New Welsh Review 135 Summer 2024
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New Welsh Review 135 (summer 2024)
Bringing together the best of Wales' review-essays, including a comparison of new editions of nature classics, 'Back to the Land' by Pippa Marland. The books under review, Thomas Firbank's I Bought a Mountain and Margiad Evans' Autobiography take contrasting blustering and humble approaches to stepping over the sub/urban doorstep into nature. A showcase of new nonfiction, previewing forthcoming titles from some of Wales' key English-language publishers, exploring books on anti-Welsh media vitriol covering the early Manic Street Preachers, and historical flooding and the riches of an Eton-owned Benedictine fishery on the Gwent Levels. In original fiction: a wonderful story about a teenage boy on the cusp of bodily and emotional change, 'Trout', by Satterday Shaw, and a second, finely crafted story about the effect of geographical dislocation on teenage identity emergence, 'Another Place' by Philippa Holloway, set on Crosby beach. Plus Editorial by Gwen Davies and a new opinion feature, Last Page, by Richard Lewis Davies, in which the writers note that magazines in Wales are undergoing a transition, during which readers and subscribers will need to step up to the plate if a commitment to expressing – without interference - our particular place and time, is to be maintained. EDITORIAL Half-in, half-out Gwen Davies NONFICTION Bears at the Fridge: From Goldcliff to Whitson Preview extract from This Stolen Land by Marsha O'Mahony The Kinnock Factor: The Manics and Anti-Welshness Edited abridged preview from International Velvet by Neil Collins FICTION Another Place Story by Philippa Holloway Trout Story by Satterday Shaw ESSAYS Dark Formula Timothy Laurence Marsh on why reckless travel writing matters Books for Alien Girls JL George's personal and practical reflections on the role neurodivergence can and should play when writing fiction REVIEW-ESSAYS Back to the Land Pippa Marland on two nature memoir classics, one of hubristic bluster, the other humbly receptive 'Queer Old Codgers' Claire Pickard on the portrayal of highly nuanced gay identities and history in recent nonfiction titles and a major short story anthology THE LAST PAGE Back to the Future Richard Lewis Davies on how a culture with ambition needs critics and readers
The Half-life of Snails
'a novel that shimmers with compassion... the author has crafted a tale that will linger longer than the half-life of many other books you will read this year.' – Alex Lockwood, author of The Chernobyl Privileges 'A careful, tender and arresting story that explores how we're formed by the places we think we own – I was moved by this suspenseful and delicate novel.' – Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted Two sisters, two nuclear power stations, one child caught in the middle... When Helen, a self-taught prepper and single mother, leaves her young son Jack with her sister for a few days so she can visit Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone, they both know the situation will be tense. Helen opposes plans for a new power station on the coast of Anglesey that will take over the family's farmland, and Jennifer works for the nuclear industry and welcomes the plans for the good of the economy. But blood is thicker than heavy water, and both want to reconnect somehow, with Jack perhaps the key to a new understanding of one another. Yet while Helen is forced to face up to childhood traumas, and her worst fears regarding nuclear disaster, during a trip that sees her caught up in political violence and trapped in Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone during the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, Jennifer too must discover that even the smallest decision can have catastrophic and long-lasting effects, both within the nuclear industry, and within the home. And Jack isn't like other five-year olds... as they will both discover with devastating consequences.
The Welsh Girl
A WWII-era Welsh barmaid begins a secret relationship with a German POW in this “beautiful” novel by the author of A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself (Ann Patchett). Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Set in the stunning landscape of North Wales just after D-Day, this critically acclaimed debut novel traces the intersection of disparate lives in wartime. When a prisoner-of-war camp is established near her village, seventeen-year-old barmaid Esther Evans finds herself strangely drawn to the camp and its forlorn captives. She is exploring the camp boundary when an astonishing thing occurs: A young German corporal calls out to her from behind the fence. From that moment on, the two begin an unlikely—and perilous—romance. Meanwhile, a German-Jewish interrogator travels to Wales to investigate Britain’s most notorious Nazi prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In this richly drawn and thought-provoking “tour de force,” all will come to question the meaning of love, family, loyalty, and national identity (The New Yorker). “If you loved The English Patient, there’s probably a place in your heart for The Welsh Girl.” —USA Today “Davies’s characters are marvelously nuanced.” —Los Angeles Times “Beautifully conjures a place and its people, in an extraordinary time . . . A rare gem.” —Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs “This first novel by Davies, author of two highly praised short story collections, has been anticipated—and, with its wonderfully drawn characters, it has been worth the wait.” —Booklist, starred review