Author:Charlotte Grimshaw
During the long summer holiday, the Lampton and Hallwright families gather in a large beach house belonging to Prime Minister David Hallwright and his wife Roza. The weather is perfect and outwardly all is well, but the harmony is disturbed when Simon Lampton’s brother arrives for a visit. Ford casts a cold eye over the company, barely disguising his contempt for David Hallwright. To add to Simon’s discomfort a young man called Arthur Weeks makes contact, asking about his secret past affair, and Roza begins to tell her small son Johnnie a continuous story about a group of fantasy creatures – a story that contains uncomfortable parallels with their current lives. When Simon agrees to meet secretly with Arthur Weeks, the result will threaten the security of them all.
Charlotte Grimshaw’s exhilaratingly gripping and clever narrative traces the lives of its beautiful people – ‘moral imbeciles’ in Ford’s words – as they jostle for position in their leader’s court. This humane and capacious novel, generous and faithful to its characters in ways that they are not to each other, articulates the ancient idea that to be moral is an act of consciousness, an effort of will.
A sly masterly novel
—— Literary ReviewFull of delicious satire, Grimshaw is much lauded in New Zealand and should have entered the British consciousness long ago.
—— Carla McKay , Daily MailThe unsettling juxtaposition of urbanity and blood-letting that characterises Grimshaw's other fiction keeps things edgy and jumpy here
—— New Zealand HeraldGrimshaw cleverly depicts a series of power struggles as her characters seek to manipulate each other, forcing the reader to question their motives.
—— Anna-Maria Ssemuyaba , Times Literary SupplementOpening the pages of Charlotte Grimshaw’s new novel Soon is akin to tilting the blinds in a dim room; the razor-like precision of her words flood your mind with crisp, searing light, such is the vivid clarity of her prose... It’s a wonderful novel which explores morality and the extent to which we are responsible for our own actions.
—— Steph Zajkowski , TVNZSmart political thriller… Spiked with satire… Sophisticated
—— iHard not to finish in one go, Yoko Ogawa's stories are perfect for spooky bedtime reading - and not-so-sweet dreams
—— Big IssuePolished, original and strange. She reveals humour, menace, and humanity in a quietly explosive book
—— Irish TimesHer combination of the strange with the visceral elegantly conveys silent inner worlds of misery and pain
—— MetroOgawa is original, elegant, very disturbing. I admire any writer who dares to work on this uneasy territory - we're on the edge of the unspeakable. The stories seem to penetrate right to the heart of the world, and find it a cold and eerie place. Her spare technique is very skilled. Every word is put to work. She sets up a small vibration, a disturbance, which begins quietly and generates wider and wider ripples of unease. There are no narrative tricks, but the stories generate a surprising amount of tension. You feel as if you've touched an icy hand
—— Hilary Mantel, author of Beyond BlackOgawa's tales possess a gnawing, erotic edge
—— Publishers WeeklyYoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.
—— Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize Winning author of A Personal MatterEach well narrated and haunting novella, about love, obsession and dark humour, has an unpredictable twist of viciousness coupled with compassion
—— The Hindu
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