Switzy Review

“… the day would come and he’d find that the contents of his brain had been excised with an ice cream scoop instead of these dainty little teaspoons, here and there.”

Emma Cline’s novel is about David Hastings, a long divorced, retired American executive who suffers from dementia and has opted to seek assistance in dying at a Swiss clinic before he becomes too impaired to make an informed decision to end his life. On his corporate flight to Zurich, provided by his former boss, he stops in London  to visit his daughter Rebecca, and her young son with whom he has only a distant relationship. They have a cordial visit and he does not disclose his intention to them. He is accompanied by Cody, his assistant/caregiver, who appears to anticipate his every need. It gradually becomes obvious that David has another visit he wants to make before signing off. Tom was David 's former boarding school roommate. They developed an intimate relationship and David was also drawn into Tom’s family circle. We are made privy gradually to an incident that put an end to Tom and David’s friendship and is driving David’s need to make amends. 

Switzy was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026 but was eliminated from the shortlist.

Transcription - Kate Atkinson

Transcription is a 1981 British spy novel by Kate Atkinson that tells the story of Juliet Armstrong. It opens in 1981. Eighty year old Juliet has been struck by a car. Grievously injured, she begins reflecting on the complex life she has lived. In 1949, at the age of 18, Juliet was recruited by MI5 to transcribe secret recordings of meetings between British fascist sympathizers and an undercover agent. She is drawn deeper into espionage and is asked to infiltrate another British nazi group. She becomes part of a sting operation that leads the arrest of its members.

Ten years later in 1950 Juliet has left her work as an agent behind and works as a producer of children’s radio shows at the BBC where she finds herself confronted with figures from her past and realizes that she herself is being spied on by MI5.

There is a zigzagging chronology from 1981 to 1950 to 1940 and back again. There are so many characters who mask who they are and plotlines that veer off in unexpected directions that I had to keep doubling back to keep them all straight.

I was interested in the author’s note at the end where she talks about the source materials from which she drew her inspiration for the novel. I may return to some of the novels I read years ago about the Cambridge spies.

 

Yesteryear

Caro Claire Burke’s new novel has received a lot of buzz. The  reviews describe it as a story about a successful tradwife influencer with millions of followers who suddenly finds herself thrown into living the 1880s life she has been promoting so vigorously online. Natalie lives on a farm with her perfect husband and children and creates an online rural bliss lifestyle that is the envy of many (although there are a few detractors who see her as a handmaiden to a conservative right agenda). Her successful cottagecore brand resonates with women who are feeling the pressure of modern life. It has also made her family wealthy. But when the curtain behind the online idyll is lifted we learn that tradwifedom is not as effortless nor as perfect as Natalie makes it seem. 

Then, without explanation, Natalie wakes up one morning living on an actual 1880s frontier farm and having a passel of kids, a brutish husband and suddenly cooking every meal from scratch loses its allure.

It was a good summer read but if you’re looking for depth you won’t find it here. It strains belief and the characters are all as unreal as Natalie’s perfect online life. 

London Falling : A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family’s Search for Truth by David Radden Keefe

When I read that David Radden Keefe had written a new book I immediately bought it. I had no idea what it was about but I had read Say Nothing, his book about The Troubles in Northern  Ireland, in 2020 and it was my favourite book that year.  London Falling tells the story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old boy who leapt to his death from the balcony of a luxury highrise apartment on the Thames in 2019. The apartment was occupied by gangland debt collector, drug trafficker and serious grifter, Verinder Sharma. After his death, it was revealed that Zac had been living a double life. He had been born into a loving, affluent British family and attended private schools where he met the children of foreign business tycoons. Somehow he became entangled with a group of dangerous criminals and managed to convince them that he was Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch, and someday heir to a gigantic fortune. Verinder Sharma and his criminal colleagues wanted a piece of that fortune. When he realized that Zac did not have the money he said he did, Sharma began to threaten Zac.  It sounds too preposterous to be real but this book has been meticulously researched and it is all true. 

Keefe draws on transcripts of police interrogations, emails, letters, and security camera recordings. He also describes in great detail how post Soviet oligarchs parked approximately £100 billion in London’s luxury property and financial markets transforming the city into a hub for offshore wealth. At one point I put the book down because I found the financial wheelings and dealings hard to follow. 

