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Samantha Harvey’s ‘Orbital’ is the winner of The Booker Prize 2024. This slim novel is about six astronauts as they rotate in a spacecraft above earth. There to collect meteorological data and conduct scientific experiments, the astronauts observe the space from a unique vantage point. They see earth in all its glory and feel protective about it as they question what it means to be alive and what in fact is reality when they are so far away from home.

The good thing about writing a review of Orbital is that I don’t have to worry about the possibility of giving out spoilers, like I usually am while working on book reviews. It’s basically an account of what these six astronauts see from space and how they feel about it. There’s no plot as such except for the day to day occurrences in their lives. Their backstories make for tiny slivers of the story which takes place in one day but time is measured differently in space. Morning arrives every 90 minutes and each of the chapters record a single orbit of the earth.

Harvey has captured the psychology of these characters and interspersed it with visuals of the earth from space. You will get to be in a certain character’s head and then suddenly be jolted with views of the craters and ridges of the earth. The combination, I felt, works for a short while so it’s a good thing that the book isn’t long. I enjoyed the book but it felt like the narrative was dragging on by the end of it. Any longer and I would have probably given up on it.

But Harvey’s writing makes the scenes come alive in front of your eyes. You get a bird’s eye view of a space station and the universe that surrounds it. She describes it so well. It’s almost like you are the one on the mission. Harvey has written other novels like ‘The Wilderness’, ‘All is Song’, ‘Dear Thief’, and ‘The Western Wind’ and a work of non-fiction called ‘The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping’ which is a study of insomnia and its complexities. Judging by her body of work, it seems she’s fascinated with things that can’t be explained easily but attempts to do it anyway. Orbital might be her boldest work yet as there isn’t another piece of fiction like it.

In an interview, Harvey said she wrote Orbital during a period of anxiety induced insomnia. She started the book before the pandemic but most of it was written during the lockdown. That probably explains the sense of urgency and desperation in Orbital. The story makes you feel trapped—in the space station, the character’s heads and thoughts—and leaves you with little room to think for yourself. Despite being a novel, it’s also a book you can dip in and out of as there’s an almost essay-like quality to it. Don’t be fooled by the novel’s slim size, it’s not an easy and thus quick read and you could be a little confused at times. But I urge you to give it a try as it’s different and daring. 

Fiction

Orbital

Samantha Harvey

Published: 2024

Publisher: Vintage

Pages: 136, Paperback

Featuring 12 stories by different authors, all of whom are fans of Agatha Christie and Jane Marple, ‘Marple’ is a collection that you might want to give a miss if you haven’t grown up reading Christie. Otherwise, this anthology is a great book to pick up for a trip down memory lane. Some stories are short, some are long, but they all feature our favorite heroine Miss Marple and her charm and wit are on full display.

Miss Marple, one of literature’s favorite detectives, first appeared on print in a short story called ‘The Tuesday Night Club’ in Dec 1927. She reappeared in the novel ‘The Murder at the Vicarage’ in 1930, followed by 11 other books after that, as well as several other short stories. She is observant and intelligent and solves crimes because, with her keen eye, she doesn’t miss a thing.

Marple is an ode to St Mary Mead’s sharpest mind. The collection has stories from bestselling authors like Lucy Foley, Ruth Ware, Kate Mosse, and Leigh Bardugo among others. A murder mystery is a difficult genre to attempt in a short format. You have to get to it right away and there’s little or no time to set the scene or develop the characters. You run the risk of being unable to make the readers care. But the writers in the anthology know how to tell gripping stories and their craft is on full display. Despite having to keep it brief, they manage to build suspense.

Out of the 12 stories, there was just one I didn’t like. My husband, who was reading the same book with me for our two-member unofficial book club, didn’t like it either. It’s called ‘Murder at Villa Rose’ and it’s by Elly Griffths. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It’s about an imaginary murder that actually turns out to be imaginary. The author put absolutely no thought into it. All the others have solid elements of mystery in them. Murder at Villa Rose is just pointless.

For this collection, the publisher roped in established crime writers with distinctly different writing styles. The result is a collection where every story, despite having a common theme and similar setting, is unique and refreshing. All the stories, even the one I didn’t enjoy, get the essence of Miss Marple just right. Her mannerisms and quirks feel familiar. At times, I even forgot it wasn’t Agatha Christie’s stories that I was reading.

If I had to choose, I’d say ‘The Jade Empress’ by Jean Kwok, ‘The Disappearance’ by Leigh Bardugo, and ‘A Deadly Wedding’ by Dreda Say Mitchell were my top three favorites. In January, I read one story before work every now and then and it set a nice tone to my days. I’d constantly be thinking about whichever story I’d recently read with a smile on my face. More cozy than riveting, if murder mysteries are your thing these stories might be just what you need to power through a particularly rough day. 

Short Stories

Marple

Published: 2022

Publisher: Harper Collins

Pages: 372, Paperback

Colm Tóibín is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, playwright, and poet. He has written 11 novels. I had previously read two books by Colm Tóibín, ‘Brooklyn’ and ‘Nora Webster',  and I had loved them both. Brooklyn was a special read. I loved the protagonist and the setting was calming. The story wasn’t sad or happy. It was a mix of both, just like things usually are in real life. What I loved about the story was that relatability, of nothing being overly dramatic or downplayed for the sake of fiction. 

