Wednesday 10 September 2014

Story Time Special Edition: A Tribute to Graham Joyce

Graham Joyce died yesterday. He had cancer, it was the bad kind, the kind people don't often win the war against. He wrote a beautiful blog post about it which you can read here. I’m immensely saddened by his passing, I loved his books, in fact, my first ever blog post on this silly little site was a review of one of his books. So when I found out the news today, I felt compelled to write something. Something that doesn't necessarily fit with the usual tone of this blog, but as it is my blog, I decided I can shift tone if I want to. My story time reviews are usually quite silly and giddy but Graham Joyce was such a truly wonderful writer, it just doesn't seem appropriate to write a tribute in my usual profane waffle. Also, please know, when I say he was wonderful, I'm not just saying it because he died yesterday and that's what you say when people die. I'm saying it because I was completely in awe of his beautiful prose and his impressive ability to create and capture a place or time in such perfect detail alongside the mystical and the fantastic. I believe really good fiction doesn't feel like fiction at all, no matter how bizarre the subject matter. That's what Graham Joyce's books were like. He threw you in to another world; he made you believe it was real.

So far, I have read three and a half Graham Joyce books. I make no claims to be his biggest fan, my Graham Joyce journey began only recently. Before Christmas 2013, I had no knowledge of him at all, but as fate often aligns to give us exactly what we didn’t realise we were missing, that Christmas my clever boyfriend took a punt on a book he thought I would like. When I tore away the festive wrapping paper to reveal 'Some Kind of Fairy Tale' (“SKFT”) I was instantly in love with the cover and intrigued by the blurb. I started the book as soon as I could find time between visiting family and eating turkey. My enthusiasm was not misplaced, the book was so enjoyable that I finished it in a few short days and felt a pang of grief when it was over. I was so excited by the book that I talked my boyfriend, my dad and many friends in to reading it too.

So why is this book so special? Graham Joyce once said, "I am less interested in ghosts than in people who see ghosts," and I presume he felt the same way about fairies. SKFT is less a fairy tale than it is a tale about the reappearance of a long lost girl, Tara, and the effect it has on her and her loved ones. Her family were shattered by her loss, her boyfriend was accused of her murder, the authorities were at a loss to explain and Tara herself had to survive an ordeal that was unlike the fairy stories we are often told as children. When she returns twenty years later, the old wounds of those closest to her are not healed but opened and Tara has to learn to adapt to a world, and a family, that has long since left her behind. It’s the unexpected but completely plausible responses and interactions of the characters that make this novel so intriguing, so unlike anything else I’ve read before.

I recently checked out Amazon to see the reviews for SKFT. It had 32 reviews when I first read it, there are 86 now, by rites there should be thousands. The book has a 4 star average with a very small number of 1 star reviews. Being nosey, I had to check out the 1 star reviews. They were exclusively complaints about foul language and sex scenes. So on that note, I'd like to add a caveat - Graham Joyce does not shy away from sex or profanity. But Jesus Christ, it's hardly ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ or ‘Trainspotting’! He writes about interesting characters in realistically fraught relationships and situations, not prudish dullards who throw uneventful tea-parties and exist in a controversy and conflict free zone. Why would any even want him to?! Although, as the old saying goes, 'you can't please everyone.'

After reading SKFT, I started buying up his other books. I read ‘The Silent Land’ next and was equally thrilled with it. It’s one of those unusual stories where you will likely work out the ending fairly early on but what keeps you reading is the mystery of how the characters will arrive at and react to that end. It focuses on a young couple on a skiing holiday who get caught in an avalanche and when they finally manage to free themselves, their resort has been evacuated. They spend their days enjoying each other’s company whilst waiting for a rescue, but things are not quite as they seem and they are plagued by mysterious events and strange figures. Like SKFT it’s incredibly well written and a joy to read but that is about all the books have in common. At this point I began to realise Graham Joyce was an imaginative force to be reckoned with and I was excited to continue reading his work.

My next Joyce book was ‘The Tooth Fairy’, which is another not-quite-fairy-tale. As with SKFT, the fairy is not exactly what you would expect and in fact, is rather grubby in appearance with a cruel and unpredictable nature. The story is focused more on the boy, Sam, and his friends growing up over the course of ten years, than it is with the supernatural element of the tooth fairy. This is considered a modern horror classic and I admit there were parts where I had to keep reading rather than put it down at bedtime because it was so creepy. I did, however, find the book less gratifying than the previous two. I feel like if I had read this one first I would have enjoyed it more because it doesn’t quite live up to the genius of the other two. It is every bit as imaginative, but ever so slightly less well constructed. That said, it is still an excellent read and it didn’t do much to deter my Graham Joyce fanaticism as I then bought ‘Smoking Poppy’ and the ‘Year of the Ladybird’* soon after. I am currently half-way through Ladybird so no doubt a review for that will be forth-coming.

I didn’t know how to start this post and I am equally baffled about how to end it. As I mentioned before, I am well aware that after three (and a half!) books I cannot claim to be his biggest fan, I cannot tell you everything you need to know about his work and I cannot give him the tribute that he really deserves. All I really wanted to do was share with people how much his work inspired me and made me fall in love with reading again, and maybe inspire a few others to seek out his work and see if he has anything of value to offer them too. And as he wrote in his last blog post, “why can’t our job here on earth be simply to inspire each other?”

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* Note: 'The Year of the Ladybird' was published as 'The Ghost in the Electric Blue Suit' for y'all 'muricans and annoyingly the cover is a bit cooler than the British version.

2 comments:

  1. Given your own talented writing and ability to express your sentiments on these books, you may very well have inspired me to read them as well. Well done and I think it is a fine tribute indeed!

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  2. Awww, shucks [blushes]. Thank you so much and thanks for the retweet too! If you do check out his books, be sure to blog about it so I know what you made of 'em! ;o)

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