Friday Black – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Every now and then something catches my eye, I buy it and read it straight away. There is no rhyme nor reason. Friday Black is one such book. It is a book of short stories by a debut author and comes in at just under 200 pages. It is a very interesting little book of short stories, all are dark and all deal with current important issues, for example, racism, poverty, violence and a post nuclear war, apocalyptic world (hopefully not a pressing concern at the time of writing this!).  The difference with these stories over others is that they are told in the form of science fiction, an alternative reality or a supernatural basis. Probably the best comparison for them is with the TV series Black Mirror, which I love. Apparently there is a new four part series on Netflix this Christmas.  Can’t wait!

I know I don’t do spoilers but I want to try and explain the genre a little better. The story ‘Friday Black’ (of book title fame) is very clever. It looks at the ugly side of capitalism through the phenomenon of Black Friday in an American store but, and this is what I like, it is written as if it is a Hunger Games or zombie movie. Which in itself is a very apt metaphor and describes the madness and crowd mentality perfectly.

Short stories must be hard to write as the author needs to engage the reader right from the very start, fortunately, these stories manage to do that perfectly. I would like to say that I enjoyed every single story and I did to an extent but there are a couple that aren’t as strong as the others.

 I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book and I haven’t been disappointed. I look forward to seeing more from Adjei-Brenyah as I think he has a lot to say and is saying it from a very clever, new angle. 

The Changeling – Joy Williams

Reading this book I had a very strange sense of deja vu. Not because it is a 1978 book republished for its 40th Anniversary and I have read it before (which I haven’t) but because the setting is almost identical to another excellent book I have read, We were liars by E. Lockhart. The similarities are interesting, The Changeling  is set on an island owned by a very rich American family.  There is a main house on the island which is ruled over by a patriarchal figure and there is a large number of children living on the island as well, some related, some not but all running wild and free. Maybe Lockhart was inspired by The Changeling but even if she was, the similarities end there.

I enjoyed the first few chapters of the book; Pearl has run away from the island and is sitting in a Florida bar getting drunk with her baby, Sam, until her other half turns up to take her back. Then something pretty horrendous happens and we see Pearl back on the island several years later. This is where it slowly spirals into madness and frankly weirdness.

What follows is an alcohol fuelled, delirium narrative. In other words, it is completely unreliable and seems to slip into fantasy and myth regularly. Who are we to believe? Is Pearl speaking the truth or is she hallucinating? Can we believe the children and what are they? Or even Thomas, her brother-in-law? There is something very magical and mythical about this book with serious dark undertones and mental instability. 

The second last chapter is key and since I don’t do spoilers I’m just going to say it really hits the jackpot on the ‘what the hell is going on’ scale. Suddenly, everything you thought was real might not be and it made me rethink the whole book. I have a suspicion that if you are interested in recreational drugs then you may well enjoy this or at least understand more of what is going on. There are moments of brilliance and because of that I liked The Changeling. The flashes of brilliance overcame the weirdness and the unsettling and dark tale sparked my imagination. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Fifty per cent of me loves this book and the other fifty per cent doesn’t.  What I loved was the story. I thoroughly enjoyed Dorian’s downward spiral into debauchery, cruelty and general all round badness. Who doesn’t love a bad boy? And I was completely convinced by the appeal he had to others and his ability to corrupt and ruin them. Anyone who was foolish enough to get too close to Dorian ended up dead or as good as. Marvellous!

I also liked Wilde’s use of the painting to show Dorian’s true self, mirroring his inner evil and wicked deeds which are hinted at in the book rather than spelled out. It is up to the reader to fill in the blanks using their imagination. Partly, I’m sure, because of the legal implications of writing about homosexual relationships at the time and also because, in this way, readers have to acknowledge their own indecent thoughts and imaginations. I believe the argument that Wilde did not write indecent material, it was assumed by the readers’ indecent minds, was used in Wilde’s defence during his trial for sodomy and gross indecency – probably not an argument that helped his case!  

The large amount of period and cultural details is fascinating and I really appreciated the end notes in my edition. Knowing background details to the story added a richness to the reading experience and a desire to research more. 

There is always a but and this time it is because I don’t think this novel should have been a novel. It feels very well staged and the dialogue is more like a play script than a novel. There are several long soliloquies in the book and many witty one-liners but they don’t read smoothly. However, if they were written into a script I think it could have been very amusing and the novel is written in such a way we can see the characters entering and exiting the narrative, usually very dramatically. Maybe, this was the Edwardian equivalent of the modern day novel written with the film rights in mind.  

This is a good story and I would definitely recommend it as it is a gothic classic but I also reckon that Wilde was a playwright not an author. Oh, and by the way my edition was the Penguin Classics edition as shown above, the only cover I could find that accurately depicts Dorian with blonde hair as he has in the book.