Catherine O'Flynn

In 1984, Kate Meaney fancies herself a junior detective; she's observant and has the patience for surveillance, but she sees little that's suspicious. She misses her father, and her grandmother is beginning to talk about boarding school, but, Kate confides to Adrian, the shopkeeper's son, she doesn't want to go. He offers to go with her, but after she sits the exam, she's never seen again, and Adrian becomes a suspect, though Kate's body doesn't turn up.

In the early 2000s, Adrian's sister show more Lisa is working a dead-end job in a record store in the same mall where Kate used to do surveillance; she misses her brother, who left town and only sends a mix tape on her birthday. Kurt is a security officer at the mall, and after he sees a little girl on the monitors, he and Lisa strike up a friendship of sorts. Both are stuck in their patterns, and much less dynamic characters than Kate (and Kate's friend Theresa). Thanks in part to Kate's stuffed monkey, and clues from Kurt's co-worker - who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the mall - they do eventually solve the mystery of Kate's disappearance, and Theresa is there to bring him to justice; however, it's too late for Adrian, who dies by suicide.

Quotes

"I think adults....they think they know what's best for their children's, but they don't really. In fact, they often have very bad ideas, and the children have much better ones, but it doesn't matter...[the adult gets] to choose." (Kate to Adrian, 49-50)

But it seemed to be a trade-off; with the pain went the details and memories. People had said "Time heals," but he realized time didn't heal, time just eroded and confused, and he didn't think that was the same thing at all. (Kurt, 92)

She idealized time away from work to such an extent that it could never live up to her expectations. (Lisa, 114)

Lisa felt as if Dan knew a better version of her - someone with interests and ideas and plans. All that was best about Lisa, or had once been best, was saved in Dan's memory and had yet to be overwritten by the newer, paler reality. The same was also true in reverse. They both had high hopes for each other, if not for themselves. (137)

He wondered if what he'd failed to do had actually made any difference at all. (Kurt, 172)

"Nothing makes spending twelve hours of every day doing something you hate worthwhile." (Dan to Lisa, 176) show less

I had been putting off reading this one for a while because I hadn't heard a lot of strong things about it. I wish I hadn't put off reading it because I absolutely loved it. Or maybe it's one of those cases of going into it with low expectations and then it can really blow you away. Basically, if you like subtle British humor (or should I say humour), the likes of which Mark Haddon's 'A Curious Incident of A Dog in the Night Time' also excelled at then you will probably love this one too. If show more you don't then, you will just think it's your average story.

Our hero is a bumbling middle aged man named Frank who lives in Birmingham, England and is a newscaster for a local evening news show. He will never make it big time and for the most part he is ok with that. He has a wife and daughter who love him and he loves them but he is having a bit of a mid life crisis. It all probably starts with the death of one of his closest friends and mentors Phil. The death is a bit mysterious and Frank becomes, maybe a little unhealthily, obsessed with solving it.

However, that isn't necessarily the main focus of the book. I think, perhaps, the main focus of the book is just Frank's average life. All of the characters that come in and out of it and finding the humor in the everyday. His daughter Mo, who I think is around age 8 is an absolute delight and is probably his greatest joy. He needs to learn to appreciate her more. His mother is in a senior living center and is a mean old lady but Frank and his family try to cheer her up. They can't seem to but it is entertaining watching them try. Frank's father has passed away and was an architect whose buildings are being torn down. Frank is trying to save them. Andrea, Frank's wife, often says that their life is very involved with Frank's past and is important that he learns to move into the future. I think that is what the story is trying to deal with more than solving the mystery of Phil.

However, we do solve the mystery and it is an interesting ride. We meet the people Phil was dealing with up until his death. Phil was a newscaster who had made it to the big time but didn't want to grow old, however old he may have been at the time of his death. Was it an accident or not?

The book is all very subtle but I was hooked from the get go and I have O'Flynn's first book 'What Was Lost' on my shelf and I am looking forward to digging that back out now too. show less

I was a big fan of O'Flynn's debut novel, What Was Lost, so I eagerly anticipated her second novel. Although not quite as satisfying as What Was Lost, The News Where You Are was a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying read--combining humor with affecting examinations into the nature of loss.

Loss is a major theme in this book, as it was with her first novel. In this book, our "hero" Frank Allcroft is dealing with loss on all sorts of levels--the loss of his architect father's buildings (which show more are being knocked down one by one) and the loss of his friend and colleague Phil (who died in a never solved hit-and-run accident). As he shuffles through life, shackled with his corny on-air persona and a gentle loserish air he can't seem to shed (even with his own wife), Frank decides to investigate Phil's death on his own--seeking answers about why the vibrant and successful Phil made some strange phone calls to Frank shortly before his death and the connection between Phil and an elderly man found dead on park bench. Interspersed with this storyline is Frank's memories of his childhood--populated by his workaholic father and unhappy mother. As his father's buildings are demolished one by one, Frank realizes he must come to terms with his own past if he is to have a rewarding future.

As in What Was Lost, buildings and the physical surroundings of Birmingham play a large part in the story--becoming almost characters themselves. Like the Green Oaks Shopping Center in What Was Lost, buildings, new subdivisions and the assisted-living center become part of the story--given as much attention by O'Flynn as her human characters. O'Flynn tends to anthropomorphize cities, buildings and houses--imbuing them with meaning and personalities. I personally enjoy this aspect of O'Flynn's books; it makes for interesting reading.

