Dreamers of the Day by Mary Doria Russell

In 1921, larger than life figures in history - including Winston Churchill, Lady Gertrude Bell and T E Lawrence - gathered in Egypt to thrash out the Cairo Peace Treaty, the building blocks for a modern Middle East. It was from here that the nations of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan would come into being following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Imagine being a fly on the wall when that was happening!
    Well, actually, in Mary Doria Russell's Dreamers of the Day, we have a kind of fly on the wall in the form of American spinster Agnes Shanklin. Agnes is forty and has led a sheltered life, at first under the thumb of her mother and then as a primary school teacher in Cleveland, Ohio. When the Spanish flu that followed the First World War robs her of her family, she finds herself bereft. But the need to take care of three estates pulls her back to reality and when she finds herself of independent means, she quits her job and goes shopping.
    Slowly her mother's admonishing voice in her head is replaced by shopgirl Mildred, who not only sends her home with the new shorter dresses of the twenties, a bob and a bundle of confidence, she also encourages her to travel. Agnes's destination is the Middle East because her sister and brother-in-law worked at a Christian mission near Beirut, and she has always wanted to see the Nile and the Pyramids.
    When she reaches Cairo, both the too-short dresses and her little dog cause mayhem at the hotel she has booked, but T E Lawrence comes to her rescue. When she reveals that he knew her sister, the two become friendly. Next thing you know she's invited to dine with the dignitaries, and Winston Churchill, who admires her North American frankness, invites her to accompany him on a jaunt into the desert where he brandishes his paintbrushes.
    She gets chatty with Clementine Churchill and Gertrude Bell and is soon adding her pennyworth about how one country dominating another through colonisation only causes grief for both parties. Lawrence eggs her on and enjoys the stir caused by her no-nonsense opinions.
    Agnes also befriends the dashingly handsome German official, Karl Weilbacher, who likes to walk her dog, takes Agnes to the tourist traps and encourages her to tell him all about her encounters with the diplomats. As Agnes becomes more and more besotted with Karl, there are niggling fears that perhaps he is a German spy and is simply using Agnes for political reasons. But Agnes is eager, for once in her life, to live for the moment and throw caution to the winds.
    Dreamers of the Day captures a hugely important moment in history through the eyes of an ordinary person. The foibles and peculiarities of historical figures are richly described - Russell notes in her acknowledgements that where possible she has used their very words and there is no doubt the novel is meticulously researched. Agnes is smart and educated enough to give wise and eloquent assessments of these people and their deeds in a way that is both informative and entertaining. This is another terrific read from an author who breathes life into history.
 

The Separation by Dinah Jefferies

The Separation is one of those wonderfully escapist novels that packs in an atmospheric setting, in this case, 1950s Malaya. It conjures up the somewhat dissolute expat way of life, the gin-slings and infidelity, which was probably just a way of coping with the heat. It reminded me a little of those old black and white movies where you can hear jungle drums and crickets in the background while the plantation owner mutters, The natives are restless tonight.
    Although half of the novel is set in England. This is because it is told from the point of view of two main characters. First there is Lydia Cartwright, who with her Rita Hayworth looks, has been a bit naughty and started an affair which she hasn't kept very secret. She has been visiting a friend who is ill, when she returns to find hubby Alec and her children gone, the house left empty with no note, so she begins to panic.
    The British District Officer tells her Alec and her young daughters have gone north to Alec's new posting in Ipoh, where the natives truly are restless - with Communist insurgents undermining British rule with guerilla tactics. So Lydia, must make the dangerous journey to join her family alone, even having to borrow cash from her worldly friend, Cicely, as Alec has taken most of their money.
    We read about Lydia's desperate journey where she witnesses atrocities when her bus is attacked. She finds herself taking care of a small boy, Maznan, whose mother has joined the rebels, when a striking man of mixed race joins her and helps her; I imagined a kind of Yul Brynner.
    But while Lydia is making this arduous journey, her daughters, Emma and Fleur, are travelling by cargo ship with Alec to England. This part of the story is narrated by eleven-year-old Emma, who with her wild red hair reminds her father too much of Lydia and as such she never seems able to please him. On the journey the family becomes friendly with amicable Veronica, who seems to have an attraction for Alec, and her creepy brother, Mr Oliver, who has wandering hands.
    In England, Emma finds it hard to settle in the cold climate and cramped house that they share with Alec's parents. Grandma fortunately is a kindly old soul but Emma is always in trouble, until boarding school seems to be the only solution. The school, run by nuns, is particularly bleak, and Emma finds it hard to cope with bullying on the one hand, and the harsh regime on the other, but at least she makes a friend in perpetually naughty Susan. On top of everything, her father has led his daughters to believe that their mother has abandoned them and is missing, believed dead.
    There is a lot going on in the story - we have Emma's dealing with adolescence and her missing mother, who she never really gives up on, amid difficult relationships with the adults in her life. And then there's Lydia's desperate search for her family, and a terrible bombshell that causes her to teeter on the edge of madness. How she copes and pulls herself together when one awful thing happens after another gives her a chance to grow strong and is a key part of the story. But how to navigate a path to the truth when everyone seems to be either lying or hiding a woeful secret of their own makes Lydia seem doubly blighted.
    The Separation is a captivating story which makes you keep reading to see what happens. Feelings run high, there's a ton of drama and missing links that make for tantalising if not very demanding reading. The Malaya setting is brilliantly recreated here, a testament to the author's research and her own childhood years spent in the colony.

