles to keep it alive. This is no murder mystery, but the crime scenes, when they come, are nail-biting.

 

1980s

A Dark Adapted Eye – Barbara Vine

How could I leave out Ruth Rendell’s brilliant alter ego? The title is inspired, but I have to wonder if modern algorithms would warn publishers against it!

The book begins on the morning of an execution before moving back to explore the events that led to the murder. It’s the story of an intense, and in the end unhealthy, relationship between two sisters – staid Vera and glamourous, flighty Eden. Over the years romances, marriages and children, as well as WW2, intervene to complicate their lives and their powerful bond sours. When they get into a fight for the custody of young Jamie, each claiming to be his birth mother, the stage is set for tragedy.

Years later their niece, Faith, tries to unravel the complexities of their relationship and discover the truth about Jamie’s parentage.

 

1990s

Affinity – Sarah Waters

There seems to be a theme developing here, because Sarah Waters Affinity also deals with misguided love and betrayal. Waters third novel, Fingersmith, reveals her as the mistress of the OMG twist that is nevertheless totally convincing. In her second, Affinity, the twist is more subtle, but the book is a masterpiece of suspense.

The setting is a Victorian women’s prison, where inmates are kept in almost total isolation, seeing only their warders and occasional lady visitors. Unhappy spinster, Margaret Prior, is one such visitor. She becomes fascinated by disgraced medium, Selina Dawes, who was sentenced for apparently bringing about the death of a woman attending one of her seances.

As the women grow closer, the tension tightens so much that it becomes almost impossible to breathe as you wait and hope for the ending they both long for. When it finally comes the devastating twist is gasp-inducing, but almost a relief after the nerve-jangling wait.

 

I am extremely grateful to Chris for taking time to make these fantastic selections. I am even more grateful for her patience while we experienced repeated and frustrating tech issues – these selections arrived in the third email account I use. It makes me worry I may have missed other messages and be oblivious to the fact they have been sent.

One thought did strike me about Chris’s choices – in 18 months of Decades there has not been a Ruth Rendall book yet. Still many big name authors awaiting their Decades debut. It is a good job I can promise

DECADES WILL RETURN

 

 

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September 21

The Interview – C.M. Ewan

It’s 5 p.m. on a Friday.

You have been called to an interview for your dream job.

In a stunning office thirteen floors above the city below, you are all alone with the man interviewing you.

Everyone else has gone home for the weekend.

The interview gets more and more disturbing.

You’re feeling scared.

Your only way out is to answer a seemingly impossible question.

If you can’t . . . what happens next?

 

I received a review copy through Netgalley

 

Kate has an interview. Friday evening 5pm and the opportunity to take on a new position which will allow her to move on in her life after a period of trauma and turbulence.

She meets Maggie, her recruiting agent, for a pep talk before the interview and the pair agree to meet afterwards for a debrief so they can assess how the interview went. As the hour draws near Kate is psyched, ready to impress and determined the job will be hers. If you have ever attended an interview in the past you will likely appreciate the anxiety Kate is feeling and the author conveys her apprehension well.

The book opens with a bit of background into Kate, her current job and her aspirations. Just enough detail to leave a thread of intrigue dangling. There’s something in Kate’s history which she is keen to leave behind her, a huge incident that she has had to take some time to deal with and now it appears she is ready to make changes.

Whether she will be given the job will depend on Joel. He is a dark horse, an interviewer who is hard to read and he takes a somewhat unorthodox appeoach to his questionning. Joel is about to put Kate through an interview she will never forget.

C.M. Ewan is a master at spinning an unpredictable and entertaining thrill-fest so I will not be doing much more in this review in terms of describing what unfolds when Kate’s interview begins. What I will address is the first question I had….Is this whole book about two people chatting through an interview?  No – there’s a lot more going on than a grilling over a table top. Once events start to slip away from Kate and the balance of power moves to Joel this book will reach out and grab you, there will be no escape until you know how everything gets resolved.

