This week’s editions range from literary romances and intense whodunits to the life of Errol Flynn and a serious memoir of hospitality.
RUMORS OF THE WEEK
Choose Color
Souvankham Thammavongsa
Bloomsbury, $27.99
“Everyone is bad.” As the opening lines of the novel go, it is almost warlike in its desire to be remembered. Our narrator Ning – a former boxer, who is now the owner-operator of a nail bar somewhere in Canada – knows how to fight; he also knows the value of being seen as forgettable in his current job. Her small business is called Susan. All employees wear a name tag with “Susan” on it. Customers seem to love the illusion of constant access and the possibility, of always having Susan to see to their beauty needs. Choose Color she’s scheduled for a day at the salon, with the wide-eyed Ning constantly fighting against evil that she makes no bones about high-fidelity revelations. The quotidian rhythms and traditions of the place, and what is bought and sold in them, are observed. Loatian-Canadian author Souvankham Thammavongsa has crafted a fast-paced and clever novel that questions the nature of beauty and exploitation; His creation, Ning, grabs attention for a small corner of the low-cost service sector with memorable gumption and a worldly eye.
Power Steps
Leesa Ronald
Allen & Unwin, $34.99
This rivals-turned-lovers romcom features arch-enemies – a traveling doctor and a political journalist – going head-to-head during an election campaign. Workaholic Camilla “Millsy” Hatton is a media adviser to the government’s education minister. He knows Archie Cohen from college – he was a great comedian then, now he’s a famous political reporter with a gift for sniffing out damaging headlines. Battle lines are drawn when the election is called, but as Millsy and Archie grow closer in the ongoing scandal drama, there’s an undeniable chemistry beneath the professional struggle between them. Family ties are woven. The high drama is shown in the mainstream media, and the emotional, personal one unfolds behind the scenes as professional conflict spills over into romantic conflict. Power Steps is a power-packed romcom with a strong and attractive female lead. Millsy’s self-deprecation is fun and free-flowing; his foam machine never goes dry and there’s a sharper edge to his humor where he’s not afraid to point out gender bias in professional life.
If I Ruled the World
Amy DuBois Barnett
Simon & Schuster, $34.99
Amy DuBois Barnett – a prominent editor in the NYC magazine scene in the 1990s – shines a light on her plight in her debut. If I Ruled the World. We follow Nikki, a black woman on the rise in the world of fashion and music superstars. He finds a mentor in Lucinda, who promotes him to a Vogue-fashion magazine, while absorbing him with a foreign touch and causing him to experience minor aggression and humiliation. Moving to hip-hop and style mag Sugar technically she’s down the career ladder, but when Nikki offers the position of editor-in-chief, with six months to turn her fortune around, she’s determined to turn glass rock into a pop culture phenomenon—promoting the beauty and power of black women. Organized against him is his former mentor, and a powerful enemy in the fierce publishing house Alonzo Griffin (whom he wants to destroy. Sugar regardless). Then, of course, Nikki must learn to deal with hip-hop gangsters known for their depravity and corruption. Everyone wants a piece of the action in this wild dive behind the scenes of a period in history that would change pop culture, music and fashion.
Laws of Love and Logic
Debra Curtis
Bloomsbury, $22.99
A teenage tragedy ends what feels like a romantic destiny within him Laws of Love and Logic. Lily and Jane are sisters, raised by a feminist mother in a patriarchal environment – a Catholic boys’ boarding school run by nuns. Young Lily’s imagination is drawn to the stories of Catholic saints as she searches for a boy – an unnamed high school sweetheart, smart and athletic, with a bright future ahead of her. Jane is a math whiz who is obsessed with the nature of time. A drunken evening leads to tragedy, the boy ends up in prison. Lily moves on, marrying a professor of ornithology, although she never forgets her first love or completely sheds guilt over her role in what happened that night. The disturbingly talented Jane, meanwhile, goes to Yale, and the story slowly splits its broken threads, and the roads are not taken to cross decades. It may be a touch heavy thematically, but Debra Curtis’ love story has an intellectual and historical sweep that makes it a literary romance for readers of a more mature novel than is typical of genre fiction.
Final Encore
Rebecca Heath
Head of Zeus, $20.69
A reunion festival will be held on a remote island. The Cedrics broke up after the death of lead singer Jonny Rake, in an accidental explosion, 18 years earlier. Now his daughter Monet is taking his place, while the band members – including a divorced uncle – are coming together to play a special concert, which will be filmed for a documentary. Monet does not believe that his father’s death was an accident, and there is resentment and resentment between the band members, their reckless manager, the resort owner who is determined to give all the stops to celebrity guests, the doco maker, and the band’s family members, including the talented Monet. The alliance goes south and many of these indistinguishable characters grow closer, but when one dies, they find they are trapped on an island with a killer and there is no way out. Rebecca Heath has created a classic murder mystery in a locked room using a rock’n’roll veneer. The webs tend to be a little cheesy, and the show is rushed towards the end, although the twists are clever and should keep whodunit fans on their toes.
