Book Review: Any Other Mouth by Anneliese Mackintosh

I love Any Other Mouth. In each word we inhabit the skin and see through the eyes of a young woman growing up, learning about life and her body, struggling with overpowering grief. She drinks, smokes, sleeps around, can't hold down a relationship, changes career at the drop of a hat, can re-write an entire PhD thesis in a weekend, stares for hours at a Google Map of her now dead father frozen in time on a deckchair in the back garden. She may have Borderline Personality Disorder. We experience some of what it is to be her. And it is both eye opening and a riotous adventure.

In the epigraph, Anneliese Mackintosh states: '68% happened; 32% did not happen; I will never tell' and this teasing game of fiction and biography that she sets in motion parched my mouth with anticipation for what was to come. It doesn’t matter whether the work that follows is a searing and amazingly frank account of a life lived in the fast lane, or a cunning character study through fiction. The writing is first rate: quick, luscious, direct. Her approach to language mirrors her protagonist’s approach to life: she charges at a thing, she doesn't shirk, she tells stories full of heart that make the spaces between people feel less vast than they sometimes might.

One of the joys of reading is in discovering different ways of living life, different responses to the challenges and joys it throws up. We most often do this by reading about cultures other than our own, and at times the more harrowing the better in this sort of reading. (See the universal love of Khaled Hosseini’s pity-porn novels of Afghanistan for one example.) But we are sadly less willing to read books that present a different view of life in our own society, or that treat with empathy subjects we would rather believe did not happen. In this searing, unflinching book, we get a first-hand view of one experience of life with Borderline Personality Disorder. It is a book that asks us to reappraise our expectations for behavior, often uncomfortably so. And that, in my opinion, is one of the things that the arts should be all about.

In its nihilistic rejection of convention and vibrant lust for life Any Other Mouth reminded me of AM Homes brilliant novel Music for Torching. But much more than this exciting, blackly comic read, it feels important too. Important, as understanding perspectives on life different from your own always are. It may be a bit of a Marmite book, and will undoubtedly provoke some anger by some people who feel the content is not always 'appropriate' but perhaps because of this, it is a book that should be widely read. Any Other Mouth is engaging, unexpected, gripping, poignant, shocking and exciting. A great read.

(Note: One word of caution: the blurb for this book doesn’t really make any sense! How do you react when you discover your boyfriend is cheating on you with his dead grandma? You don’t. It’s doesn’t happen like that! Don’t be put off, Any Other Mouth is not as ridiculous as the blurb suggests!)

Book Review: Music for Torching - A.M. Homes

To celebrate the 200^th review on Books, Time, and Silence, I will be re-posting 10 of my favourite reviews.

On day 9 it is A.M. Homes's wonderfully nihilistic Music for Torching.

Read: July 2007

Music for Torching in one tweet-sized chunk:
A delirious vision of suburban life gone wrong. Vitriolic, nihilistic, neurotic, it is a novel of scandalous normality, of impotence in the face of life.

Music for Torching is a huge blazing fire of a novel, consuming the vagaries of suburban family life like dry timber. Vitriolic, nihilistic, neurotic, it is a novel of scandalous normality, of impotence in the face of life. At times it reads like Revolutionary Road for the late twentieth century, there is that same trapped sense of powerlessness, that same longing for more, that same pressure to conform. I can’t remember when I was last so utterly hooked on a book within the first five pages.

Paul and Elaine’s marriage is burning out of control, they are isolated and atomised and horrified by what they have become. We first met them in a short story in The Safety of Objects when they enjoyed a hallucinogenic refrain from family pressures smoking crack while their children were away. Looking back on it in this book, they remember that as a moment of almost unimaginable happiness, as though it was the last time they felt united and whole. Now their nihilistic tendencies are tearing their household apart. In between passionless sex they bicker and nag, have affairs and wish they could make their lives good again. Their only pleasures involves dinner parties with their friends when they can bask in the impression of neighbourhood contentment.

The pressure is building, something has to give.

One night Elaine cannot face cooking. Paul offers to Barbecue. Egged on by their inanimate lives Elaine kicks over the barbecue setting the house on fire. Feeling deliciously liberated they get in the car and go for a meal with the children. But the house is not burnt to the ground, only gutted. Denied the cataclysmic freedom of total destruction Elaine and Paul can only try to rebuild, both the house and their fractured selves.

What ensues is a dark and claustrophobic journey through the frenzied minds of a couple desperately trying to recreate the image of family happiness. Cue all manor of sexual affairs, not to mention a crack team of house cleaners in space suits and the ubiquitous school hostage situation. But no matter how good and honest their intentions Paul and Elaine are never quite able to get hold of themselves, and bring everything back to how it should be. And normality is sucking them into a false sense of security.

Homes has a vibrant and to-the-point style of prose which makes her writing incredibly warm and inviting. Her characters are well conceived and brilliantly realised, flawed and infuriatingly lovable at the same time. She is concise and her vocabulary is exact; reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald in her ability to say a lot with few words. She is a very good writer and this is a very good book.

Music for Torching is a delirious technicolor vision of suburban life gone wrong. The Times review probably describes it best: “Homes doesn’t so much critique suburban American life as shoot it, stab it, chuck it in the boot of her car and drive it into a lake.” The exhilaration contained within these pages is difficult to diffuse, it is a glorious fire-cracker of a book and you are going to love it.