Zac’s grieving parents were devastated to learn about the double life that their son had kept hidden for years. They were apparently unaware that he had a heroin addiction and had been negotiating high-profile business deals. How could they have missed the signs? They attempted to determine what led him to this secret life and his tragic death and whether Zac jumped because he wanted to die or because he wanted to live. But by 2022 the investigation stalled, due in part to startlingly sloppy police work. The investigation concluded with the Crown Prosecution Service deciding there was insufficient evidence to bring charges for murder and perverting the course of justice.

It was a fascinating read and I learned a lot about London's underworld, the corruption that drives the city’s wealth and the actual ineptitude of the once esteemed Scotland Yard. 

The Lost Girls of Rome by Donato Carrisi

This novel is set in Rome and translated by Howard Curtis. Sandra Vega, a forensic photographer with the Roman police department, receives news that her journalist husband has died accidentally but there is something about the circumstances surrounding his death that does not ring true to her. She decides to delve deeper in order to solve what she believes to be his murder and her investigation takes her down a very dark path. She learns about the penitenzieri, a group of priest-profilers which has historically compiled archives of the most heinous sins, particularly in the late Middle Ages (1410–1503). The story takes labyrinthine turns and has many subplots including an ongoing missing persons investigation. Sandra crosses paths with a mysterious duo, Clemente and Marcus, who are also involved in the case of the girl who has disappeared. Their incredible skill at uncovering clues makes us wonder who they are. It’s a complex plot with many characters and I found it necessary to reread various sections in order to follow the storyline but it was worth hanging in. There is apparently a sequel featuring the same characters, titled The Hunter of the Dark, that I would be interested in reading. 

Worry - Alexandra Tanner

I have been sidelined by my annual bout of January pneumonia and needed something lighthearted to read while I was laying about. The New York Times described “Worry” as “a fabulous comic novel of young adult angst that puts a humorous spin on the fixations, disappointments, aversions and maladjustments of adulthood.” It sounded undemanding so I dove in.

Jules and Poppy are adult sisters who don’t like each other very much. Jules has a boring job and an apartment in New York City. Poppy arrives on her doorstep and moves in with her temporarily though both have strong misgivings about the arrangement. Poppy has terrible skin allergies and an attempted suicide in her past. They have a deeply dysfunctional relationship with each other and with their mother who has become a doomsday prepper and is involved in some sort of shady pyramid scheme. 

Jules spends most of her time scrolling through the social media accounts of very odd right-wing, anti-vax, Jesus worshipping mothers. Poppy scratches her hives. They fight a lot, they are, without exception, shallow and unlikeable. 

I waited for something to happen but nada. There was a lot of snappy patter that kept me working my way through to the totally unexpected and disturbing ending. 

The Dinner Party - Viola van de Sandt

I accidentally read this book, having confused it with The Dinner by Herman Koch who is also a Dutch author. It was only after finishing The Dinner Party that I noticed it was published just a few months ago and the other was a book I’d been meaning to read for years. Oh well. 

The Dinner Party opens with this paragraph: 

 “Stella says I should write a letter. It can be addressed to her, or to no one in particular, or perhaps to a friend. Someone I trust. Do I have anyone like that?”

We learn that Stella is Franca’s therapist who has Franca write down her thoughts in the form of a letter to aid in recovering her memories of a traumatic dinner party a year ago and something to do with a knife. There are many flashbacks and flash forwards that can be confusing.

Franca is a troubled young woman whose fiancé, the seemingly perfect Andrew, has informed her that he is hosting a dinner party at their home for some of his colleagues. She is expected to prepare a special meal for them and he suggests rabbit. She is less than enthusiastic but sets about shopping for food and drinks for the guests. There are many visceral descriptions of rabbit carcasses and violent acts committed on the kitten Andrew has brought home that leave us questioning what is real.

The guests are mostly obnoxious men. Unexpectedly Franca’s platonic friend, Harry, who she has not seen in a very long time is brought as a plus one by one of the other guests. Before, during and after dinner copious amounts of alcohol are consumed and the party goes from bad to worse. 

This is a novel about suppressed female rage with a surprise twist at the end. It held my interest despite some nauseatingly disturbing descriptions and a cast of mostly despicable characters.

