A Town Called Solace (2020) by Mary Lawson

Book Review

A Town Called Solace (2020)

by Mary Lawson

   Here is another Booker longlist title that didn't make the shortlist cut.  Canadian writer Lawson picked up another Booker longlist nomination in 2006 for her second book, The Other Side of the Bridge.  It's clearly central to the Booker Prize to throw at least one longlist nomination to a Canadian writer, you could call it a "slot" alongside slots for African writers, writers from South Asia, writers from Aus/NZ, the English spot, the non-English UK slot, the Caribbean slot and the American slot.  I guess you would call Lawson a regionalist, the region being "Northern Canada"- is that the suburbs of Toronto?

   A Town Called Solace is a classic Booker longlist pick, a quiet book about little lives in a small town in Canada with some interesting themes and a well developed plot. If you actually pick up A Town Called Solace, sit down and read it, you won't be sorry, but getting started might be tough.  It's impossible to explain without spoiling aspects of the plot. 

The Sweetness of Water (2021) by Nathan Harris

The power of Oprah!

Book Review

The Sweetness of Water (2021)

by Nathan Harris

  It is not every year that an Oprah's Book Club selection makes the Booker Prize longlist, but here we are, a genuinely in-stock, best-sellng American novel that also made the Booker longlist.  Not the shortlist, which was announced last week, but considering The Sweetness of Water was already a sales success, the lack of shortlist status shouldn't matter in the least for Nathan Harris.  The Sweetness of Water is a work of historical fiction, set in the Faulkner-esque Southern town of Old Ox in the aftermath of the Southern defeat in the American civil war.   Harris provides characters of both races, genders and sexuality, with a melting pot mentality I found rewarding (and often lacking in the sometimes binary world of literary fiction)

   I liked The Sweetness of Water, but didn't love it.  Ultimately Harris pulls up short in bringing the events to an unforeseen or deeply significant ending- maybe this is why he Booker jury didn't pick him for the short-list.  Or maybe it's the Oprah Book Club thing.