Catherine Chidgey

Of course I was tempted to pick this one up: a talking magpie, are you kidding me? After having become enamored of our own local magpie-adjacent winged ones many moons ago, I am an eager beaver for stories revolving around them, any of them.

Hence, Tama. That's the name of the baby magpie who falls out of a tree and is rescued by a softie woman named Marnie. Why Tama? Endearingly, the chick reminds Marnie of a certain Japanese toy from her childhood named Tamagochi.

Now mind, the entire show more novel is told in Tama's voice. And a witless fan of corvids I might be, but I did dither for a bit. Was the whole thing going to be too twee? Too out there? Too...something? Quaking with dread yet hoping for redemption, in I plunged.

And what I found is, Tama's voice is evocative, a little surreal, and even unique. That's when he's telling us about his original bird-self, his lost family, his adoption of Marnie as mother. But there's also his other voice. The voice that emerges once he decides to 'talk' to the humans, i.e. Marnie and the wife-beater, Rob. Turns out Tama is supremely gifted as one of those talking birds who can perfectly mimic a human voice and means to do it day in day out, like it or not.

Well, Marnie likes it. She loves it. She loves him, zipping up the fluffball in her jacket (who wouldn't) and caring for him like she would have cared for the baby she lost recently. Then she starts putting him in little outfits and sticking his antics on Twitter. Naturally, he breaks the internet and racks up zillions of followers who hang on his every word.

Now meanwhile, all is not well in Marnie's world. No, wifebeater Rob is a sheep farmer who's having tough luck. Their inherited house is literally falling down around them. Then Rob is also a jealous idiot who drinks a bit too much and refuses to take advice and help from next-door neighbors, Marnie's sister and brother in law. Oh, and he's also nine-time champion at the Axeman's Carnival, which event consists of Men Splitting Logs and is a matter of Great Manly Prestige in their small New Zealand town.

In this chaotic time Tama and Marnie bond tenderly. Poor Tama! The details about the little outfits she makes for him broke my heart: fireman, nurse? Come on! Tama is a witness to the sod Rob beating Marnie, but remember, Tama is a wild bird. Much as we want him to rescue Marnie, he doesn't. Sometimes he does things that seem to enrage Rob, who's already resentful of the bird in the first place. But when they hire a marketing consultant to 'monetize' *shudder* Tama's exploits, he chills out a bit because they finally start making money.

Tama foreshadows certain dire events once or twice. The sense of dread is faint but building throughout. But when the ending arrives, all is not as expected. That is all I will say without spoilers, but by then I was invested so deeply that I was racing to the ending anyway. The thing is, Tama and Marnie come alive in the pages: Tama is so strong a presence that I'll be thinking of him for days to come. What a feat, eh? Make a magpie the central character and then have him break your heart a little at a time, give him not one but two distinct voices, make you wish wildly that you had a Tama of your own.

Regrettably I finished the tale too fast. Wish I'd savored it a bit more. But now that I am done, let me step on to the balcony. I spot several black silhouettes on the wire. I hear some cacophonous cawing. The time is ripe for me to stretch my arm out, look like an idiot, and hope some kindhearted bird (ha, fat chance) comes by to befriend me. show less

"Pet" is, from a certain perspective, yet another sensitive, well-crafted junior Bildungsroman, a study of a character's passing from childhood into a wiser, more emotionally complex adolescence. Those aren't exactly rare, either in fiction or in autobiographical non-fiction: you can curl up with Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" anytime you like. But this novel's main character, Justine, faces more threats than average to her body and soul than average. "Pet", if not quite a noir, might show more be described as a surprisingly deep interrogation into innocence, evil, and desire. It's the first of Catherine Chidgey's novel's I've read, and it's a very, very a solid piece of work.

It isn't that the author doesn't give us a chance to giggle at the novel's villain, Mrs. Price, who just so happens to be Justine's beautiful and charismatic teacher at St. Michael's. It's 1984, so we hear about Mrs. Price's Corvette and her brilliant neon athletic wear. Her living room's even got a seventies-era conversation pit! Even so, many men in the New Zealand town where this one is set desire Mrs. Price, and most of her female students want to be just like her. Describing Justine and Amy's friendship, author shows describes how much of growing into young womanhood involves meeting society's current expectations — thinness, enticing self-presentation, suppressed emotion. This isn't, in itself, exactly new, but "Pet" isn't — or at least isn't solely — a morality play or a social critique. Chidgey rather deftly makes the reader understand why these examples of social and material success might seem obviously desirable to the average twelve-year-old, which is to say, Justine, who has recently lost her mother, detected the first ominous rumbles of puberty within her body, and faces a precarious present and an uncertain future. Everyone at St. Michael's School loves Mrs. Price, and, for much of the book, we can certainly see why. Justine is honest enough with herself, and with her best friend, to admit that she wants Mrs. Price to like her, to be one of her pets. And is that, really so wrong?

It's won't be hard for readers of any experience to see right from its early going that "Pet" won't end well. At twelve, Justine misses a lot of these same signs, but then, so do this book's adult characters. "Pet" still surprised me by supplying a more morally ambiguous ending than I had expected, or, given the characters involved, even thought possible. Far more than a mere comment on Justine's innocence — which, given her age, is to be expected — this very much a novel that asks questions about the deficiencies of people's moral imaginations, not just their responses to its more obvious manifestations. Many people have good reasons for staying quiet when they sense that something is wrong with Mrs. Price — one character admits that the fact that she has six other young children to get through the school more-or-less buys her silence. But others seem to lack the moral imagination to see how somebody as charming, as attractive, as talented, and as seemingly kind as Mrs. Price is might also be capable of doing terrible things. But even characters that sense something sinister in Mrs. Price are not necessarily able to resist her influence or escape negative consequences. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, temptation wouldn't be temptation if it were that easy to resist.

