A Perfectly Good Man by Patrick Gale

This book represents the unpacking of a character, Father Barnaby Johnson. It begins as he witnesses the suicide of one of his parishioners, and helps him through the process with a prayer. Father Barnaby is a good man, but flawed, and struggling like all human beings. He is married to Dorothy aka Dot, and he has two children, Jim aka Phuc and Carrie. This family has to deal with all the things that other families deal with, but there is a sort of delicacy and compassion in the way Gale writes about the issues. Patrick Gale is great on story and inventive in his retelling: the book is a collection of chapters written from the point of view of different characters and at different ages. Gradually, ever so gradually, the story unfolds as it does in real life, with revelations making sense of things you had discovered earlier and changing their meanings.

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

This is an interestingly constructed book. Years ago my father made me read EM Forster’s Aspects of the Novel, which outlined half a dozen plot styles and proposed that all novels fall into one of the categories. There is nothing new, according to Forster. The most intriguing plot style for me was the one used in Thornton wilder’s Bridge Over San Luis Rey, which described a single incident (the bridge collapsing) and the impact that event had on the lives of people on the bridge. Let the Great World Spin uses the same technique: a tightrope walker strings a line between the two World Trade Centre buildings (it really happened) and walks across. Various people see it and the event is woven into their lives. Eventually they all seem to intersect one way or another. It’s quite a fascinating take on the plot style, though it takes all novel to get there. Enjoyable, nicely written, interesting characters.