Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay (L'Invitée)
Irrefutable proof that one should never, ever -- no matter how tempting it might be -- write a novel before the age of forty.
February 19th: Jonathan Trigell, Boy A
Gritty and gripping. Trigell's Briticised prose is as crisp as a hand-pulled pint, as flavorful and turgidly suggestive as bangers and mash. This is 400 BC Greek drama set in early 21st century Britain, written in mid-21st century English. Do good people do bad things? And vice-versa? The book's deepest flaw, to me, was its unbelievability. Besides the ending (which I won't spoil; let's just say I've done something similar, and it's not really like that--if you want to try, just come over to my apartment any Tuesday afternoon and we'll give it a jump), there is the fact that "Boy A" is a saint. Shows up to work on time. Is kind, polite, reserved. Loves his fat girlfriend dearly. Wants nothing more than to do well by others. His occasional outbursts always take the form of self-questioning or helping his friends. Prisons, at least as I understand them, do not lead one to sainthood. Especially if the saint, as a nine-year-old boy, stabbed to death a...
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