To The Last Page

Homer and Langley spans almost a century of American history from the turn of the century, through the Great War, the Depression, WWII, Prohibition, the wars in Korea and Vietnam, the Moon landing, the counter-culture movement of the 60s to the Watergate scandal and beyond. That's a lot of ground to cover in a relatively slim novel, but what is interesting about Doctorow's spin on this important period of American history is the perspective.  It's hard not to see something significant and symbolic then in the author's choice to view these events from the perspective of the Collyer brothers - Homer, a blind man, and Langley, a retired soldier, a victim of WWI - two eccentrics who rarely leave their large New York Fifth Avenue townhouse. The shutters closed to the world outside, the brothers are however not untouched by the great changes that go on over the decades. Even then, extending the lifespan of the Collyer brothers in this way and speculating on their motivations...

Lewis Trondheim's fun Lapinot adventure from 1994 – one that remains unconnected to the main body of his Lapinot work for Dargaud – is perhaps his first fully accomplished solo work as writer and artist, after honing his craft over the course of the epic Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie . And really, even though the narrative is rather straightforward – it's basically one long running chase scene over 140 pages, as the unnamed rabbit character in a medieval setting flees from Mildiou, an evil villain with pretensions to the throne – it is nonetheless a huge leap forward for Trondheim in terms of its pacing, its dynamic layouts, its sense of fun and adventure, and in some delightful quips and humour. The line drawing is also simply superb. Mildiou then is a natural progression for Trondheim after the liberating creative experience of Lapinot et les carottes de Patagonie , one that leads the way for a character to be explored in a variety of ways (although apart from the hor...

As the introduction by the writer and artist of Akira notes, this is his eighth collection of his shorter work, but the only one available so far in the west (and even now it sadly seems to be out-of-print). It's an eclectic collection, most of the stories having a science-fiction theme, but within that the tone and quality of the work varies widely. The imagery, the exciting dynamic layouts and many of the themes are however instantly recognisable as the work of one of the best contemporary Japanese manga artists. Like his most famous work in Akira , but also elsewhere in his film and anime work, there is very much a celebration of anti-establishment sentiments – often personified in the form of long-haired hippy characters, whose very existence alone seems to threaten disorder and rebellion. Often the characters battle against mere machines, sentinels sent out to maintain order – which again looking very much like the work in Akira . But the rebelliousness can also be in the ver...

During the Great Depression, Marcus Connolly has left his wife in Tennessee behind and, like many others, has taken to the road, hopping freight trains, heading west. Unlike most of the other hobos he meets along the way however, Connolly isn’t looking for work or for a place with better prospects to settle down – he’s looking for a man, a gray man with a horribly scarred face who has stolen something important from him. He’s not the only person looking for the scarred man however, there are others who have their own terrible stories to tell of their encounters with the man who legend has come to know as the shiver-man, and each are just as determined to stop his progress across the country leaving terror in his wake, and kill him, if indeed he is even human… Set during the time of the Great Depression and taking place in the heat and dust of the American dustbowl, the period and the location of the Robert Jackson Bennett’s novel is an unusual one for a horror story, yet there’s someth...

As a thriller Winterland has its work cut out to convince the reader right from the start. The criminal mastermind - the head of a business consortium planning to lure lucrative American investment into Richmond Plaza, Dublin's newest development complex, a prestigious high-rise Docklands office block and one of the tallest buildings in Europe - right from the outset commits a fatal mistake in trying to prevent the publication of a potentially damaging report; he gets the wrong man killed. Noel Rafferty is a well-known gangster and drug dealer, but he has nothing to do with their business ...except he has the same name and is the nephew of the man that should have been killed. So he corrects the mistake by getting rid of the other Noel Rafferty as well and making it look like an accident. Er, right. Two Noel Raffertys killed the same day? An accident? Bit of a coincidence, is it not? Someone might think this is a wee bit suspicious... We know this, but it takes about a hundred and...

Exquisitely written, Dimitri Verhulst's short novel is a work of rare beauty that is relatively uncommon in modern literature – a brief novella, a concise and poetic meditation on life, specifically on the condition of reaching the end of one's life. The life in question is that of Madame Verona, a widow living alone in a small village after the death of her husband Monsieur Potter. Although over the years her great beauty is desired by the men in the village, Madame Verona clings to the memory of her husband, keeping only the company of the stray dogs that are drawn to her; a simple but unusual attraction that she hopes will stand her in good favour in the next life. Verhulst considers Madame Verona's condition at this delicate stage in her life principally through the setting, specifically in the little village of Oucwègne, a village build on three hills. It's to this remote little place of no more than forty people that once had a cow for a mayor that she, a piano te...

The purpose behind Black Mamba Boy is a simple one. It’s the author’s attempt to record for posterity the journey undertaken by her father in 1930’s Somalia, a journey measured in years of abuse and hardships endured as well as kilometres crossed, but along the way it’s also a testimony to the actions of the occupying Italian military forces in Somalia, Abyssinia, Eritrea and Sudan and atrocities committed there by the troops of Mussolini’s fascist regime. In a way, in the growth of Jama, the upheaval he undergoes in the loss of his mother, in his search for his father, in his subsequent attempts to stand on his own two feet and make his fortune, can also be seen as the growth of a nation or a continent trying to find its own place in the world. Nadifa Mohamed’s writing isn’t perhaps strong enough to give the novel this greater dimension, but perhaps that’s not the author’s intention. Taken simply as an account of an extraordinary childhood and upbringing and a remarkable tale of surv...

Not only is Osamu Tezuka's 1976 graphic novel MW a remarkably different kind of story from the Japanese master of comics, but challenging his country's political infrastructure, the corruption behind election string-pulling, the government connections with rich and influential businessmen and the thorny question of US involvement in Japan, it's a daring and challenging work of great relevance.  More than that, Tezuka explores the human, or perhaps more accurately, the inhuman impulses that lie behind such actions. At the centre of the story is an unusual love affair between a priest, Father Garai, and a morally corrupt young man, Yuki. The two of them have in the past survived the accidental release of a deadly experimental virus called MW that wiped out the entire population of a small Japanese island. Only a child at the time, the experience and exposure to a smaller dose of the virus has however has deeply affected Yuki, the effeminate young man now a quite dangerous an...

Very much in the realms of a hard science-fiction first contact context, particularly reminiscent at times of Arthur C Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama , Housuke Nojiri's 2002 Seiun award winning novel for best Japanese science fiction novel considers a scenario where intelligent life originating outside our solar system is discovered and the impact it could have on our society.  The discovery in 2006 of a large tower protruding from the planet Mercury is the first sign that something unusual is happening (although it would seem from the prologue that preparations for what is to occur start back as far as 1424). It's first spotted by a young Japanese high-school student Aki Shiraishi as part of her astronomy studies, but fascinated speculation about its origins turn to fear as a vast ring is created around the planet that threatens to block out light from the sun. As disaster beckons in the subsequent years, Aki's long interest in the construct created by what become known...