Paul Wilson (2) (1960–)

Paul Wilson's sparse prose is excellent at evoking mood, place, and character. The story builds throughout the novel, pulling all the separate strands in to gradually paint a picture of a city on the edge as the slow horror of the city Leader's vision, seen through the life and mind of Harry Angel (the city's miscellaneous developments officer), becomes apparent and begins to gain life....

I believe this was Wilson's first novel (or at least an early novel), and it shows a little in a slightly abrupt denouement and a couple of dropped plot points (seriously, what was up with the zoo animals? We found out about everything else that was included in the laundry list of conspiracy against the city Leader...). But those are minor flaws in a master storyteller's first novel, and the book stands despite them as one of the best I've read in some time. Paul Wilson is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.… (altro)

Mouse and the Cossacks is a lovely and unusual book about a young girl nicknamed Mouse because she has stopped speaking. After a family tragedy, her and her mother move to a remote farmhouse formerly occupied by William Crosby, now in a care home. Mouse discovers some of his letters and photographs and we find out more about him and also Mouse's own story as the book progresses. The cossack link comes from William's experiences at the end of the Second World War and is told in letter form.

This is an appealing and different story. I really enjoyed reading it. It flits between the stories of Mouse, William, and a couple of other minor characters. I particularly enjoyed the writing style employed by the author as Mouse's voice. She's a feisty, clever and deep girl.

The book has short chapters which of course makes it easier to read just another one. I looked forward to finding out what would happen next and it was all brought nicely together at the end, with a clever little turn of events relating to William's daughter. An enjoyable read and I'd definitely give this author another go in the future.… (altro)

I admit it: I mooched this book purely for the title. It's a totally awesome title.

But, you know? This is maybe my best mooch to date. That includes a couple of books I've been looking for for a couple of years now, and a few wishlist books I still don't believe I won the race for. Those were great to get; but this... this is the perfect present you didn't know you wanted. I love this book. The writing sucked me in on the very first page; it's beautiful, lyrical and just sings.

So, the story is this: Gabriel Emerson is a resident in a colony for the feeble-minded somewhere on the Cumberland fells. The colony is in its final days; the residents are slowly being shuffled out and reintegrated into the outside world, and only the hardcore cases are left. As the last weeks of the colony draw to a close, Gabriel embarks on an epic journey: in a disused icehouse on the edges of the colony he sets out to re-imagine and re-trace the steps of the doomed - and disputed - discovery of a Northwest Passage by his namesake two centuries earlier.

Intertwined with Gabriel's dream - a dream powerful enough to carry three of his fellow residents through the Arctic ice with him, and be clearly visible to a fourth, watching from above and narrating the story for the rest of us - is Gabriel's story; and that of his family (unorthdox as it was); and the story of the mining town of Laing, that bore and shaped him; and that of four internees bound to the town by the detention acts for foreign nationals during WWII; and of the ways these all rubbed against each other and exloded one night in a tragedy horrifying enough to haunt Gabriel straight into the colony in the first place.

Ultimately, this is a book about dreams. It was a dream that built Laing; it was dreams that kept the internees going; it was the lack of dreams that cursed the town; it was a dream that Gabriel and his fellows followed in the last days of the colony. In Paul Wilson's own words: "But we were men who, like most poor men, fought and fought, and scrapped for life -- for pieces of the stuff in crevices and dreams. Our story is not in the leftover bones of our lives to be found bleached here in a heap on some shelf of ice, but our hearts that brought us here, and the dreams that drew us on."

I really can't recommend this book highly enough. If I ever find any more copies (priced reasonably!), I'll be buying them up to mooch out, because this definitely deserves to be out there - but this one I'm keeping for me :-).… (altro)