Marina Maxwell
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I read and review both historical fiction and non-fiction, but also enjoy biographies, crime and some contemporary fiction.
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Please note that unless stated that I have received these books directly from the publisher or author in exchange for an honest review, I either purchase my own copies or source them from my local library service. 

​Links to Amazon, Book Depository or Dymocks Australia are only for the reader's reference.
(Due to some poor experiences recently with Booktopia, from 2023 I will no longer link to them.)

My reviews for Historical Novels Review, the magazine of the Historical Novel Society, can be found online here
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Error Australis: The Reality Recap of Australian History

10/8/2016

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Satirist Ben Pobjie has taken the essential stories that make up the history of Australia from its ancient bacterial origins to the arrival of the First Fleet and on to the Rum Rebellion through to the Eureka Stockade, the Burke & Wills debacle, the age of whiskery bush-rangers culminating in Ned Kelly, then on to Federation and Gallipolli, Kokoda, Vietnam and The Dismissal right up to last year's bun fight between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull.

It’s one big Pythonesque  mash-up in which the first half is eye-wateringly, side-splittingly, hilarious. But then there’s a switch and while it seems OK to chortle at the antics of Captain William Bligh hiding under the bed or explorers Hume and Hovell cutting their tent in half and fighting over who gets the handle of a frying pan, massacres are tricky to make funny and when it comes to the war-blasted 20th Century it starts to feel more forced. The rambling script between those even more whiskery founding fathers of Federation is just a tad too long-winded.
 
It regains pace when describing the Great Emu War of the 1930s, but slips away again in the last third which is too much about recent Prime Ministers whose finest biographies are those by cartoonists. The book could have kept the wit factor high by concentrating on some other only-in-Australia eccentricities such the Hutt River Colony, the heroics of potato farmer Cliff Young, or even Lady Flo Bjelke Petersen and her pumpkin scones. Speaking of which, women don't get much of a look-in in this history, which is evidence that the Aussie male still secretly harbours the belief that sheilas belong only in the kitchen or the bedroom.
 
If the book had ended with Ned's last stand at Glenrowan, I’d have given it a big tick as an Australian equivalent of 1066 and All That, but after that the circus train fell off the tracks somewhere beyond the road to Gundagai. Three and a half stars.

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Booktopia
 

 

 
 


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Please Do Not Disturb

9/8/2016

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The fictional country of Bwalo which is “so small it is impossible to find on a map” is preparing for its Big Day when the great Ngwazi (or king of kings, warrior of warriors, etc.) - otherwise President Tafumo - is due to appear before his subjects in the annual celebration of the country’s freedom from colonial oppression. Also due to take part is American music superstar Truth. The fact that Finance Minister, Patrick Goya, seems to have disappeared in suspicious circumstances is being deliberately quashed.
 
The story is narrated in five different voices. There is young Charlie, the son of the Scottish managers of the Hotel Mirage, who is gifted a Dictaphone and uses it to eavesdrop on adult conversations; Sean, an alcoholic Irishman still trying to write the great African novel; Jack, a poor-white petty criminal; Hope, nurse to the aged President; and Josef, the senior minister who was once the President’s closest friend but is teetering along the tightrope between trust and betrayal.
 
Charlie is a delight and full of a child’s natural curiosity and ease in both embarrassing and even dangerous situations that adults would baulk at. Sean’s narration also contains much humour, especially in his fiery relationship with Stella. Jack, the drug mule caught up in smuggling something more dangerous than his usual weed, is a rather pitiful reflection of what can happen to whites not fortunate enough to have an exit-Africa plan. The sole female narrator, Hope, is also appealing although it can be difficult to reconcile her continued affection for her ex-husband Josef who treated her badly. Josef is the most complex and intriguing narrator. He knows the true story of Tafumo’s past and now risks being eliminated as have others who were part of the loyal founding fathers of the nation but then overstepped the mark in some way and have disappeared. Josef is all too aware that Tafumo has turned into a “witch doctor, who didn’t use roots and blood to mix his magic but potions of people’s hopes, ambitions and dreams”.
 
The descriptions of Truth and his Afro-American dancers, PR facilitators, hangers-on and accompanying reporters provide some of the wittiest passages. They are thoroughly Westernized people who, in spite of their racial heritage, haven’t the first clue how life really is in Africa. Free CDs given to kids who have neither players nor even electricity end up hanging in the trees. As Charlie’s father observes, Truth is exploiting the country’s poverty "to steal the credibility he so desperately lacks”.
 
There are many other vibrant characters who vary from the amusing to the outright deadly. The local DJ is called Cheeseandtoast and the tough brothers, Willem and Eugene Horst, built like "badly baked gingerbread men" carry the blustery echoes of old Rhodesia around with them, men who no longer really fit in with the new Africa yet belong nowhere else either.
 
Bwalo is clearly based on the author’s childhood country of Malawi and the great Ngwazi on its notorious first president, Dr Hastings Banda - with perhaps a touch of Zimbabwe’s nonagenarian Robert Mugabe thrown in - a missionary-educated man who started out as a benevolent shining beacon to his people then becomes corrupted with power and deteriorates into a mockery, yet still remains dangerous and unpredictable.
  
When reading this novel it will definitely be an asset if you have had some experience of living in Africa as its subtleties are likely to resonate more for you than others who have never been charmed or bedeviled by that continent.

A most entertaining and memorable novel from Robert Glancy, and worthy of five stars.

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com

Booktopia



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Our Tiny, Useless Hearts

5/8/2016

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This is a modern Australian take on the classic bedroom farce.
 
Janice, a divorced woman in her late thirties, is the narrator. Her sister Caroline has just gone ballistic and destroyed her husband’s suits, with special focus on the trouser crotch, as he leaves for Noosa with new love Martha. Caroline relents and takes off after them, leaving Janice in charge of her two daughters, Mercedes and Paris. Soon on the scene are the couple next door, Lesley and Craig, the typically insufferable macho male, who doesn’t understand why a woman would reject his charms.
 
Enter stage right (or left) Alec, Janice’s ex, who becomes the anchor in the chaos as it is full-steam ahead for nudity, revolving bedroom doors, trellis-climbing, cupboards hiding, doorbells ringing at inappropriate moments, misunderstandings and cross purposes, a lot of self-absorbed adults and a couple of wise precocious kids who, of course, will let the cat out of the bag.
 
It’s all pretty manic with acerbic witty dialogue, fun-poking at the aspirations or disillusions of the X Generation and if you know Melbourne at all, you will enjoy the references to places - and maybe even people! - you recognise.
 
It’s just the sort of book to read when you’re tired of too many other serious books and need a change of pace. The first third is probably the best with the most laugh-out-loud moments, but even good things can go on just a wee bit too long and it does lose momentum when it allows “serious” to bubble up into the narrative.
 
Still, the skillful and savage exuberance can’t be faulted. Toni Jordan has displayed great versatility as a writer in being able to write something wacky like this as well as her magnificent “Nine Days” (my review here).

Good striking cover as well on the Australian edition. Not quite sure of the symbolism of the umbrella on the UK edition - it rains in Melbourne too.

Four stars.
 
Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Booktopia
 


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