A story you can slip into and let events take you along for the ride. It will keep you reading long past the point you should have settled down to sleep. C.M. Ewan knows how to tell a good story and The Interview is another fine example of this.

 

The Interview is new to paperback and is available in digital and audiobook. You can order your copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09H7HMYYP/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

 

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September 5

Harm – Solveig Pálsdóttir

When wealthy doctor Ríkarður Magnússon goes to sleep in his luxurious caravan and doesn’t wake up, detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún are called to the Westman Islands to investigate what looks like murder.

Suspicion immediately falls on Ríkharður’s young, beautiful and deeply troubled girlfriend – but there are no easy answers in this case as they are drawn into family feuds, disgruntled friends and colleagues, and the presence of a group of fitness-obsessed over-achievers with secrets of their own.

As their investigation makes progress, Guðgeir and Elsa Guðrún are forced to confront their own preconceptions and prejudices as they uncover the sinister side of Ríkharður’s past.

Harm is the third novel featuring the soft-spoken Reykjavík detective Guðgeir Fransson to appear in English. Sólveig Pálsdóttir again weaves a complex web of intrigue that plays out in the Westman Islands, remote southern Iceland and Reykjavík while asking some searching questions about things society accepts at face value – and others it is not prepared to tolerate.

 

I received a review copy from the publisher

 

Harm takes us to Iceland – the third English translated novel featuring detectives Guðgeir Fransson and Elsa Guðrún and a book which can be read as a stand alone. I have not read any of Sólveig Pálsdóttir’s earlier books but did not find this to be limiting when I was reading Harm. There were a couple of incidents which srongly suggested past events were being discussed but nothing appeared to be a spoiler for those earlier titles and not understanding the references did not cause a jarring impact on my enjoyment of the latest tale.

In Harm the reader gets to view a reunion of friends in the remote Westman Islands. One of the party is older than the others, a doctor who is accompanying his younger girlfriend. But there is disharmony in their relationship, she appears frustrated with him and their friends notice some friction. Then during their meal the older man (Ríkharður) becomes very drunk and has to be taken back to their shared caravan by his partner. She tries to help him into bed to sleep off the booze but, come the morning, he does not wake up.

The young woman is shocked at the death of her partner and we see her vulnerabilites come to the fore as she realises she does not know what to do. She gave him some tablets to help him sleep so she would not be bothered by him – now she will be accused of his murder. In panic she packs some essentials and flees – stopping to discard her mobile phone.

In due course the couple’s absence is noticed by their friends and Ríkharður’s body is discovered. Fransson and Guðrún need to find the missing woman and bring in a killer. However, something isn’t sitting right with them. The friends of the couple don’t seem to be reacting in a way the police would have expected. Furthermore, when questioned their answers are not particularly clear or helpful.

This is a relatively short read but it’s tightly constructed and charts a very methodical investigation. The story doesn’t rely on shocks and twists, chases and thrills – Harm has shades of a PD James novel insofar as it relies upon excellent story telling to keep you reading.  The reader uncovers truth when the police do. The reasons behind some behaviours are eventually revealed and you understand why certain events happened in the way they did.

This is clever entertainment – a story driven crime tale without gimick or fantastic coincidences, just a rewarding book with strong characters that I am sure crime fiction fans will love

 

 

Harm is published by Corylus Books and can be purchased in paperback or digital format. You can order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B6CB738Q/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

 

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September 2

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with George Paterson

The Decades Library continues to grow and it is scaling up beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I started this project back in January 2021 when it was dark outside and the rain was lashing against my windows. Now here we are in September 2022 and, despite being in Scotland, the sun is shining and this is the 20th consecutive month where a guest curator is adding new books to my Library.

What is the Decades Library? It is the collection of the very best books as recommended by authors, bloggers, publishers and journalists – booklovers all. I want my Decades Library to represent the stories my guests loved – childhood favourites, memorable reads or just the stories which blew them away.