In some ways, "Pet" reminded me of director Rian Johnson's fast-talking schoolyard farce "Brick," but I feel that Chidgey's novel is more serious, taking a harder look at uncomfortable moral and ethical questions that are, most of the time, rather beyond the purview of twelve-year-olds without necessarily sliding into implausibility. Recommended. I'll have to check more of Ms. Chidgey's books out. show less

I’ve read three of Catherine Chidgey’s novels and they’ve all been wonderful reads, so I was excited to read her latest. It did not disappoint.

The novel is set in 1979 in England but in an alternate world where there was no victor in World War II. After the assassination of Hitler by German conspirators, a peace treaty, the Gothenburg Treaty, was negotiated. It established peace and allowed for the sharing of scientific and medical research including “’access to studies conducted show more in the camps before and after the war.’”

Identical triplets, Vincent, Lawrence, and William, are the last remaining residents at a Sycamore Home for boys in the Hampshire countryside. Thirteen-year-old orphans, they are looked after my three women: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon, and Mother Night. Every day they are given various medications, prescribed by the jovial Dr. Roach, to help them with a mysterious illness: “We didn’t know the name of our sickness, and its symptoms varied from month to month and boy to boy; we just called it the Bug.” Boys who recover are allowed to move to Margate, a paradisaical seaside resort with a huge amusement park.

In nearby Exeter, Nancy, also thirteen, lives a secluded life with her parents who dote on her but don’t let her leave the house. When her life intersects with the three brothers, dark secrets are brought to light concerning their origins, their purpose, and their likely fate.

The novel is narrated from three perspectives. Vincent, in first person narration, tells his story and that of his brothers, whereas Nancy’s story is told in third person limited omniscient point of view. Also in third person, the perspective of Sylvia Dalton, the Minister of Loneliness, is included. She is charged with closing down the remaining Sycamore Homes.

Though the three brothers are identical in appearance, distinguishable only by the colours of their shirts, they are not identical in personality; Vincent insists, “we weren’t the same. We weren’t.” Vincent is the watchful, thoughtful one; Lawrence is the sensitive, soft-hearted one; and William is the mercurial one who is capable of cruelties. Interestingly, it’s William that Vincent loves best: “I loved William better. I still can’t explain that.”

The book is cleverly crafted with secrets gradually revealed. I don’t want to reveal too much of the plot because much of my enjoyment was trying to answer the many questions that came to mind: The boys are told they’re special but not told why or how. Why are the boys kept isolated from the outside world? What is on the missing page of their Book of Knowledge? Why does Mother Night took at the boys so sadly? When the boys are allowed in the nearby village, why do people avoid them? Why are the boys’ dreams of such interest to the doctor? What is the purpose of the Book of Guilt in which their misbehaviours (lying, kicking, and displaying the wrong attitude) are diligently recorded? The only element that bothered me is Vincent’s seeing a newspaper with a photo of a little boy. His finding this picture is unlikely and too convenient to be believable.

I was kept interested throughout. From the beginning, there’s a sense of unease, but as more and more is revealed, I found myself increasingly unsettled. Not only is the book entertaining, it is thought-provoking: it addresses the nature versus nurture question and asks what is acceptable for the advancement of knowledge.

Here are links to my reviews of the other Catherine Chidgey novels I’ve read:
Remote Sympathy: https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2022/04/review-of-remote-sympathy-by-cather...
Pet: https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2024/03/review-of-pet-by-catherine-chidgey....
The Axeman’s Carnival: https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/2024/06/review-of-axemans-carnival-by-cathe...

Note: I received an eARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) or substack (https://doreenyakabuski.substack.com/) for over 1,200 of my book reviews. show less

Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2022

It is a brave choice for a writer in New Zealand to tackle a subject as familiar as the holocaust given the wealth of literature already out there by writers closer to the subject in both time and space, but this book largely succeeds on its own terms, partly through the thorough research and partly because Chidgey's perspective is an interesting one in today's "post-truth" society, and the book is also well written, and easy to follow despite its show more switching between three main narrators with different perspective, along with a fourth occasional one which gives a collective voice to the ordinary citizens of Weimar.

Most of the book is set during the latter years of the War at the Buchenwald "labour" camp near Weimar. The three main voices are Lenard Weber, a doctor who in his youth believed he could cure cancer by a machine that uses electrical therapy, Dietrich Hahn, an administrator at the camp who is heard via his ultra-defensive post-war testimony, and the "imaginary diary" of his wife Greta, whose impressions of the camp gradually darken, and whose cancer prompts her husband to use his connections to ensure that Hahn (who is mostly Aryan but has enough Jewish blood to bring him under suspicion and was divorced from a Jewish woman who he still loves) is brought to the camp as an inmate so that Greta can receive his experimental treatment. All of these viewpoints contradict each other frequently, but there is no doubting the brutality at the centre of the story

The central theme of lies and the lengths people go to maintain their belief in them is all too relevant now, and the book deserves its place on the women's prize list - I will be surprised if it misses the shortlist and it could win. show less