What We Can Know - Ian McEwen

What We Can Know begins in 2119. Thomas Metcalfe is an academic who has travelled to the Bodleian Snowdonian Library to study the journals of Vivien Blundy, wife of the famous poet Francis Blundy. Metcalfe’s interest is in ‘The Second Immortal Dinner’ of 2014 at which Francis presented his famous love poem, A Corona for Vivien to his wife and a group of their friends. The only copy of the poem has disappeared. Metcalfe and his colleague, Rose, are hoping to find it.

We learn that the oceans have risen and England in the 22nd century has become an archipelago. The way people live has changed for the worse with floods, resource wars and roving gangs. Protein bars and acorn tea seem to be the main source of sustenance. All the data in the world is stored in Nigeria. It’s a dystopia.

The story shifts back to the dinner itself at the idyllic countryside retreat Francis has built for himself and Vivien. A few close friends are gathered to hear Francis read the poem. It will not be published as that would reduce the intimacy and weight of the work which has been handwritten on vellum.

We also get to read Vivien’s journal which puts a new spin on the story.

The book is about history and what we leave behind, climate change, love and grief  and human frailties. I was engaged from the start (McEwen is a master of the good opening) and when I was finished I went back to reread sections. It was the best novel I have read in years.

Watch Out For Her - Samantha M. Bailey

This psychological thriller tells the story of Sarah Goldman, her husband Daniel and their young son who are starting over in a different city across Canada. In her previous home Sarah, a stay at home mum, thought she’d found the ideal caregiver for her son, Jacob. Holly, a med student, wanted to spend time away from her parents and Sarah needed some time to pursue her photography career. Jacob, Sarah and Holly seem to be a good fit and things are going swimmingly but there are early signs that things might go awry. The story is told from several viewpoints and flashes back from the present day in Toronto where the family has moved to escape an undisclosed but unpleasant situation with Holly to the recent past in Vancouver. When Sarah finds hidden cameras in her new home she realizes that she has not left the past behind. Who is watching now? The story, after a bit of a slow start, takes a lot of twists and turns. It wasn’t gripping but the plot held my interest and kept me guessing. This novel doesn’t put demands on the reader and would be a  perfect airplane or beach read. 

Audition

“…the success of the film happened to coincide with a change in the culture, in the writing, a change in the way of seeing. For the first time, I was allowed to be human. I could even be at the center of a story. And later still, there were parts that consumed me, so that I could say the life that was performed, on a set or in a theater, could at times feel more real to me than my actual life.”

This novel by Katie Kitamura has been shortlisted for this year’s Booker Prize. It refers to the profession of acting but is more about the personal roles people play. The narrator is an actress in mid-career who is rehearsing for a role in an upcoming play. She meets a handsome young man named Xavier at an upscale restaurant for lunch and we wonder what their relationship is. Is it a romantic liaison? He unsettlingly claims to be her son.

The story diverges and the reader is thrown off balance, wondering what is real and what is not. The actress doesn’t have a son or does she? She resets the story but with some important changes. It is a brilliantly constructed novel but I’m not sure that this device worked for me. In fact I found it frustrating.

The book raises questions about what motherhood actually is. The familial relationships it describes are realistically fraught but it keeps the reader at an emotional distance. It made me think but I wouldn’t read it again.

Service

Celebrity chef Daniel Costello worked his way up from working in restaurants as a boy to owning T, a two-Michelin-starred establishment in Dublin. His life with his wife Julie and their two sons looks picture perfect until he is charged with sexual assault. The story is told by three narrators: Hannah, who was a server at T while she was a student and was thrilled to have a job at such a prestigious establishment, Julie, Daniel’s wife, and Daniel himself. When Hannah hears about Daniel’s trial it takes her back to the summer when, as a student, she was drawn into the turbulence of a high end kitchen. She was good at her job and was considered a protege. She recalls the tremendous pressures of the job and also the camaraderie of the staff once the shift was done and every night ended with a party. Daniel’s wife, Julie, stands reluctantly at his side through the trial but resents the negative attention it has brought to her family. Many of their friends have become distant since the charges were laid and bookings at the restaurant have fallen off.  Her sons are showing signs of stress. Their life has become a shambles. Daniel hires a top female lawyer and makes the difficult decision to close the restaurant until the trial is over. He is angered that an allegation from years ago is threatening everything he has worked very hard to achieve. Whose truth do we believe? Service was written  in 2023 when the Me Too movement which had drawn attention to workplace sexual abuse and the self-entitlement of men in positions of power was at its peak. It lays bare Ireland’s still patriarchal society and a legal system that is skewed against victims. It left me wanting to read Gilmartin’s previous book, Dinner Party: A Tragedy, which tells the story of a dysfunctional family.

