books reviews


BOWIE ODYSSEY 72 Simon Goddard (Omnibus, £20)


a world of magic and myth them- selves.


Simon Goddard’s epic 10-book Bowie Odyssey series, recounting the life of perhaps the greatest pop star of his or any era against the cultural backdrop of 1970s Britain, continues with Bowie Odyssey 72. June of that year saw the release of Bowie’s masterpiece The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, ushering in the glam rock era. His outlandish style and persona flew in the face of a dreary Britain, still suffering from a hard winter of strikes and pow- er cuts and with attitudes that had changed little over the years. Bowie Odyssey 72 shows how Bowie, and his alter ego Ziggy Star- dust, brought some much-needed glamour to the forefront of popular culture, whilst also pushing sexual and cultural boundaries in the pro- cess, with political lyrics standing next to songs about drug use and sexual orientation. This instalment of the series feels very much like it covers “peak Bowie” as he battles with himself, Ziggy, and just about everybody else who was ready to denounce him as a freak, a pervert or worse. A fascinating insight into a chaotic year of one of music’s most enduring icons.


CHRIS ANDREWS THE MAB


(Unbound, £18.99)


as The Mab is, replete with brightly coloured illustrations, it’s impos- sible to shake the sense that these stories are just inherently too grim to really work in this light-hearted, child-friendly format. There’s an incongruity between, say, the en- dearing silliness of Pwyll’s “adven- ture trousers, made from the very finest action-silk” and a couple of pages later, the distressing image of a traumatised Rhiannon awaking, covered in gore from a mutilated puppy, to be told that she had mur- dered her new-born son in the night. Ultimately, the stories are the stories and the basic plots must re- main – these tales were how our ancestors made sense of their hard lives – but for all that, I would urge caution before turning to The Mab for a bedtime story for all but the most strong-stomached of children.


As vivid and attractive a work HUGH RUSSELL


NIGHTCRAWLING Leila Mottley (Bloomsbury, £15.29/£11.99 Ebook)


RIVERS OF WALES Jim Perrin


(Carreg Gwalch, £18.50)


striking, and which benefits from Stevens’ elegant prose style and dry, almost omniscient asides. It’s centred on C, a fortysome- thing woman trying to keep her art shop in business while blundering between the sort of relationships that vacillate between social and sexual – all very middle-class NYC, then – while in the background, hackers are fritzing large sections of the US national grid, and C, when alone, is treated to running social/ tech commentary by an hallucina- tory gnome.


From the author of The Hills Of Wales comes this newest book taking the nation’s rivers into its stride. Beautifully bound in a thick, matt-textured hardback, Rivers Of Wales is a delight to hold as well as read, with extremely high pro- duction values. The text itself, then, matches up to this high level: finely written and deeply researched prose in which the author explores Welsh rivers in a pleasing, accessible, and always entertaining way, encom- passing myth and history alongside geography and the natural world. Although it’s clear that Perrin


has read widely on the subject of Welsh


Matt Brown & Eloise Williams [eds.]


There is no time to fear the darkness for 17-year-old Kiara. With absen- tee parents and the rent mount- ing, she must face the night alone: locked in the company of men, who use her and whisper nothings in the dead of night. It pains her that despite her perseverance and the crushing hunger, her brother Marcus remains blindly fixated on dreams, making music no-one will listen to and trying to make it big like their uncle, who never looked back… not even for family. When police officers take Kiara in, she is offered a deal of grisly proportions and soon finds herself entangled in dangers far greater than any she’s faced on the streets; but what use is her freedom now, if it comes with vulnerability and the endangerment of those she holds dear?


Colourfully presented, with an el- oquent and imaginative foreword from Michael Sheen, The Mab is a concise and accessible collection of the stories of the medieval Ma- binogion, that foundation-stone of Welsh (indeed, British) literature. With 11 fables presented, various- ly in English and Welsh, it offers a fresh opportunity for parents to share these tales with their children, or for young readers to delve into


46


Inspired by a scandalous truth that unfolded in author Leila Mot- tley’s hometown of Oakland, Nightcrawling takes you along for a gruelling ride in a city full of in- justices and failures. Be warned, the shadows hold demons in the guise of those we are told we should trust. This book erupts with powerful ob- servations and poignant words that linger. Mottley is without doubt an incredibly talented young writer.


KARLA BRADING


merous extracts from those tomes throughout this book, it’s the fact that he walks the banks of the Tei- fi, Afon Gwy (River Wye), and the ‘folklore rivers’ of Cynfal, Dwyryd and Glaslyn himself that brings those descriptions and passages to rich, redolent life. There’s a sense, when reading, of being immersed not just in the moment, as Perrin walks, but in a rich history of walk- ers and Welsh people all, in the past, doing the same. Perrin’s per- sonal, singular point of observation thus expands out into a spectrum of views and voices. It’s marvellous stuff.


rivers, and there are nu-


MAB JONES THE VISITORS


Jessi Jezewska Stevens (And Other Stories, £14.99)


As a device to track her own un- ravelling while emphasising that in wider society, it has legs, although the gnome never feels especially integrated into the plot relative to the frequency of its appearances. The Visitors is one of those novels where, without being much invest- ed in its personnel or their tribula- tions, you find yourself becoming subtly engrossed.


NOEL GARDNER


THE WAR FOR GLORIA Atticus Lish (Serpent’s Tail, £16.99)


Set just over a decade ago in New York during the Occupy Wall Street protests, though far from con- strained by strict historical accura- cy, the second novel by Jessi Jeze- wska Stevens manages to fold its protagonist’s mental collapse and, ultimately, that of functioning soci- ety into a narrative tending towards mundane insularity. This isn’t in- tended as a criticism of The Visi- tors, which draws characters whose flaws and foibles feel realistic and


The War For Gloria is a huge, occasionally heartbreaking story about a young man, Corey, who is forced to come of age before his time. Corey is at high school, his parents carrying out a strange non-relationship, when his mother Gloria is diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her decline is rendered in tender, har- rowing detail throughout the novel, and early on it appears that Gloria’s story will be the central strand of the narrative. It is a surprise, then, that Lish manages to cover so much other ground, including Corey’s foray into cagefighting, and his tumultuous relationship with his father. As with most novels of this length, there are flaws. Corey and Gloria are excellently captured, but other major characters - Edward and Adrian, respectively Corey’s father and neurotic faux-friend – feel like caricatures simply there to serve the plot. There are also a couple of unconvincing tonal shifts, especially in the final third, which turns violent, then procedural. Here, the writing becomes rushed: Lish appears to be trying to make a point about America’s broken legal system, but it feels tacked-on rath- er than fully explored. With more focus, Lish could have written a classic.


JOSHUA REES


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