Achi news desk-
Peter Marshall, William Collins, £25, published April 11
Subtitled Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney, Peter Marshall’s highly readable new history of the archipelago is a delightful corrective to our tendency to see Scottish history through a lowland lens. Organized by two visits – by James V in the summer of 1540 and Sir Walter Scott in 1814 – Marshall’s text examines how Orkney moved from being a Norwegian territory to becoming part of Scotland and then Great Britain, although, as Marshall notes, “gradually, awkwardly and never completely.”
It is a history that includes the Reformation, witchcraft, battles, shipwrecks and the sympathy of the author of Waverley and Ivanhoe. The result is a new look at Scotland’s story which reminds us that there is never one story.
I have, I am ashamed to say, never been to Orkney. But maybe reading Marshall’s book will tempt me to make the trip.
FICTITIOUS
This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
Naomi Wood, Phoenix, £16.99, out now
The big news in fiction this month is the big, boisterous state-of-the-nation novel Caledonian Road (see this week’s cover feature). But there are also quieter alternatives available. Like this collection of short stories by award-winning novelist Naomi Wood, author of Mrs Hemingway. Quieter but no less inquisitive. These clever, sly stories are dark, mischievous and funny, full of sex, anxiety, fear and anger, all presented by women who are willing to think and sometimes say the innocent. The result is as sharp as a paper cut.
Iago
Percival Everett, Mantle, £20, April 11
This year is shaping up well for award-winning author Percival Everett. American Fiction, Cord Jefferson’s adaptation of Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and this month author James’ new book will be published in a very handsome package designed by Ami Smithson.
James sees Everett delve into American literature and reimagine Mark Twain’s classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But he chooses to tell the story from the perspective of a captive James as he and Huck travel down the Mississippi in a raft. According to author Hernan Diaz, “this great novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed.” It’s also worth saying, it’s painful, brutal and darkly funny.
73 Dove Street
Julie Owen Moylan, Penguin, £9.99, April 11
April sees the release of Julie Owen Moylan’s paperback novel set in 1950s London which traces the lives of three women whose lives are drawn together in a shabby boarding house in a dull, dull city which is still marked by the war. The result is a glimpse of a moment in time and the position of women within it. Can we catch the bus to Soho?
BIOGRAPHY
Me and Mr Jones
Suzi Ronson, Faber, £20, out now
This is great. A behind the scenes look at David Bowie as he became Ziggy Stardust. Ronson gave Bowie the flaming red spiky haircut that became Ziggy’s trademark and then went on the road with Bowie and his band The Spiders from Mars as a stylist and hairdresser (she eventually married the band’s guitarist Mick Ronson).
Ronson pulls back the curtain on the sexism and misogyny of the 1970s music scene (all those teenage groups), while at the same time capturing the thrill and excitement of the moment. She gives well-deserved credit to Bowie’s wife, Angie, as one of the main driving forces in his career in the early years of the decade and offers smart portraits of people like Lou Reed and Bob Dylan. The result has all the snap and freshness of your favorite single.
POETRY
Which Appears
Thomas A Clark, Carcanet Poetry, £19.99, April 25
Geological time, patterns of nature, Scottish sense of place (mapping lakes, green islands, seagulls and cold mountain streams), the possibility of language and the importance of paying attention. Thomas A Clark’s poetry is alive to all these vibrations. Born in Fife and still living on the east coast of Scotland, Clark’s stripped back poetry is a sensual delight. His thin but concise lines capture a world of feelings. Carcanet has collected four book sequences together, each of them drawing on Clark’s experiences walking through the Highlands and Islands. There is a darkening in tone as they go along but the real delight is the way Clark, using the fewest words, can transport you into that landscape.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Prospect Cottage: Derek Jarman House
Gilbert McCarragher, Thames & Hudson, £25, out now
In 1986, the year he was diagnosed with HIV, the artist, film-maker, author, gay activist and diarist Derek Jarman bought Prospect Cottage in Dungeness in Kent, on the outskirts of England. In the following years, until his death in 1994, it became his sanctuary. In 1995 Thames & Hudson published Derek Jarman’s Garden, a description of the garden he created at the cottage written by Jarman with photographs by Howard Sooley.
Almost 30 years later, the publisher is now publishing Gilbert McCarragher’s photographic essay on the cottage itself. Rarely open to the public, here’s a privileged glimpse inside. Jarman’s partner Keith Collins changed little in the house and when he died in 2018 McCarragher, a friend and neighbour, was asked to document the cottage as a work of art in its own right. The result is a superior piece of property pornography and a glimpse into one of the great artists of the late 20th century.
FASHION
Faux Parr
Martin Parr, Phaidon, £39.95, out now
Photographer Martin Parr has long been the most acidic chronicler of British life and in this new collection he turns his jaundiced eye on the world of fashion. Over the years Parr has worked with Vogue and labels such as Balenciaga and Gucci, but in each case the results remain primarily Parresque. The result is colorful and often a little comical. Patrick Grant and Tabitha Simmons also offer commentaries on Parr’s individual approach to fashion.
ROMANS
Somewhere in the Sunset
Estelle Maskame, Ink Road, £8.99, April 11
Estelle Maskame from Peterhead has been a published author since she was a teenager. Now aged 26 she has written her first romance novel for adults after years of writing fiction for young adults. Chronicling the meeting of two heartbroken people and their subsequent will-they-won’t-they story, Somewhere in the Sunset mixes love and sex with San Francisco. Maskame knows its audience and, crucially, knows how to play them.
ART
Love and Rockets: The Sketch Books
Fantagraphic, £75, April 23
From their first self-published performance in 1981 to the present, brothers Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have spent more than 40 years publishing their comic strips which have developed into two of the most enduring creative arcs of the late and early 20th century the 21st century. This hardcover collection of their illustrations, posters, flyers, early comic strips and personal sketchbooks focuses on their drafts. Their ongoing comic strips are just an appetizer for the main course, but a reminder that their complete storytelling is grounded in the boldness and strength of their linework.