A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie

This is a novel that sweeps you through epoch changing events of history. We experience this through the eyes of those caught up in war and rebellion, but also through the painstaking work and passion of archaeology. And who could be more passionate about the subject than Vivian Rose Spencer who manages to talk her father into letting her accompany his great friend, archaeologist Tahsin Bey, on a dig in Labraunda, Turkey.
    There are many references to the ancients: Pliny and Herodotus, Darius and Scylax, with Tahsin Bey as Vivian's teacher, and the two develop a bond that promises more than friendship. But it is the summer of 1914, with a war beginning that will turn friends into enemies; a time when love can turn so easily into betrayal.
    Vivian returns suddenly to England and becomes a VAD nurse, like her suffragette friend, and dreams of Tahsin Bey and of his great wish to visit the ancient site of Caspatyrus, now Peshawar. It is here he believes he will find the embellished coronet given to Scylax in return for his mission to discover where the Indus ran into the sea. She's a determined young woman, but becoming unhinged by her nursing experiences, she decides her calling is the dig in Peshawar not a war hospital.
    And Peshawar just happens to be where our second narrator comes from. Qayyum Gul was proud to fight for the British but losing an eye at Ypres has become disillusioned and haunted by his wartime experiences. He meets Viv on his train home, sharing cigarettes. Such interaction would be impossible with women from his own culture, but this time it seems quite natural and a moment of understanding passes between them.
    At the train station Qayyum's young brother, Najeeb, has arrived to meet him, but the boy is disconcerted by his brother's grim appearance and ends up helping Viv find her hotel instead. Viv sparks an interest in Najeeb to discover more about the past and his people's ancient history. But more than a decade later, Najeeb's skills as an archaeologist will take a back seat to defining moments in modern history and the three characters will meet again in very different and disturbing circumstances.
    A God in Every Stone is a very absorbing read that is also full of wisdom, creating a picture of a time when British colonisation is teetering, and social change is rushing forward in the wake of a world war that has turned everything on its head. Women will gain the vote in England, but in the north of India they are often not educated and must wear a burqua.
    Viv and Qayyum are each given a moral dilemma, and unintended consequences recur through the book as its characters must grapple with things bigger than themselves. The effects of terrible events like the massacre of Armenians, the casualties in the trenches and the violent quashing of peaceful resistance in India by the ruling British are reflected in the loss experienced by the main characters. Shamsie creates tremendous empathy in the reader for these characters so that you drift from moments to terrible foreboding to shock and even outrage.
    But there is also much to enjoy in the richness of her settings - from Labrounda to Peshawar, the heat and the intensity of momentary sensations: the touch of a hand on a wrist, the soothing quality of water, the colours and tastes. It all adds up to masterful storytelling that makes history come alive and also makes you want to find out more about it.