"That's what I liked about this city."
"What? That it's crap and everything fails?"
"No. That it has these ridiculous dreams, that it always tries to reinvent itself, to be the city of the future, but then always changes its minds about what the future should be. I love the little glimpses you catch of the old dreams, the old ideas of what Utopia should be. I think if you get rid of the, no matter how embarrassing or naive they are, then you lose something essential about the place."

I think O'Flynn's greatest talent lies in the way she is able to capture with pinpoint accuracy and humor all the little foibles and interior conversations we all have with ourselves but rarely share. I saw so much of myself in Frank as I read--from his need to be polite causing him to be enmeshed in unwanted relationships to his sense of doubt in his own abilities. Consider this excerpt:

The motorway was quiet, but he stayed in the slow lane tucked behind a beaten-up van traveling at fifty. Frank secretly held a strong suspicion that he should not be in charge of a vehicle after dark. On city streets all was fine, but on country lanes or unlit stretches of motorway he was alarmed at the sullen lack of communication between his eyes and his brain. Something had gone wrong between them in the last year or two and now the brain would periodically choose to ignore or willfully misinterpret visual input. The familiar patterns of taillights, road signs and oncoming headlights had broken down into free-form floating abstract projections through which Frank hurtled wide-eyed on leather upholstery. At times he mistook the retreating taillights of the car ahead for headlights coming toward him, at others he would mistake reflections on his side window for vehicles swerving into his lane. His progress along a deserted stretch of motorway was often punctured by sudden braking at phantom hazards on the road ahead.

When I read this paragraph, I was smiling to myself as it is a perfect description of my own night driving. (And, if I'm completely honest, occasionally my day-time driving.) I'm forever mistaking leaves blowing across the road for squirrels and braking suddenly. I've hallucinated deer darting in front of the car that were merely shadows. O'Flynn is a master of this type of detail, and I think that is what makes her characters so believable and relatable.

Although the story has sad and dark undertones, O'Flynn never wallows in it or allows it to become overpowering. When Frank remembers his childhood, he describes his mother as having purple days and orange days.

On purple days, his mother pulls plants up in the garden, she looks out the window at nothing in particular for impossibly long stretches and speaks to her sister in a low voice on the telephone for hours. Sometimes she is cross at Francis, while at others, she doesn't seem to notice he's there at all.

On orange days she tells stories, she invents games, she takes Francis on expeditions and most of all she makes him laugh.

It is obvious his mother is suffering from severe depression, yet when Frank visits her in the assisted-living center, her unrelenting Eyeore-like gloom and refusal to admit to any type of pleasure becomes comical.

But the brightest light in this book is Mo, Frank's daughter. O'Flynn has a gift for writing children, and I would love to see her write an entire books from a child's point of view. (In What Was Lost, the parts with Kate were so endearing and charming that the whole book dimmed when she wasn't in it.) I also enjoyed the sections when O'Flynn writes as young Francis/Frank. She has a firm grasp of what it is like to be a child and how they view the world. Consider this excerpt where a young Frank is playing with his toys using one of his father's scale models:

Today, though, he was caught up in a difficult situation. An outsize Fresian cow is causing chaos in the shopping precinct. Francis had thought that this was surely the very kind of job the cowboys would be able to deal with, but they have shown themselves to be incompetent and cowardly, terrified by the sheer scale of the animal. They huddle at the entrance to the pedestrian subway. A British infantryman has taken the extraordinary decision to release a lion into the crowded precinct to capture the cow. His colleagues call for assistance, but everyone knows there is no direct vehicular access to the precinct. It look as if Little Cloud will have to save the day with a well-aimed arrow from his rooftop perch.

I feel like I've meandered a bit in trying to describe this book. From the book description, the book comes across as a bit of a mystery story. Yet I would hesitate to describe it as a mystery (OK ... I'll give it literary mystery) because the story is really more about exploring the nature of loss and how it infuses and affects our lives. Yet at the same time, the book is often very amusing and light. O'Flynn manages to work a whole lot into this gem of a book, but she makes is awfully darn hard to describe what the book is really like. So, I shall simply stop trying.

My Final Recommendation

O'Flynn's second novel combines humor with everyday life with heart-rending examinations into the nature of loss. A difficult book to pin down, I guess I'd simply say that if you like good writing that can amuse you while also making your heart ache, The News Where You Are would be a satisfying read. show less

Sad, bleak yet compelling - a must read!

I loved this book and was completely drawn to it yet at the same time it is a sad and bleak book about consumerist Britain. It is a compelling and perceptive read, and the element of mystery within it keeps the reader reading to the end. Catherine O’Flynn is an astute writer who has created very real characters that are easy to identify with - her observations of 21st century society are acute and at times made me laugh out loud while at other times show more feel a sense of loss and sadness. Her language style is to the point and the differing perspectives create a picture of the many different worlds connected by the shopping centre. There are a number of main characters in this but each one seems so isolated and although there is very little emotion in her writing it serves to create warmth and empathy towards them - I wanted to know their fate - and it’s certainly a good example of less is more. A wonderful read although the image of ‘the gluesniffers’ will remain with me for a long time afterwards. show less