My guests are all given the same two rules: Nominate five books to my Decades Library. But they can only pick one book per decade over five consecutive decades – a fifty year publication span. Easy?  Have a go and see if you can pick your own favourites.

As September is Bloody Scotland month it is my absolute pleasure to welcome George Paterson – author of The Girl, The Crow, The Writer and the Fighter – shortlisted for the 2022 Bloody Scotland Debut Prize.

George is a writer, DJ and musician who, as a member of the bands White and DMP, released a number of well received albums on the Poco Alto Label. His work can be found in a number of independent feature length and short films as well as providing the musical backdrop to the London stage production of the play, ‘ISM’.

Since returning to Scotland in 2017, his focus has been split between the spoken word – his popular weekly ‘Lost in Music’ radio show – and the written, with articles appearing in a number of online publications before finding a home as a regular features writer and reviewer for INTO Creative.

In addition, he has written two screenplays and one feature length ‘coming of age’ story, serialised on INTO, called ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’.

 

 

DECADES

1930’s – The Conjure-Man Dies  by Rudolph Fisher

Coming two years after Dashiel Hammett’s no-nonsense game-changer ‘The Maltese Falcon’, Ivy League educated doctor and musician Rudolph Fisher delivered his own murder mystery, the thoroughly entertaining The Conjure-Man Dies. Written and set during Harlem’s 1930’s renaissance, it starts as many great tales do, with a mysterious death in the dark of night, in this instance, Frimbo, the titular ‘Conjure-Man’.

When 7th Avenue physician John Archer is called to the scene of the crime by a pair of local rascals named Jinx and Bubber, Perry Dart of the Harlem PD arrives to investigate the who do – and the voodoo – of this particular unusual case.

I came to this book relatively late – and too late for it to be influential in my own period piece – but I often ponder how ‘The Girl, The Crow, The Writer and The Fighter’ might have worked had I found Fisher’s expertly written piece before I did Hammett’s. Nevertheless, for New Yorkophiles (is that a word?) such as I, The Conjure-Man Dies puts flesh on the bones of a complex but fascinating era and a genre that until Chester Himes in the late 50’s was almost extinct.

Sadly, Rudolph Fisher died shortly after publication which meant that we never got a chance to find out whether Dr Archer and Perry Dart had the ‘legs’ that Nick and Nora and Sam Spade had.

1940’s – The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

Back in the early 80’s, I was a smart but aimless student at a crumbling state school on Glasgow’s southside. The interest in fiction that I had from primary had not followed me to secondary school. And when it came to my English teachers, they tended to fall into one of two categories; youngish educators who wanted to be your pal or bitter careerists who loved nothing more than to belt out their frustrations onto your hands. By the time I’d reached fifth year, I was pretty much killing time until I was forced out into the workplace. That’s when I met Mr O’Hagan. He didn’t want to be my pal nor did he want to thrash the shite out of me. Curt and precise, he was all business. To his eternal credit, he saw something in me that his predecessors didn’t and that came about after he handed the class battered copies of Evelyn Waugh’s 1948 novel, The Loved One. Oh no, we all thought. I knew he’d written Brideshead Revisited, the recently aired (and very foppish) TV adaptation was so detached from my damp tenement reality that the august realm of the Ryder’s Brideshead estate might as well have been on the fucking moon. However, The Loved One was a short book – 125 pages in the Penguin edition – so it wouldn’t take us long to rattle through it and move onto something less boring. However, by the time Baby Aaronson had been sliced into shape and turned into Juanita del Pablo on page ten, I was already sold. When Mr O’Hagan started asking us what we’d thought of the book, he received the usual shrugs and mumbled ‘Ah dunno’s from most of my fellow pupils. But I got it. And he got that I got it, which must have been a rare mark in the win column for him.