Prophet Song

Prophet Song is a dystopian fiction by Paul Lynch that won the Man Booker Prize in 2023. In the near future, a far-right party seizes control of the Republic of Ireland, putting into place emergency powers that suspend the Irish constitution, giving the Garda Síochána far-reaching powers and establishing a new secret police force. Through the story of one family Lynch shows how easily a country can slip into totalitarianism. It was written several years ago but describes what is happening in the US today with the persecution inflicted on refugees. It also brings to mind the disappeared during Argentina’s “Dirty War” of 1976 to 1983. It is a riveting and disquieting read in times like these.

The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

I came into this memoir knowing quite a lot about the Dunne family. I’d read the writing of Joan, John and Dominick and I had heard stories about Griffin being a wild boy back in the day. I’d also seen the documentary he made about his aunt Joan (which I liked very much) and I remember hearing about the murder of his younger sister by her boyfriend and reading his father’s account of the trial in Vanity Fair. This story is divided into the time before and after this horrific event. 

Griffin tells the unvarnished story of his privileged but deeply troubled Hollywood family in a matter of fact way and drops a lot of tidbits about the stars who inhabited their world. You might like it if you already have some background knowledge of the Dunnes and are interested in learning a little more about what lies beneath the surface of their seemingly picture perfect life. 

‘A Pale View of Hills’ - Kazuo Ishiguro

There has been a film made of this novel and I decided to check out Ishiguro’s first novel before seeing the film. Etsuko is a Japanese woman living in England. One of her daughters has committed suicide.

The story moves back to 1952 when Etsuko lived in Nagasaki, a city still recovering from the horrific bombing that ended World War 2. That summer Etsuko was expecting her first child with her husband Jiro and she forms a friendship with Sachiko, a woman with a young daughter. Sachiko was living in poverty in a rundown house nearby although she says she comes from a wealthy family. She is neglectful of her daughter who appears to have some emotional issues. Etsuko offers to help but Sachiko insists she has everything under control. It’s a good story about motherhood and guilt with a surprise ending that I read twice because I was not sure I understood what had happened.

Three Days In June -Anne Tyler

I am always eager to read a new Anne Tyler novel and luckily for me she produces one every few years. She has an unerring sense of character, place and family that draws the reader in. Her often eccentric characters encounter crises that are the same bumps that many of us encounter on the rocky road of life. Marriages are often uneasy and sometimes dissolve but the partners are good people.

At just 176 pages “Three Days In June” is a short novel about Gail Baines, a woman who is getting ready for the marriage of her only daughter, Debbie. She has suddenly been thrown off balance. Her daughter’s in-laws-to-be are paying for the wedding and Gail is feeling left out of the loop. She is a teacher and receives the news that the promotion she was next in line for would be going to another candidate and she is told that she lacks the necessary people skills for the position. Her ex-husband, Max, arrives at her door expecting to stay with her for a few days - and he brings a stray cat with him! Gail’s day is not going well. The marriage stirs up uncomfortable memories for Gail and Max and when Debbie shares a secret they’d rather not hear it is the icing on the cake. 

Tyler has been writing for six decades and her critics say her novels are all similar. They are and that’s because she writes about what she knows and what we know. “Three Days In June” is a touchingly human story that has a familiar feel that I find very comfortable. 

Breaking And Entering - Joy Williams

'The houses on Crab Key were owned by people so wealthy that they were hardly ever there.'

Years ago I read Joy Williams’ book, The Florida Keys: A History & Guide because I wanted to visit the Keys. It was a unique travel guide, witty and charming. I never made it to the Keys but when I saw a recommendation for Breaking and Entering, Williams’ 3rd novel written in 1988, I remembered the guidebook and decided to give this one a go. It’s about Liberty and Willie, a young, unemployed couple, who break into Florida Keys properties when the owners are away. They have a home of their own but enjoy the superior amenities of these properties for awhile and leave before the owners return. Liberty is unable to have children of her own but has a big white rescue dog and two neglected neighbourhood children that she has befriended. She is depressed. Liberty and Willie have been together since they were teenagers but lately she finds him drifting away.

