Thanks south. Moving across my list, highlights in bold:
- I Love Dick by Chris Kraus
- The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy
3.Game of Thrones 1 by George R R Martin
- The Nix by Nathan Hill
5. This Thing of Darkness by Harry Thompson
6. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
7. Mariana by Monica Dickens
- Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
9. A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
10. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
11. You Play The Girl by Carina Chocano
12. Heartstone by CJ Sansom
13. Life Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman
14. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
15. The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens
I have just finished:
16. The Wild Other by Clover Stroud
This is a memoir about a life lived with horses, in the back yard, on the road, off road, trotting along safely under the supervision of a beloved, horse-loving mother, and, later, galloping as close to the wind as possible after that mother has a life changing riding accident that suffuses her life with tragedy. This accident, which leaves her mother alive, but severely brain damaged and requiring full time nursing for the next 20 years, marks the point at which Stroud’s life turns from contented country childhood to chaotic adulthood, as she lives often recklessly trying to simultaneously forget her pain and remember her mother, who is lost to her, but for whom she cannot grieve. It is very difficult to judge a memoir such as this; it is painfully honest and raw and affecting, having a sense of the necessity of getting it all down. It is a love letter to horses and her complex relationship with them -they bring peace to her life, even as they have been the means of destroying that peace. Most of all it is a love letter to her mother, and as such cannot be faulted. I did however find the writing style rather perfunctory, and while it was interesting to read about her time trading horses in Ireland, and working on a ranch in Texas, I wasn’t as interested in reading so much about the drugs and sexual encounters that continually punctuate the story, though I understand her being compelled to include them. Though there is a sense of carelessness and danger to her life, she has a large supportive network of family and friends with money and connections, a degree from Oxford, a mortgage free house, so when she talks of her bank card being refused or living from day to day with travellers, one is aware that this is a choice she is making, and there is very much a safety net that is ready to catch her, when she is ready to stop falling. Stroud views her childhood before the accident as idyllic, but there were drugs, and sex with the (adult) lodger that her mother placed in her bedroom at 15, that suggests at the very least that her life was always leading her to search for a connection to the wild other, even before tragedy struck. Stroud is however unblinking in facing the truth of her life and experiences, and writes movingly about family, the search for home, the need for adventure, and the bravery required to live and to love and overall I enjoyed reading it.