This year's classics were Bewilderment by Richard Powers and The Promise by Damon Galgut. The latter deservedly won the Booker Prize. Bewilderment wraps up so many ideas and yet remains deeply personal, while what I liked about The Promise was that it managed to be funny, to play with the narrative and, while being clearly opposed to apartheid, it didn't bang on about it.
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke was over-hyped but was still an excellent book and a clever idea although I still think it flags a bit towards the end. I don't normally read historical novels but Cecily by Annie Garthwaite was interesting as a woman's account of the bloodthirsty battles in The Wars of the Roses. Like Pat Barker's The Women of Troy it depicts the nobility and the military leaders as suffering from some kind of advanced PTSD! Medusa by Jessie Burton was another rereading, this time of life as a gorgon in the classical patriarchy. It's both funny and charming.
I managed to read some chick-lit which isn't really an appropriate term these days but I'm not sure what to say instead. Did You Miss Me by Sophia Money-Coutts was a classic example of a dissatisfied woman who doesn't know how awful her life is and then meets Mr Right who is astronomically rich as well as being handsome and everything gets sorted out at the end. The Lies We Tell by Jane Corry has one of those plots where everybody misunderstands everybody else, except this time everyone is hiding dark secrets. Sorting out the ending so everyone could be happy was obviously a real challenge. The Affair by Hilary Boyd has been very popular and a lot of people might get it for Christmas but its real message is that whatever you do don't have one!
The heroines often have mixed up lives in these books but Bright Burning Things by Lisa Harding takes this to another level and when you think it is going to be come to a happy ending there isn't one. A bit like this is Animal by Lisa Taddeo which has the same rollercoaster pace and when you think things in this woman's life couldn't get any worse there's another disaster.
For other countries and cultures, I enjoyed How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina which is a crazy novel about a young Indian who takes people's examinations for them for money but then he is too clever and things fall apart. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead is an elegant account of that NY community over the years and the roles of bootleggers, gangsters (and now city slickers) in messing up the lives of ordinary people.
China Room by Sunjeev Sahota is a clever story about old matrimonial practices in India and their dangers and is nicely told. The Rules of Revelation by Lisa McInerney is the third book in a loose Irish trilogy and it's mostly about the city of Cork and how it's changed. She writes very well. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is a long American novel about early aviation and the circumnavigation of the poles by a fictional female aviator. It's an American novel and like her journey it felt rather long.
Also, a quick mention for Triple Cross by Tom Bradby, which is the third book in his trilogy about spies and the British Secret Service. Having worked for ITN, he should know something about it and this is a good read in the classic British spy genre.
For topicality, I listened to the audiobook of Skin by Jaimi Barbakoff. It's about the impact of a plague on the modern world which necessitates isolation for everyone. It's interesting where that leads given the state of the world at the moment. Last One at the Party was another 'end of the world as we know it' novel but not as convincing or scary.
All in all it was a good year although I didn't make much sense of Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi despite the fact that it featured a train. Snow Country by Sebastian Faulks was well written but perhaps not one of his best and Pat Barker's novel which is the second in the Trojan trilogy was not as powerful and striking as the first. Milk Fed is a weird novel by Melissa Broder mostly about sex and eating but like all of those I've mentioned still readable.
In spite of all the difficulties in 2020, there were a lot of books published. I compared my list to the recommendations made by a group of authors published by the Guardian and the overlap was limited even if those authors were, possibly, a little precious and on message. That's how it is! There are still seriously hyped 'good books' which the publishers and the critics run with, and too many books by journalists and media figures but there are also little gems which only just got published, were not promoted and which were, therefore, easily overlooked. I'm sure there will be more of these in 2022!
Happy New Year!
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