This is a story about America’s dark side. There is a black cloud hanging over it. Will they get caught breaking and entering? Will they be victims of the gun violence that is pervasive in Florida? This is not a feelgood book - it starts on a whimsical note and gets much bleaker - but it is well written and captures a world that I hope I never have to live in. 

Hollywood’s Eve

Eve Babitz came of age in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s. She knew all the fun people and best places to go and partied like there was no tomorrow. She was a groupie and there was lots and lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll. As she approached her thirties she began to write autobiographical novels and short stories that were presented as fiction and didn’t receive much recognition. 

Lily Anolik, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, was intrigued by Eve’s story and tracked her down in 2012. By this time Eve was in her 70s and had suffered horrific burns when she dropped a lit cigar and her clothing caught on fire. She was living a reclusive life.

Anolik recently wrote a book about Eve’s relationship with Joan Didion that I wanted to read and someone suggested that I should read Hollywood’s Eve first. So I did and didn’t like it. Eve, as presented, was a narcissist who seems to have had a joyless life despite all the supposedly fun things she got up to. I didn’t get much of a sense of who she was and I lay that at Anolik’s feet. I think I’ll wait for a bit before I read Didion and Babitz.

Learned by Heart - Emma Donaghue

In 1805, fourteen-year-old biracial Eliza Raine arrives at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The illegitimate daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was sent to England as a young girl. She has no friends until Lister, a bold and intelligent new student arrives at the school and they become roommates. The book is based on the real romantic relationship that developed between the lesbian diarist known as Gentleman Jack and her boarding school lover Eliza Raine. The well-researched story alternates between their school days and letters written by Raine ten years later, when she was a patient in asylums begging to be reunited with Lister. After finishing the book earlier this year it has been my intention to read more about these two women. Almost a year has passed so I’m finally making a note here as a reminder to do so.

In Zanesville

 “We can’t believe the house is on fire. It’s so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we’re supposed to be in charge”

In Zanesville (2011) is a wryly written coming-of-age story. A young girl who remains nameless throughout the novel negotiates the pitfalls of early adolescence in Zanesville, Illinois,  “the farm implement capital of the world”, in the 70s. Joanne Beard captures all her awkwardness in painful detail. The book opens with a scene of a babysitting job going terribly wrong. She and her bestie, Felicia (aka Flea), have been charged with the care and corralling of the six wild Kozak kids and their various pets for the summer. One of the kids sets the house on fire and all hell breaks loose. 

The two girls return to ninth grade at the end of the summer. They have been in band since the early grades. While marching in the annual Zanesville parade they come to a sudden realization that band is weird and if they march in the parade, they will be in it forever. They make a break for it mid-parade.

A new cheerleader, not realizing that the two friends are not part of the in crowd, invites them to a ‘cool girls party’. There are boys there and the narrator feels even more awkward than usual, especially after Felicia gets paired up and she doesn’t. 

Beard nails what it was like to move from childhood to adolescence in the days before cell phones. She wrote this book as a YA novel but adult women will be drawn back to the days when life was centred around wearing the right clothes, getting their first period, discovering boys, dealing with pesky and/or dysfunctional families and, above all, fitting in. I loved it.

Pete and Alice in Maine

This novel by Caitlin Shetterly takes place in the spring of 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic in New York City. The city was in lockdown with bodies literally piling up. Alice decides that she and her hedge fund manager husband Pete and their two young daughters, Sophie and Iris, would be safer at their vacation property in Maine. When they arrive they find the local population unwelcoming to people from New York who could be carrying the virus. Someone cuts down a couple of their trees to block their driveway and leaves a note telling them that they are unwelcome in the community. We discover that Pete and Alice are having marital problems, the children fight with each other constantly and snarl at their parents. The book provides flashbacks to the early days of Pete and Alice’s relationship when they were younger and very much in love. Then they had the kids and the younger child, Iris, was one of those babies that  hardly slept and cried all the time. I had one like that and I can tell you from experience that Shetterly captures the fatigue and frustration that parents of such children feel and the stress it can place on a marriage. Then we discover that there are other issues that are making Alice sad and angry. Pete is a jerk, Alice is a martyr, the kids are badly behaved. I read the book quickly. By the time I reached the end I was bored and tired of this privileged, self absorbed family and was relieved to put the book down.