The Book of Dreams

Finished July 12

The Book of Dreams by Nina George

This novel was a definite page-turner for me. It in hard to pin down exactly what type of novel it is in terms of genre. It definitely has elements of magic realism in it, but also some coming of age elements, a touch of mystery, and romance. It is a novel that had me feeling a lot of different emotions as well. 

The story follows four people and we are allowed into the thoughts of three of them. The book begins with Henri Skinner, a journalist who grew famous as a war reporter and then moved into more biographical work, telling the stories of people from all corners of the world. 

In one particularly dangerous situation in Sudan, he used his body to protect the female photographer who was in the same vehicle as he was. In the aftermath, she took a photo the reverberates over time, and the two came together to create a child, Sam. 

Sam is now almost fourteen, but his mother has discouraged contact with Henri, but Sam invites him to a Father-Son day at his school. Henri is on his way there, when he stops on a bridge to look at the river and witnesses, with three other people, a young girl falling off a boat. Henri jumps in to save her, and brings her to shore, but is then in an accident, and ends up unconscious in the hospital. 

Sam begins to visit him there, hoping he will survive and they will get to know each other. Along with Sam, in visiting Henri is Eddie Tomlin, a former lover of Henri that he has named as the person to determine medical issues if he isn't able to. She is forced to revisit their relationship and the deep love she has for Henri. 

Sam also discovers a twelve-year-old girl, Madelyn Zeidler, a dancer who is a patient in the same neurological care area as Henri, and once he knows how she came to be there, he tries his best to help her find her way back to life. 

Sam is a synesthete, and his abilities allow him to connect to people's emotions and presence in unique ways, making him a considerate and thoughtful observer and participant in people's lives. 

We get to see Eddie's memories of her time with Henri, and we also get to see Henri's memories of his life, from his work, to his childhood traumas, to his longing for a connection with his son. While in a coma, Henri experiences different versions of his life, struggling to choose which one is real, and showing us feelings that he never expressed to those he cared for. 

We also see how Sam is managing his life to make room for his father and Madelyn, and how he feels an outsider in his own family. 

Along the way are doctors and nurses, each with their individual characteristics, round out the story in interesting ways. 

I really loved this book, and I found it released some of the feelings I had been carrying with me recently. 

In the afterward, the author talks about how this book is the third book in her writing that has been shaped by her experiences of death and dying, mourning and surviving. I found this quite interesting. 

The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder

Finished April 28

The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder by Sarah J. Harris

This novel is told from the point of view of thirteen-year-old Jasper Wishart, a young man who lives in a world of his own. Jasper is autistic and has both synaesthesia and face blindness. For Jasper, sounds are colours, and he recognizes people by the colours their voice makes and by memorizing their clothing. The latter method, of course, doesn't always work. Neither does the former when something is off about their voice, as in a sore throat causing raspiness, or if they speak in a whisper. 

The book moves back and forth in time from the present when Jasper is upset about his neighbour, Bee Larkham. Bee is relatively new to him as she only came back to deal with the house after her mother died. She is a musician and plays music at high volume, both her own and the recorded music she enjoys. Jasper is immediately taken by this, although many of the neighbours are not. Bee also wears colourful clothing and is naturally dramatic in her actions. 

After observing parakeets in her garden, Bee has set up feeders to attract them, and this is something else that appeals to Jasper, although again, not to all the neighbours. 

Jasper's mother died a few years ago, and his father left the armed forces and took a job in IT, so that he would be able to support Jasper daily rather than being away for long periods of time. Jasper misses him mom as she also had synaesthesia and helped him understand it.

One of Jasper's pleasures and coping mechanisms is to make sense of his world by painting it. and while his pictures look abstract to others, they represent the sounds and images that he saw at that moment in time. 

As Jasper struggles to understand what happened with Bee, he reviews his paintings from that time, but also recreates them from his memories, trying to get them right and capture the colours accurately to better understand them himself. 

Jasper is an outsider, not having any real friends at school and not connecting closely with his father. He describes his world as he experiences it and reacts strongly to perceived threats to things that he cares about. 

See this all from Jasper's point of view, as a child who struggles to be understood and to make sense of the world is key to this story. Jasper goes back to his first meeting with Bee to try to resurrect his memories and capture them as accurately as he can in new versions of his paintings. As we understand along with him, we see Bee's actions both as he does and as an average adult would, and we gradually learn of all the interactions between Bee and the others in the neighbourhood from the older men who live nearby, to the teenagers taking music lessons from her. These things make more sense to us than they do to Jasper at times, and we gradually see how he has misinterpreted their relationship and her intentions. 

I have always been interested in synaesthesia and how it is experienced, and that is what attracted me to this book in the first place, but it offers so much more. It reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon in being a coming of age story of a young man who experiences the world differently from most of us, and that occurs around a serious incident where he is an important witness. 

An excellent read. 

A Look at One Woman's Case

Finished April 11
The Shaking Woman or a History of My Nerves by Siri Hustvedt
Siri is a novelist and essayist who suffered a violent episode of shaking while speaking at a memorial to her father in 2006. Despite her entire body shaking and flapping, she spoke clearly and continued her speech. To her "the shaking woman" came on unexpectedly and she did not identify with her or know the cause of the episode. At first she thought it was an anomaly, but when it happened to her again, she knew it was something she had to figure out. Through a process of medication and talk, Siri was able to deal with the onset of these episodes, but in investigating them, she delves into her own mental and nervous history, as well as the general history of nervous disorders.
This book documents that research and touches on many things from empathy to epilepsy, synaesthesia to psychoanalysis. I was fascinated by the different experiences she found and the way she dealt with her own episodes. This is a frank and honest look at a still undefined medical area.

Very Different Mystery

Finished March 6
Still Waters by Nigel McCrery
This is a very different mystery novel. Main character DCI Mark Lapslie gets called off sick leave when a traffic accident brings a body to light. Mark doesn't understand why he would be linked with this case. He's been off on leave due to his acute synaesthesia. Mark's version of this means that sounds set off tastes for him. The sensory overload at work was too stressful, and the condition has even affected his marriage.
Both voices and other sounds trigger the tastes and sometimes they are extremely unpleasant. Even when not, they don't always go together well.
The body that has come to light has been dead around 9 months and has had some fingers chopped short after death. It also appears that the victim was poisoned. Lapslie is intrigued by the case and despite some discouragement from his superiors keeps doggedly on, following every clue he has.
We also see some of the story from the murderer's viewpoint, a woman who ingratiates herself with elderly isolated women and then poisons them and assumes their identity.
How is Lapslie connected with her and will he be able to find her before she finds and kills her next victim. This is a very interesting plot and although very violent, makes a great and engrossing story.