Genre-shifting
There are some presumptions that one makes almost unavoidably about writers and actors. After having seen Scarlett Johansson in Match Point, I expected her to play the ambitious sister is The Other Boleyn Girl, and I would hardly be the only person surprised if Rowling turned to psychological thrillers.
So perhaps you can imagine my surprise when Karen Joy Fowler, the writer of Jane Austen Book Club, turned out to have a background in SF & fantasy. The bestseller combination of book clubs and Jane Austen made me presume the author behind it had at best a resumé of Richard & Judy or Oprah titles, although more likely was that it was her first novel. So seeing her name revered on SF sites I could not leave it uninvestigated. It lead me to reading reviews of her books, and ultimately buying Sister Noon.
Sister Noon is a historical novel with some characteristics of speculative fiction, populated by many actual historical figures and is, indeed, centered around one such, called Mary Ellen Pleasant. The actual main character though is a middle-aged spinster called Lizzie, but Mrs. Pleasant still remains the mysterious driving force behind the story. Not only is the book full of beautiful language but also, remarkably, features one of the most unlikely (and yet very sympathetic) heroines I've encountered.
Luckily for me, Karen Joy Fowler's new novel had just come out when I finished Sister Noon, and that seemed equally distant in terms of genre from it as Sister Noon had seemed to be from Jane Austen Book Club.
Called Wit's End in US, Case of the Imaginary Detective in UK, the new book deals with the genre of detective novels. The main character Rima has lost her entire family and comes to stay with her godmother, a famous mystery writer Allison B. Early, creator of Maxwell Lane (whom I kept picturing as similar to 10th Doctor in appearance).
In parts the novel reminded me very strongly of Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta, as both books have a slightly apathetic female main character who is a teacher and is dealing with loss while trying to solve the mysteries around a very famous writer. Both also portray a tightly-knit community that seems somewhat distant from reality. Admittedly Lumikko is much more plot-driven -the main characteristic of Imaginary Detective is that it's meandering -something that is has (to a degree) in common with Sister Noon. To me that's not necessarily a fault, and here it is not. For The Case of the Imaginary Detective is among other things about the nature of the reader-author relationship, about the fictional you vs. the real you, about stories and who owns them: to expect it to follow the conventions of a mystery novel would force it into a mould that it does not fit into. It all depends on what you expect. My expectations were probably influenced by me having just read Sister Noon, which is indeed the recommended order of reading these two books, in my opinion. Recommended they are, of that there is no doubt.
I have now started Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, and it is again something quite different. I am looking forward to another interesting reading experience.
So perhaps you can imagine my surprise when Karen Joy Fowler, the writer of Jane Austen Book Club, turned out to have a background in SF & fantasy. The bestseller combination of book clubs and Jane Austen made me presume the author behind it had at best a resumé of Richard & Judy or Oprah titles, although more likely was that it was her first novel. So seeing her name revered on SF sites I could not leave it uninvestigated. It lead me to reading reviews of her books, and ultimately buying Sister Noon.
Sister Noon is a historical novel with some characteristics of speculative fiction, populated by many actual historical figures and is, indeed, centered around one such, called Mary Ellen Pleasant. The actual main character though is a middle-aged spinster called Lizzie, but Mrs. Pleasant still remains the mysterious driving force behind the story. Not only is the book full of beautiful language but also, remarkably, features one of the most unlikely (and yet very sympathetic) heroines I've encountered.
Luckily for me, Karen Joy Fowler's new novel had just come out when I finished Sister Noon, and that seemed equally distant in terms of genre from it as Sister Noon had seemed to be from Jane Austen Book Club.
Called Wit's End in US, Case of the Imaginary Detective in UK, the new book deals with the genre of detective novels. The main character Rima has lost her entire family and comes to stay with her godmother, a famous mystery writer Allison B. Early, creator of Maxwell Lane (whom I kept picturing as similar to 10th Doctor in appearance).
In parts the novel reminded me very strongly of Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta, as both books have a slightly apathetic female main character who is a teacher and is dealing with loss while trying to solve the mysteries around a very famous writer. Both also portray a tightly-knit community that seems somewhat distant from reality. Admittedly Lumikko is much more plot-driven -the main characteristic of Imaginary Detective is that it's meandering -something that is has (to a degree) in common with Sister Noon. To me that's not necessarily a fault, and here it is not. For The Case of the Imaginary Detective is among other things about the nature of the reader-author relationship, about the fictional you vs. the real you, about stories and who owns them: to expect it to follow the conventions of a mystery novel would force it into a mould that it does not fit into. It all depends on what you expect. My expectations were probably influenced by me having just read Sister Noon, which is indeed the recommended order of reading these two books, in my opinion. Recommended they are, of that there is no doubt.
I have now started Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, and it is again something quite different. I am looking forward to another interesting reading experience.