I found The Loved One immoral and unashamedly godless but more importantly for teenaged me, it was incredibly funny. Waugh’s matter-of-fact characterisations coupled with his savage twin takedown of Golden era Hollywood and the industries of death and perennial beauty lit a fire (or a pyre) in me that will never be extinguished. I strolled through my English exam that year and it was all down to Mr O’Hagan and Evelyn Waugh.

1950’s  – To The End of the World by Blaise Cendrars

A friend to Modigliani, Chagall and Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars was one of the most effervescent, vital artists of the 20th century. Part poet and part warrior – he lost an arm in battle during the Great War  – Cendrars squeezed the juices from life and it’s reflected in his work. A hugely influential and encouraging figure, not just in the pre war literary scene in Paris, but in the nascent careers of writers such as Henry Miller, who venerated the Swiss/Scot as his ‘greatest idol’, Cendrars wrote the riotous ‘To The End of the World’ in 1956.  He may have been coming to the end of his own journey but as a writer, he remained full of muscle and cheek, daring his contemporaries to have a go. During the writing of my debut novel – which you can find here…shameless plug…intocreative.co.uk/shop – this book, along with Miller’s own ‘Quiet Days in Clichy’, remains as vivid and descriptive a portrayal of the Parisienne underbelly as anything I’ve ever read. As invaluable as a ream of red-marked treasure maps.

An elderly actress, a young legionnaire on the run, murder, sex, laughs. Madmen on every floor. Even in his latter years – and he would only complete two more works after this – Cendrars has a lust for …well, lust that would shame writers a quarter his age.

I can think of precious few modern writers who would dare pick up the cudgels and follow Cendrars and the literary world is poorer for it.

1960’s – Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Stephen King said that Ira Levin was ‘The Swiss Watchmaker of the suspense novel; he makes what the rest of us do look like those five-dollar watches you can buy in a discount drug store.’

A million selling book in 1967 which became an Oscar winning film the following year, Rosemary’s Baby, is in my opinion, a masterclass in pacing, plot, dialogue and black, black humour. Set in an exclusive New York apartment block, young, aspirational couple Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse find that the whispers of malevolent behavior at their new residence are based in a terrible reality. As Guy’s acting career begins to take off, Rosemary descends into a satanic fever dream with heinous consequences.

Levin’s economy of language and his ability to conjure up a sense of the deepest dread from the seemingly mundane has stayed with me since I first read the book, four decades ago. And his fingerprints (or should that be claw marks?) are all over my current work-in-progress; a gothic thriller set in our own Upper West Side, Glasgow’s West End. Aiming for Levin is what I intend to do with ‘Westerwick’. It’s a very tall order but at worst, it’ll have its father’s eyes.

1970’s – The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark

Unflinching, uncompromising and unlike anything I’ve ever read.

Muriel Spark is one of my go-to writers. If you’re after the florid, you won’t find it here. As with her note perfect, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ there is no other writer who can simultaneously cleave fat from the flesh like a butcher yet trace a narrative as precisely as a neurosurgeon. Not only is it her most stark, brutal story, Spark herself considered it one of her own favourite works.

Set in the late 1960’s, an era of female emancipation, it tells of Lise, an office worker from Northern Europe who decides, without wishing to spoil the story, that she will be the captain of her own fate. I don’t wish to say anymore about this disconcerting book other than, just go read it. Today.

It might not be to everyone’s tastes but for me ‘The Driver’s Seat’ remains a work of immense artistic bravery.

And that’s it! Quite tough calls to be made but I guess that as a writer, I’ve gone for books that continually push their way into my work space rather than those which I might return to purely for entertainment.  I’ll continue to use all of those influences and distill the essence of their work and with any luck, I’ll concoct my own heady brew.

If I’m invited back onto Decades further down the line, I’ll change course around 1980 and head for home!

 

 

Spectacular mix of books, thanks to George for these fascinating selections. This is the second week in a row where there have been five entirely new novels nominated – it swells the total books offered to Library visitors and I hope it swells your TBR piles too.

 

DECADES WILL RETURN

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