The stories, in both Brooklyn and Nora Webster, were nicely crafted and written, the characters were simple yet fascinating, and the author’s writing was almost conversational and smooth. I would read anything Tóibín wrote, which is why I was eager to read ‘Long Island’ when I heard it was coming out. I was even more excited when I found out that it was actually a sequel to Brooklyn. 

Set in the 1950s in Ireland, Brooklyn follows Eilis Lacey after she returns to her hometown Enniscorthy in southeast Ireland for a funeral. She has secretly gotten married in America but still has a fling of sorts with a local named Jim Farrell. But Brooklyn wasn’t a story of deception or infidelity. It was about a woman trying to find herself in a world where her identity is always associated with someone else. 

Long Island follows Eilis almost 20 years later, in the 1970s. Once again, she’s chosen to return to her hometown to attend her mother’s 80th birthday and finds herself confronted by unresolved issues and ghosts of the past. This time she’s home because her husband cheated on her and she’s lost her footing and feels unsettled. She meets Jim, the man she had once had an affair with, and they sort of rekindle their romance. However, Jim was all set to get married to Nancy, who at one time used to be Eilis’s best friend, right before Eilis returned to Ireland. 

The plot might sound morose and even annoying to some. A few colleagues I was talking to said they would never want to read something that almost justified cheating and polygamous relationships. But Long Island, though dark and brooding, is an exploration of the complexities of marriage, being a woman, and fitting in. The story is narrated by Nancy, Eilis, and Jim and as you take turns getting into the character’s shoes and head, you begin to understand their motivations and see things from different perspectives. 

You don’t have to have read Brooklyn to read Long Island. Both of these books work really well as standalone novels. But together they are a masterclass in good writing and storytelling. Of late, I’ve been enjoying stories that don’t wrap up neatly in the end, allowing me to draw my own conclusions. Long Island’s ending is also open to interpretation. This isn’t a spoiler because you get a sense of how it’s going to end all throughout the novel. You know someone or the other will be hurt and that people aren’t going to always get what they want. The joy of the novel is in getting to know its characters, the main ones as well as the minor ones, as the author has written them with love, care, and a good sprinkling of humor.

Long Island

Colm Tóibín 

Published: 2024

Publisher: Picador

Pages: 287, Paperback

Rita Bullwinkel’s debut novel ‘Headshot’ was longlisted for The Booker Prize 2024 as well as the Center for Fiction Best Debut. It also made it to Barack Obama’s 2024 Summer Reading List. Bullwinkel’s writing has gotten her many accolades. Her short story collection ‘Belly Up’ won a 2022 Whiting Award. Her writings have been featured in various publications. She is the Assistant Professor of English at University of San Francisco in the US. 

Headshot is the story of eight teenage girl boxers. The story is narrated in a series of face-offs during a championship tournament. I hadn’t read anything like it before. The concept was new and refreshing and Bullwinkel keeps the story tight and action packed. As the girls box and compete, you get to know their stories—their past and their hopes for the future, their weaknesses and strengths, what drives them and what makes them tick, and the many characteristics that make them unique. Each girl has her own baggage and hang ups and they are all fighting their own battles, whether it is with themselves or within their families. 

The characters are complex and compelling. There’s Artemis Victor who thinks she’s the prettiest girl in the tournament but who will, even if she wins, always be second best to her sister. Her opponent Andy Taylor is haunted by the image of her father’s dead body. Without him, she needs someone to rely on. Rachel Doricko wears a strange hat and likes to intimidate people. Kate Heffer, on the other hand, is governed by plans and rules and thinks it is what will help her achieve success in life. Izzy and Iggy Lang are cousins. While Iggy has been inspired by Izzy to take up boxing, Izzy doesn’t understand why her annoying cousin would want to copy her. 

The narrative isn’t linear, hopping between the past, present, and the future, and the characters make frequent appearances which allows you to get to know them better. A commonality among the characters is that these are all teenage girls on the cusp of adulthood and they all belong to working class families. The author shows their struggles of trying to break free from whatever holds them back as well as their hopes for the future. I was invested in the story as I wanted to know what became of these girls after the tournament. Headshot isn’t a big book but it’s so nicely written and structured that the story feels complete. 

Bullwinkel has an eye for details and that makes the scenes come alive. I felt like I was watching a match while it happened and the girls were right there in front of my eyes. Even their thoughts and emotions were so beautifully described that I was totally consumed by these characters. The story also anticipates how the girl’s lives will pan out when they stop competing and whether they will even forge a career in boxing. In that way, it also examines what it means to be a sportsperson and how it defines their life. I was especially enthralled by the writing and found myself reading certain passages over and over again. 

The book isn’t that long but there’s a lot to unpack in the story. You might be able to resonate with a character or two or find that you identify with certain traits in different girls. It calls for a lot of introspection and that is what made Headshot an important read for me. I would recommend it to anyone looking for something new and immersive. You won’t be disappointed. 

Headshot

Rita Bullwinkel

Published: 2024

Publisher: Daunt Books 

Pages: 248, Paperback