An Audience of Chairs

 An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark

A well-written, gut-wrenching story about a woman trying to cope with losing her children when manic-depressive disorder leaves her unable to care for them. Some of it is very painful to read and I wasn't sure I could finish it, but as she started to get better and gain some control over her moods I stopped holding my breath and read on. 

Spoiler alert...sort of...not sure...

She had two very young daughters whose health and safety were compromised by her neglect of them. It wasn't that she didn't love them - she did, deeply - but her mind would get so focused on other things that she'd legitimately forget them and their needs. On one such occasion she left them unattended on a beach far from home for hours and didn't remember them until well after dark. Her youngest was 2 at the time. Her husband took the girls away from her then and was right to do so, but he shows himself to be a jerk by keeping them away from her for the remainder of their childhood.

It's fascinating to look at life from inside the mind of a person with this illness. Fascinating and heart-breaking. And infuriating. I had a hard time getting into it at first simply because I didn't like her. She has good qualities - she loves her girls, she's artistically talented and she usually means well, but the victims of her behaviour suffer and she doesn't care. I know that's a symptom of her condition, but she was offered help and didn't want it. She wouldn't take meds because she felt they made her less of who she really was, and it didn't matter to her that that decision affected other lives than her own. I found myself angry with her; I've been in their place and know the wreckage it leaves.

I was glad that as the book progressed, she did, too. She began to identify things that triggered her mood swings and was able to better control them. She made amends to a certain extent, and as relationships began to heal, the story came to a satisfying conclusion. I hope it's like that for many people, but what I've seen in reality leaves me skeptical.  

The Essex Serpent & Whose Body

 The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

This is a book I should have liked. It's an unusual story, about a woman and her slightly creepy young son moving to a village where a rumored creature in the water is being blamed for various recent misfortunes. The woman and the local minister become friends - maybe more - and her son forms a bond with the minister's ailing wife, who since her illness has become infatuated with the colour blue. There are several other romantic storylines but this is not a romance per se. Well, maybe it is, but it also touches on socialism, abuse, geology, social justice, medicine, and a woman's place in society.

So, a good story, interesting characters, and excellent writing. The first two pages, in which she writes about time and how it affects people in different situations, were breath-taking. I couldn't wait to read on, but then something seemed to stall. I can't explain it. It had everything it needed to be a good book, but I had a hard time getting into it. I pushed on and found the middle section held my attention better, but then it seemed to sort of fizzle out at the end. 

Maybe at a different time in a different frame of mind I'd have seen more in it and I wouldn't have to say with some regret that I didn't like it. Do read this outstanding review at  Kirkus Reviews though to see all the reasons why you might like it very much indeed. 

Whose Body by Dorothy L. Sayers

This is the first of Sayers's Lord Peter Whimsey novels and I'm not quite sure I like Lord Peter. My book club read Busman's Honeymoon, which I think is #11 in the series, a couple of years ago and I very much liked it, and him, so maybe he'll grow on me as the series progresses. 

In this first book he's flippant, a little too self-confident, and his diction seemed strange. He's upper class British, but leaves the last letter off of some words, so that going becomes goin' and reading is readin'. I was hearing it in the accent of the southern U.S. and seeing him as plantation owner rather than British Lord. It was...odd. However, I love the way Sayers writes - a little less cozy than Agatha and with a bit more of an intellectual bent - and will probably try another after a while. 

It might be a long while. I still have two shelves of unread books, two dozen audio books and 4 dozen e-books waiting, almost 300 titles on my Goodreads want-to-read page, and over 160 on my wish list at the local library. And then there's a spread sheet with another 20 lists or so of authors and titles I want to check out when I get a chance. I might live long enough to read them all if I never add another title to any of those lists, but that seems unlikely. And anyway, I like lists and these ones are comforting in some way.

About Whose Body I'll just say I didn't enjoy it but I hope to try another.