Mark Henshaw published his first novel in 1988; it was willfully metafictional (it was the '80s, and he is Australian), but beautifully written and great fun.

Then, nothing.

And here we have his second novel (not counting two crime novels), a mere twenty-seven years later.

And he's learned a lot from those two crime novels. The metafiction here is buried, but all the more fun for that: we have Inspector Jovert (whom I like to imagine as a particularly grizzled Russell Crowe). We have a novel of love and Japanese university life, involving trips to and from the provinces, and a character called Natsumi (cf: Natsume Soseki, and his Sanshiro). We have echoes of everything you've ever read about the French and the war in Algeria.

He's also learned that readers enjoy suspense, but the suspense here is astonishingly strange, and requires a lot of trust in the author. What we can't wait to find out, in short, is why we're hearing the stories we hear at all. What looks like it will be a policier or noir suddenly turns into one of those "then so and so sat down and told me this story" tales, but with no indication whatsoever why we, or Inspector Jovert, is listening to what he's hearing. Rest assured, dear reader, it is made clear (pace some other reviewers), though it's not at all easy to piece everything together.

The form is by far the best thing about this wonderful book, but there are also some harrowing moments, particularly if, like me, you have a brand new child.

Anyway, despite the rather cheesy opening sentence, you should all go and read this book. ( )

discussed as a pair with https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2367510614

What a fascinating pair to read back to back. Payment Deferred is a very modern psychological thriller which hooks the reader in from the start: an astonishing work to come up with in the 1920s by a young man at the start of his career. The Snow Kimono might also be defined as a psychological thriller, as long and meandering as Forester's is to the point. And, again in contrast, Henshaw's novel is the first he'd written for 25 years, having a normal career after realising that there would be no money in writing for him.

I suspect that Henshaw is too clever for me. I spent too much time wondering what I was doing. Whereas CS Forester knows exactly what you are doing. Following the journey this simple question takes you on: will the murderer get away with his deed? And despite - or perhaps because of - the implications of the title, the reader is sort of barracking (in the Australian usage of the word) for the petty man who acts on this big idea.

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/payment-deferred-by-cs-fo... ( )

discussed as a pair with https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2367510614

What a fascinating pair to read back to back. Payment Deferred is a very modern psychological thriller which hooks the reader in from the start: an astonishing work to come up with in the 1920s by a young man at the start of his career. The Snow Kimono might also be defined as a psychological thriller, as long and meandering as Forester's is to the point. And, again in contrast, Henshaw's novel is the first he'd written for 25 years, having a normal career after realising that there would be no money in writing for him.

I suspect that Henshaw is too clever for me. I spent too much time wondering what I was doing. Whereas CS Forester knows exactly what you are doing. Following the journey this simple question takes you on: will the murderer get away with his deed? And despite - or perhaps because of - the implications of the title, the reader is sort of barracking (in the Australian usage of the word) for the petty man who acts on this big idea.

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/payment-deferred-by-cs-fo... ( )

discussed as a pair with https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2367510614

What a fascinating pair to read back to back. Payment Deferred is a very modern psychological thriller which hooks the reader in from the start: an astonishing work to come up with in the 1920s by a young man at the start of his career. The Snow Kimono might also be defined as a psychological thriller, as long and meandering as Forester's is to the point. And, again in contrast, Henshaw's novel is the first he'd written for 25 years, having a normal career after realising that there would be no money in writing for him.

I suspect that Henshaw is too clever for me. I spent too much time wondering what I was doing. Whereas CS Forester knows exactly what you are doing. Following the journey this simple question takes you on: will the murderer get away with his deed? And despite - or perhaps because of - the implications of the title, the reader is sort of barracking (in the Australian usage of the word) for the petty man who acts on this big idea.

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2018/04/20/payment-deferred-by-cs-fo... ( )

I’m not very keen on “intricate psychological thrillers”, so I took the blurb on this book at face value and dismissed Mark Henshaw’s The Snow Kimono for quite some time. But a month ago Guy at His Futile Preoccupations admired it and then I remembered that Sue at Whispering Gums had made it sound irresistible and – as if that were not enough – it’s collected a swag of awards that I tend to take seriously:

Winner, NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, 2015
Winner, ACT Book of the Year Award, 2015
Longlisted, Voss Literary Award, 2015
Shortlisted, Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, 2015
Shortlisted, Queensland Literary Awards, University of Queensland Fiction Book Award, 2015

So when I saw it at the library I took it home…

Memory, he had once believed, was our real refuge. It was who we were. What we returned to. A somehow sacred place. Our cells might die, be replaced, but not their secret synaptic codes. That was the paradox. Memories were our sanctuary. What bound us to each other. But he knew now that was an illusion. Memories could change, be destroyed, be rewritten.

Now, in the library, he would remember. He would force himself to recall all the pain, to give up those things he wished he could have left buried. He would overcome his own resistance. (p.257)

It was when I came across meditations like these that I began to enjoy the book.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/06/03/the-snow-kimono-by-mark-henshaw/ ( )