Tag Archives: Jon McGregor

#BookReview ‘Lean Fall Stand’ by @jon_mcgregor #contemporary

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Jon McGregor is one of the most original novelists I have read and Lean Fall Stand doesn’t disappoint. It is a novel of three parts, beginning thrillingly at an Antarctic research station when a storm suddenly separates the three expedition members. We know tragedy happens, but not what or how. Surviving expedition guide Robert ‘Doc’ Wright suffers a stroke and is unable to tell what happened on the ice. Jon McGregorLean Fall Stand is Doc’s story as he struggles to recover his ability to do the smallest daily personal tasks, to choose the right word and pronounce it correctly, to make himself understood. The change of pace between part 1 ‘Lean’ when the accident happens in Antarctica, and part 2 ‘Fall’ is abrupt and shocking. Through the viewpoint of Doc’s wife, Anna, we realise with a jolt just how bad his communication issues are and what this means for their marriage and family, his career, his work colleagues and the enquiry into the accident. Just as the three men are alone and lost in the Antarctic storm, Doc and Anna are alone and lost when he returns home from hospital. He cannot fasten his trousers; she is his carer. Each feels unable to connect with the other.
This is a beautifully written novel about a tough subject and McGregor does not flinch from making both Doc and Anna unreachable personalities at times. This is not a sentimental novel. It is a novel about communication and the lack of it, whether limited by geography, failed radio and communications equipment, aphasia [language deficits caused by damage to the brain], or simply not speaking to our loved ones about the things that matter. Part 3 ‘Stand’ sees the language connections beginning again as Doc begrudgingly attends speech therapy class. Anna, struggling not only with Doc but with her two children who upbraid her for her mono-syllabic conversation, takes refuge in the garden where winter is turning to spring.
I finished the book never understanding clearly what happened on the ice. The mystery that McGregor hints at – legal issues, failed equipment, bad decisions, corporate responsibility – felt like a plot technique to move the story along. As Doc is unable to express himself clearly, even at the end of the book, we will never know what really happened at Station K. It’s as if the novel ends part-way through Doc’s recovery and there is more to tell.
Thought-provoking. At times uncomfortable, and difficult to read about the process of stroke recovery. Skilfully, and beautifully, written.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK

Read my review of McGregor’s RESERVOIR 13.

If you like this, try:-
‘Unsettled Ground’ by Claire Fuller
‘Doppler’ by Erlend Loe
‘The Man Who Disappeared’ by Clare Morrall

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview LEAN FALL STAND by @jon_mcgregor https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5eP via @Sandra Danby

#BookReview ‘Reservoir 13’ by @jon_mcgregor #contemporary

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Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor is a thoughtful, intelligent telling of what happens to a village when a person goes missing. Told after the event, it brings a new angle of understanding to the post-event trauma of those on the outer circles of tragedy. Jon McGregorA girl goes missing in a village surrounded by moors, caves and reservoirs. ‘The girl’s name was Rebecca, or Becky, or Bex.’ At no point do we hear the viewpoint of the girl, her parents, or the investigating police. Slowly the story unfolds as we are told the life of the village through the years after it happened by an omniscient narrator, disconnected from the action.
I loved the way McGregor recounts the daily comings and goings of the village, the farmers, the vicar, the schoolchildren. The rhythm of life and nature is mesmeric, the message is ‘life goes on’. Love affairs start and end, babies are born as are lots of sheep, cows are milked, allotments tended. The village sits within the natural world of peaks, woods and rivers and, sometimes only in a single sentence, we are told of the hatching of butterflies, the unfurling of new leaves, the water running beneath the bridge. The writing style is sparse and all the more beautiful for that. The action switches from one person’s life to the next, sometimes in a simple factual sentence such as ‘this happened’. But as the action moves from one local to another, the story is slowly, painstakingly pieced together of a village which struggles to leave behind the mystery of what happened to Rebecca/Becky/Bex.
At the beginning I was unsure how the story would unfold: murder, missing person, runaway teenager, abduction? It is this not knowing which casts a shadow over everyone in the village.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Read my review of LEAN FALL STAND, also by Jon McGregor.

If you like this, try:-
‘Smash All the Windows’ by Jane Davis
‘Himself’ by Jess Kidd
‘The Museum of You’ by Carys Bray

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview RESERVOIR 13 by @jon_mcgregor via @Sandra Danby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2qa