Cicada by Moira McKinnon

Moira McKinnon's impressive first novel begins when Emily Lidscombe, a well-to-do English woman, gives birth to a black baby at Cicada Springs, the holding she runs with her husband in Western Australia.  This is a challenging situation to begin with and her husband, William, reacts with rage and vengeance. Set just a few years after First World War, this is a time when the relationship between white landowners and Aborigine people is difficult at best.
    Distraught, terrified and still recovering from the birth, Emily escapes into the wilderness on horseback, accompanied by her Aborigine maid, Wirritjil. Most of the rest of the book follows their escape and survival in the relentlessly hot and arid landscape, while William sends John, his stockman, and his war veteran brother, Trevor, to hunt them down and bring Emily back.
    The two women form an uneasy alliance, and gradually Emily begins to trust Wirritjil, though she is hampered by an injured foot that threatens to turn septic. Fortunately Wirritjil knows how to keep them both alive and her bush survival skills make for fascinating reading.
    By chance, Emily and Wirritjil meet a helpful herdsman who is part of a team taking their cattle to Broome on the coast. She asks him to send a telegraph to her sister in England as Kathryn Lidscombe is smart and will know what to do. But soon the story of the missing women is out and events call for a police contingent to search as well. The pace picks up and what starts out as a survival story becomes more nail-bitingly tense as the women's pursuers close in.
    Scenes showing the harsh treatment of Aborigine people, their marginalisation on their own land, and summary punishments for minor offences are vividly recounted. But they aren't the only victims. William is disturbed by feverish dreams and fears no doubt brought about by his tuberculosis. He has been rescued by Emily's mother from a poor family, educated and cared for as a kind of pet project. The farm is to be the making of him but it is all going wrong and he'd rather be a poet. Trevor, illiterate and haunted by what he had to do in the war is also struggling.
    In fact you are hard placed to find a white character with any dignity - most are brutalised by their attempts to make a living in such a harsh terrain and their dealings with the Aborigines, seen by the whites as inferior with a potential for mischief. Kathryn is a breath of fresh air, but the main heroes are the Aborigines Wirritjil and the tracker, Charcoal.
     Moira McKinnon has an academic background in indigenous health and has researched widely to paint a brilliant picture of Aboriginal folklore, language and their close connection with the land. She obviously has a barrow to push, but this doesn't make the book a simple exposition. The story is strong enough to sweep the reader along and her descriptions of the landscape, wildlife and weather are breathtakingly real. Cicada is altogether riveting.

A Treacherous Paradise by Henning Mankell

Henning Mankell writes two kinds of novel: dark and moody detective novels, usually featuring troubled Swedish policeman, Kurt Wallander, or stories set in Africa. I've read quite a few of the Wallander books, which are never anything short of terrific, but A Troubled Paradise is the first I've read of Mankell's Africa books.
    As a historical novel this seems a new departure for this author. It is set over a hundred years ago in Mozambique, at that time a colony of Portugal.  But there is at the heart of the book, a kind of mystery, which is based on a little known fact that Mankell came across: that a Swedish woman was for a brief period the owner of a flourishing brothel in the port of Lourenco Marques -  now Maputo. Where she came from and what she did after that, no one seems to know.
    Mankell teases this out into the story of Hanna Renstrom, a teenage girl from an impoverished rural family in the north of Sweden,  sent by her mother to the city to make her own way in life. After a stint as a maid, Hanna is given the opportunity to work on a steamship as cook. Soon after, she is married to the third mate, only to be widowed a short time later when her husband dies of an unknown fever off the coast of Africa.
    Unable to contain her grief, Hanna decides to stay at the port where her husband is buried at sea, escaping her ship by night and making her way to what appears to be a hotel. Hanna suffers an illness here herself, is cared for by the exotic looking female staff and only realises a few days later that the hotel is really a brothel. As the weeks pass, Hanna feels unable to leave, the decision to return to Sweden is too difficult to make, but no obvious alternatives appear either.
    Fortunately Hanna has some money, a widow's pension given her by the shipping company, so no immediate departure is necessary. This gives Mankell the opportunity to describe through Hanna's eyes the environment created by the white Portuguese colonists, where blacks far outnumber the whites who have all the power and use harsh measures to maintain control.
    There is an intense discomfort in this relationship, and Hanna is appalled at the treatment of blacks by their bosses, their lack of rights and the brutal punishments that meet the merest of misdemeanours. But making friends with the black prostitutes and other native staff also creates distrust and uncertainty. Many of her efforts to help backfire, and she is shocked to find she reacts violently when one of the prostitutes drops a tray.
    Mankell creates some wonderful characters: the unpleasantly evil nurse, Ana Dolores; the lovely and worldly prostitute, Felicia, who becomes as close to Hanna as any of the girls; the wise yet volatile brothel owner, Senhor Vas; the crocodile farming, guard-dog breeder, Senhor Pimenta, who makes a fortune out of people's fear. Even Vas's pet chimpanzee, Carlos, has loads of personality, and Hanna recognises in herself his same the sense of displacement.
    Over the course of the novel, Hanna has to grow up. She has come from an incredibly sheltered background, but learns to read and speak Portuguese, to run a business, to figure out who she can trust and who she cannot. She gains enough confidence to champion the cause of a black woman who murders her white husband, and this doesn't earn Hanna any favours.
    There is certainly much to think about here, but the extraordinary setting, the engaging character of Hanna and the events that happen to her provide a very absorbing story. There is as much pace in the book as any of Mankell's gripping detective novels, with the bonus of taking you to a very different place and time, albeit a grim and tragic one.