The Fear Index, Four Stories and Wish You Were Here

The description sounded good. A thriller by Robert Harris about a hedge fund sounded like fun. Unfortunately The Fear Index is all plot and little substance. It follows the legend that is Alex Hoffman, a financial genius whose life begins to unravel. The book has good pace and is what I'm told is a real page turner. It's just that I need something more out of a novel. I love thrillers on TV or at the movies. But not in books. But that's just me.

Alan Bennett has just not written enough fiction. And when he does, they are very short. The Uncommon Reader is a novella of 121 pages, but a masterpiece. Smut is two short stories and Four Stories is, well, four. "The Laying On Of Hands" is a fine and hilarious depiction of a memorial service. All sorts of famous people unexpectedly arrive as Clive Dunlop (the deceased) was a masseur. In "The Clothes They Stood Up In", an ordinary mature couple find their flat has been stripped bare. And I mean bare. Every last bit. How they eventually trace their possessions is a wonderful twist. Midgley visits his father who is dying in hospital. A comic story of a family finally  understanding their past. I had already read "The Lady In The Van", and it isn't fiction. It is from his collection of various writings called Writing Home that is one of my all time favourite books. And non fiction at that. The author allowed Miss Shepherd to park her van on his drive for fifteen years, after she struggled with the authorities for the previous five out on the street. His diaries tell an amazing story that sounds more like fiction than anything from true life.

I had only ever read one book by Graham Swift and that was his prizewinning Last Orders. So when his latest novel came out in paperback, I thought it might be worth a try. This is not a fun book. It tells a distressing story of Jack and Ellie, childhood friends from neighbouring farms in Devon. Now married and in their late forties, the death of their parents still haunts them (well Jack anyway), even though their lifestyle has hugely improved having inherited a profitable caravan park on the Isle of Wight. Jack cannot put out of his mind the mad cow disease that crippled their farms. And to top it all, they receive news that his brother Tom has been killed in Iraq. As I said, not a fun read. As Jack makes the journey (think Last Orders) for Tom's repatriation (a wonderful portrayal) and funeral, he ponders on the past. The narration does jump about between the present and the past, possibly a bit too much and as a result I found the storytelling quite a bit uneven.  But this is definitely a "condition of England" tale, and one that is important to tell.