Book Box: Booker Prize contenders
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SINGAPORE – In this week’s Book Box, The Straits Times reviews four of the six Booker Prize-shortlisted novels. Buy the books at Amazon
Book review: Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting a rich but melodramatic account of a disintegrating family
Irish novelist Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is packed with rich nature imagery.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF PAUL MURRAY, TIMES DISTRIBUTION
The precarity of a family is given a relentless dissection here by Irish novelist Paul Murray, as he finds various ways to make four members of the Barnes family squirm, creating an operatic tragedy in which there are moments of suspense, although there is also too much melodrama.
In a small Irish town, Cass, preparing for university, enjoys the carefree life of being rich.
Her greatest – and increasingly only – obsession is her friendship with narcissistic classmate Elaine, until the financial crash scuppers her father’s motor business and her mother, a local beauty, is forced to sell her clothes online.
Cass’ 12-year-old brother, PJ, is disturbed by the deteriorating relationship between father Dickie and mother Imelda, and attempts to fix things well beyond his capacity to understand.
Book review: Sarah Bernstein’s Study For Obedience technically polished, but fails to engage
Canada-born, Scotland-based Sarah Bernstein’s sophomore book Study For Obedience has been shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize.
PHOTOS: PANSING, ROBIN IRVINE
Do not let the compact size of this book fool you. Short as it is, it is a technically challenging read that demands its reader’s full and careful attention.
Whether you find it a rewarding read, however, depends on your tolerance for experimentation and a narrative that strives for nuance and ambiguity so strenuously that it collapses into amorphous abstraction.
An unnamed woman arrives at a rural residence, vaguely situated to the north of somewhere, to live with her brother whose marriage has fallen apart.
She is ostensibly keeping house for him, but the tasks and responsibilities she undertakes seem closer to slavery than mere housekeeping.
Book review: Western Lane, a novel supposedly about grief, focuses too much on the sport of squash
Western Lane, the debut novel of Chetna Maroo, follows talented young squash player Gopi after her mother’s death.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GRAEME JACKSON, COURTESY OF PICADOR BOOKS
For a novel about dealing with grief, Western Lane fails to connect readers with the characters’ sense of loss, preferring vague allusions that are lost behind the overwhelming focus on the sport of squash.
Squash is everything to 11-year-old Gopi. Days after her mother’s death, she finds solace in the court and rhythm of training at Western Lane, drastically changing her priorities in life and alienating her from her sisters.
Based in London, debut author Chetna Maroo broke into the publishing scene with force as her 176-page novel was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. In 2022, she received the Plimpton Prize for Fiction.
Book review: Booker-shortlisted Prophet Song a nightmarish wail against totalitarianism
Irish novelist Paul Lynch is the author of Prophet Song, which has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023.
PHOTO: JOEL SAGET, ONEWORLD PUBLICATIONS
As in Prague-born novelist Franz Kafka’s The Trial (1925), someone must have falsely accused Larry Stark – a senior trade unionist at the Teachers’ Union of Ireland – for he was arrested one dark night.
But unlike Kafka’s focus on the bureaucratic labyrinth his protagonist navigates, Irish author Paul Lynch turns his attention to Larry’s family, who gets left behind after his arbitrary arrest with no recourse to the law.
Larry’s wife, microbiologist Eilish, is the mother of four children and the caretaker for her elderly father.
When Larry disappears, her rage against the totalitarian system soon melts into despair as she is forced to confront the state’s endless intrusions into her family life.
The Straits Times’ Weekly Bestsellers Sept 30
This week’s bestseller list sees Beyond The Story returning to the ranks.
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