When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson: A review

Thirty years ago, Lance Corporal Jackson Brodie and his fellow soldiers were called out to do a search and rescue for a little girl lost. Six-year-old Joanna Mason had been walking along a quiet country lane with her mother, sister, and baby brother when they were attacked by a mad man wielding a knife. As her mother fought with the man, she screamed at Joanna to run. Joanna did and she was the only one who survived. After an extensive search, she was found and rescued by Jackson Brodie.

Now, Joanna is a successful doctor married to a man who may be a fraud and a criminal. She has a baby son, the same age as her brother when he was killed, and she learns that the man who killed her family is to be released from prison. It looks like Joanna's life is falling apart again.

Jackson Brodie's life has taken a radical turn for the better. He thinks. He has no money worries thanks to a bequest and he is recently remarried to a woman he had only known for two months, but he is happy. He married after he learned that Louise, the Detective Inspector of the Lothian and Borders Police that he met in the last book, was also getting married. He and Louise had a strong mutual attraction, but neither of them could ever admit it to the other.

Louise is the second wife of a good and patient man whose first wife was a paragon of virtue. A paragon Louise is not, and the marriage isn't quite what she had signed up for.

Joanna has a teenage mother's helper named Regina - Reggie. Reggie is the latest in Atkinson's fascinating characters. She has an intellectual bent and is working on a translation of the Iliad. She's also charming, funny, compassionate, self-reliant, and always prepared for emergencies as she was taught by the doctor. When there is a terrible train crash behind the house where she is, she rushes to the scene and saves a man's life. Guess whose.

As is her trademark, Kate Atkinson once again manages to bring all these disparate, seemingly unrelated stories - plus others that I haven't mentioned - together in a satisfying denouement. In doing so, she shines a light into the darkest corners of her characters' secrets and inhibitions but she does it always with compassion.

This novel, like the two earlier ones in the series that I've read, is full of wit and wisdom and is sprinkled with philosophical meditations on life, death, love and loss. It is a darkly humorous book, but not so dark as to ever be depressing, in spite of the terrible events it relates.

These books get categorized as detective novels or crime novels because they feature a detective - or ex-detective - and the stories do involve crime. But to call them that is to try to fit them into too tight a box. They are literary fiction that examines the human condition. The plots are intricate enough to satisfy the most demanding reader and they are purely character-driven.

The tone of the books is the most important thing and the tone is one of sardonic wit and amazement at the foibles of human beings, even human beings who should know much better. True, the writer has chosen to tell her story in the form of a thriller and it is an unputdownable page-turner at that, but it is really a satisfying medley of thriller, mystery, crime fiction, and literary fiction. Maybe we need a new category. We could just call it "Atkinsons."

In the end, Kate Atkinson did not tie all of her characters' stories up in a neat little knot, so we'll have to move on to the next book in the series to find out where all of this is going. We can only hope that there will be several more entries to come.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

Search This Blog