8.5 out of 10

Bob Dylan - Chronicles

This is a different kind of autobiography, dealt in individual snapshots. The result is intriguing. There are parts - notably where a young Dylan is visiting people’s houses in Greenwich Village and rifling through their bookshelves, reading anything and everything that he can get his hands on – where you can feel the excitement of youth and ideas as they course through his veins. It filled me with inspiration to see Dylan as he searches for, and finds, the poetic lover of ideas that he was to become. There are other parts where we encounter his eighties self on the verge of a renewal, or the teenager leaving home and embarking on an adventure. This is not a linear account, it jumps back and forth like a Greatest Hits album, offering a totally unique insight into the life of one of the few true Twentieth Century icons. A must read for ALL music lovers.

7 out of 10

Music for Torching - A.M. Homes

Read: July 2007

What a great writer A.M. Homes is. Music for Torching is a huge blazing fire of a novel, consuming the vagaries of suburban family life like dry timber. Vitriolic, nihilistic, neurotic, it is a novel of scandalous normality, of impotence in the face of life. I can’t remember when I was last hooked into a book within the first five pages.

Paul and Elaine’s marriage is burning out of control, they are isolated and atomised and horrified by what they have become. We first met them in a short story in The Safety of Objects when they enjoyed a hallucinogenic refrain from family pressures smoking crack while their children were away. Looking back on it in this book, they remember that as a moment of almost unimaginable happiness, as though it was the last time they felt united and whole. Now their nihilistic tendencies are tearing their household apart. In between passionless sex they bicker and nag, have affairs and wish they could make their lives good again. Their only pleasures involves dinner parties with their friends when they can bask in the impression of their neighbourhood contentment. The pressure is building, something is about to explode.

One night Elaine cannot face cooking. Paul offers to Barbecue. Egged on by their inanimate lives Elaine kicks over the barbecue setting the house on fire. Feeling deliciously liberated they get in the car and go for a meal with the children. But the house is not burnt to the ground, only gutted. Denied the cataclysmic freedom of total destruction Elaine and Paul can only try to rebuild, both the house and their fractured selves.

What ensues is a dark and claustrophobic journey through the frenzied minds of a couple desperately trying to recreate the image of family happiness. With a cast of seemingly normal neighbours to help them out, Elaine and Paul strive to renovate their burning lives. Cue all manor of sexual affairs, and a crack team of house cleaners in space suits and the ubiquitous school hostage situation. But no matter how good and honest their intentions Paul and Elaine are never quite able to get hold of themselves, and bring everything back to how it should be. And normality is sucking them into a false sense of security.

Homes has a vibrant and to-the-point style of prose which makes her writing incredibly warm and inviting. Her characters are well conceived and brilliantly realised, flawed and infuriatingly lovable at the same time. She is concise and her vocabulary is exact; reminiscent of Fitzgerald in her ability to say a lot with so few words. In short, she is a very good writer and this is a very good book.

Music for Torching is a delirious technicolor vision of suburban life gone wrong. The Times review probably describes it best: “Homes doesn’t so much critique suburban American life as shoot it, stab it, chuck it in the boot of her car and drive it into a lake.” Newsweek described it as “a hell-bound joyride of a book.” The exhilaration contained within these pages is difficult to diffuse, it is a glorious fire-cracker of a book and you are going to love it.


8.5 out of 10

Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates

Read: February 2009

Revolutionary Road in one tweet sized chunk:

The archetypal suburban drama, Revolutionary Road is a fine piece of controlled narrative fiction by an author in full control of his craft.

It is the 1950’s and with the blossoming cold war, McCarthy witch hunts, and economic boom, America is gripped by the need to conform. The revolutionary road which began in 1776 has led here, a new suburban cul de sac where neighbours call each other ‘darling’ and share cocktails on the lawn.

Frank and April Wheeler are a young, talented, outwardly successful couple with two children, a nice suburban house in Revolutionary Road, and a sociable group of friends. But, like many outwardly successful suburbanite couples in literature, there is a maggot eating away at the core of their lives. They have succumbed to the age old suburban delusion that all their dreams will come true. So while they wait for this bright future to dawn they make grandiose plans to move to Europe, drink far too much , and give way to their own uncontrollable passions. They are each emotionally fragile; as a couple they are teetering on the brink. And when April falls pregnant for a third time and they are forced to put their plans to emigrate to Europe on hold, the fragile facade they have built for themselves begins to crumble away.

The novel opens with a glorious set-piece at a community theatre where the newly formed Laurel Players are about to make their first performance. April is the only member with a theatre background and as such she has been cast in the lead role. But they are underprepared, nervous, and hopelessly disorganised. When one of the cast pulls out at the last minute they are thrown, and more than anyone else April is left alone on the stage to face the humiliation of failure. It is a fearsomely well written beginning, fantastically described, and encapsulating their fragile social milieu almost perfectly.

As the plot progresses inevitably onwards we meet a host of delightfully rounded characters. From the brash businessman Bart Pollock, to Shep and Milly and their impossibly ordinary marriage, and the sad secret kept hidden by the Givings, Revolutionary Road feels like a template upon which all suburban dramas have been written. If you enjoy the discordant relationship at the heart of Revolutionary Road, you should try Music For Torching by A.M. Homes, which updates that nihilistic attitude for the end of the 1990s. Between them they act almost as a conversation down the years: delineating how the world changes, and yet nothing changes.

This is a fine piece of controlled narrative fiction, superbly written by an author in full control of his craft. The plot throws up convincing feints and swerves which make you believe you know where it is going, only to find yourself utterly wrong. Nothing is ever quite what you expect. And when the inevitable cataclysm comes, it is not the all-encompassing destruction you are expecting. It is a modest, powerful, understated ending, reeking with the impossibility of controlling a life which can never be controlled.

7.5 out of 10