California Literary Review

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Articles written for the California Literary Review:

• The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
  Posted on 14 Jun 2008 in Fiction Reviews, Science Fiction and Fantasy
  

  Jeanette Winterson’s latest novel, The Stone Gods, is a science-fiction novel-within-a-novel adventure and might come as a pleasant surprise to the fans who have seen her through the days of feast then famine.

• Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
  Posted on 19 Jul 2007 in Fiction Reviews
  

  The relationship between Peter and his parents is given more space, but this could also have been examined more closely. Picoult appears to hold back from following up on the intriguing world she creates. Relating the role of parents in raising a child who ends up being a murderer is welcome, particularly when we are told Peter’s father lectures on the economics of happiness. Irony is heaped on irony with the descriptions of Peter’s mother, Lacy, as she is a midwife (and deemed knowledgeable on parenting) and is also seen to be as kind as she is inept in her understanding of her son.

• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
  Posted on 21 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Great Britain, Sex
  

  Repression, fear and even loathing run through her mind as she braces herself for what is to come after their meal. We are told in the first sentence that they are ‘young, educated and both virgins’ and she is unwilling to alter this state. Her only knowledge of sex is derived from a manual and she has convinced herself that she is without desire.

• Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan
  Posted on 11 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Great Britain, Religion
  

  This is a broad ranging work as it manages to be poetic whilst drawing on current events in the news, such as the war in Iraq, teenage delinquency and paedophilia in the Catholic Church.

• The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
  Posted on 10 Jun 2007 in Fiction Reviews, Gay and Lesbian
  

  Sarah Waters’ fourth novel, The Night Watch, is set in 1940s London, during and after the Second World War, and is an innovative departure from her previous three lesbian Victorian historical fictions.