Nevermore Fiction: Casual Vacancy, Going Postal and more

“People are brought together by stories. Responsiveness is hardwired into us. We have a need for stories.”


The above is a summation of some comments at the Nevermore Book Club recently and is as good an introduction as any to this round up of fiction.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling is her first book for adults. It’s set in a small village where the sudden death of a councilman has left a major decision hanging on who will be elected to replace him. Our reviewer was unimpressed. She felt there were too many characters and most all of them were unlikeable.

Peter Taylor is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist who writes novels set in the South. His writing has drawn comparisons to Eudora Welty. The pace is somewhat slow but the writing is rich and evocative. Our reviewer had enjoyed In the Tennessee Country, and is currently reading A Summons to Memphis.

The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen by Thomas Caplan has an internationally known actor being recruited to stop a nuclear arms deal. It’s a rousing thriller with an introduction from Bill Clinton.

While Simon Lelic’s The Child Who won praise from our group, his latest novel The Facility was much less enthusiastically received. This bleak picture of a future Britain in which the government has used anti-terror laws to advance its own agenda was deemed too confusing, with unsympathetic characters.

An oldie but a goodie, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd was mentioned as a book that did a wonderful job of creating characters and depicting human emotion. It’s a moving book that also incorporates facts about bees as part of its story. Our reviewer’s assessment was met with a chorus of agreement!

Another older book winning praise was Going Postal by Terry Prachett, one of the best known Diskworld novels. Prachett’s fantasy books are not only very funny, they tend to be dead-on social satires, and this one is no exception. The short version of the plot is that a forger has been found guilty of his crimes and sentenced to running a post office. The filmed was also popular in Prachett’s native England.