NON-Fiction PICK OF THE WEEK
Errol Flynn
Patricia A. O’Brien
Allen & Unwin, $36.99
In 1957, two years before his death, Errol Flynn was doing publicity for one of his “comeback” movies (an imitation of Hemingway’s. The Sun Also Risesin which he unabashedly plays a Scotsman). He asked the reporter if he would ever go to Tasmania and added that he wanted to return to his “real hometown of Hobart”. In this insightful, insightful and entertaining study of Flynn, O’Brien explores his Tasmanian childhood, parents, English school, time in New Guinea, Hollywood, legendary fame and early death. But while providing an “up-close” picture, the book also works on an analytical level, seeing Flynn as a model site in terms of American culture, where old scandals with modern resonances are being enacted. This is especially true of Flynn’s sex life and many other things – eventually landing him in court for Statutory Rape, although he was later acquitted. It also looks at Flynn’s politics, from being a staunch Republican during the Spanish Civil War to being accused of being a Nazi spy. By any measure, this is a portrait of a life lived on such a grand scale that it fully vindicates the expression that his life spawned: “like Flynn”.
Rasputin
Antony Beevor
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $55
Rasputin is one of those colorful gods for historians, but his
importance is often overstated. The acclaimed British historian, in this
the latest biography, says that the poor monk is “an interesting person”
differences on the theory of a famous historical figure and claim that “It is rare
the cause-and-effect sequence of history is strongly influenced by a
one person.” He also argues that Rasputin is an exemplary example of that
Man’s Land between “reality and fantasy” and wild forces
innuendos and rumors similar to our own times. Interesting, yes. But
Russian people did not rise up because of fake news that crazy
the monk was shaking the Tsarina or because he had the Tsar’s ear.
Still, this is a valid revision of the revolutionary analysis which
emphasize economic and social at the expense of the individual
influence. For all its tendency to exaggerate, it is carefully
memory, erudite and entertaining history (seen through the lens of
a wild card figure, an indication of royal decline), leading to that
a time of turmoil in 1917 when history fell twice.
Toxic People
Ten Leanne Brinke
Simon & Schuster, $36.99
When psychologist Leanne ten Brinke talks about “toxic people”, she means those with psychotic traits. Most of the time, he says, when we think of psychopaths we think of extreme cases like Charles Manson. Its emphasis, based on extensive research over the years, is on those who often slip under the radar, such as workplace bosses, romantic partners or friends. It also includes political leaders who, in these troubled times, follow the popular notions of a “strong” leader. President Trump, for example, according to a number of recent studies – and this may or may not be news – ticks all the psychopathic boxes. But instead of depressing us, he wants to empower the reader by letting them know how to identify “black” personalities, deny them powerful positions of association, leave or make relationships and even recognize such qualities in them. For all its concentration on “dark” types, they are few and far between, and this is a good guide to spotting and dealing with them.
Boredom
Lucy Ridge
Monash University Press, $36.99
It wasn’t just sexual harassment that drove former chef Lucy Ridge out of the hospitality game. From a young age, he loved the idea of becoming a chef and creating food from natural produce. But hospitality, he discovered, was an industry, and in a decision that was life-changing, he left the kitchen (his decision about his sexuality, at the same time, showing this move), and defied not only the hospitality business but the food industry that distributes it by entering the world of small producers through a series of short-term training. Written from a women’s perspective and incorporating indigenous food and farming techniques, Ridge charts the journey that took her around Australia: from learning how to distill gin in Darwin, to making cheese in Orange, to working on a pig farm in Victoria and much more. As the title of the composition indicates, humor lends weight to this memoir-cum-study of the serious issue of what he calls “system change”.
Ellen Savage and the AHS Centaur Heroes
Grantlee Kieza
ABC Books, $35.99
In the early hours of May 14, 1943, the Australian Hospital Ship Centaur sunk by a Japanese submarine, 50 km from Stradbroke Island, killing 268 people. Kieza’s dramatization focuses on the few survivors (the ship, clearly marked, sank within three minutes), especially the nurse Ellen “Nell” Savage, who, in shark-infested waters, waited 36 hours before being rescued by an American ship. It is a story of great courage, faith and grace in the face of death. But in many ways, the book is more interesting as an investigation of war crimes. The commander of a Japanese submarine that sank Centaur he always denied doing so under extensive questioning after the war, eventually serving six years of insufficient hard labor for another atrocity, and died in 1986 in complete denial. There’s a lot of backstory to Savage’s early life and the acting can be a little sluggish, but this is a timely reminder that war and war crimes are never far away.
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