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Lucy Cruickshanks – The Trader of Saigon | Review

April 2, 2018 danecobain

Authors A-E (By Surname)Fiction

Title: The Trader of Saigon

Author: Lucy Cruickshanks

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 336

Rating: 4*/5

Lucy Cruickshanks – The Trader of Saigon

I picked this book up because I’m running an indie readalong with my friend Todd the Librarian on BookTube, but I realised after I started reading this that it doesn’t really qualify. It’s published by Heron Books, an imprint of Quercus, and it’s quite clearly been professionally edited and put through rigorous quality checks before it’s made it out on to the market. It’s professionally done, and rightly so.

This is technically historical fiction, because it’s set in Vietnam at some point during the mid-to-late twentieth century. It’s after the war, but before the country’s had time to heal. As for the plot, it’s surprisingly hard to talk about that without giving away spoilers. What I will say is that it involves people trafficking amidst the paranoid backdrop of communist Vietnam, and a dude called Phuc makes some very bad decisions after finding a gambling den.

Cruickshanks’ writing style is accessible and easy to read which means that it’s the kind of book that can just wash over you. She’s also fantastic at creating a sense of place, and it really kicks in right from the opening pages. You can almost taste the food and smell the markets. Cruickshanks has spent some time in Vietnam, of course, but simply spending time somewhere doesn’t necessarily mean you can write about it. Lucy can, and that’s a talent.

Lucy Cruickshanks

Sure, there were bits here and there that dragged a little, but that happens with most books. But the good outweighs the bad, and I enjoyed this quite a lot overall. I might not remember the finer details in six months’ time, but it certainly kept me turning the pages right up to the end. When it comes to a book, what more can you ask for?

Will I read the next one? Maybe. There are so many books and so little time. But I’d like to.

Saigon

Click here to buy The Trader of Saigon.

Charles Bukowski – Women | Review

January 12, 2017 danecobain

Authors A-E (By Surname)Non-Fiction

Title: Women

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Non-Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 308

Rating: 4*/5

Charles Bukowski – Women

This book is a difficult one to categorise, because the line between fiction and non-fiction is a blurry one here. But then, that always happens with Bukowski – his stories are often autobiographical, but he also takes details from the stories that his friends told him to create his alter ego, Hank Chinaski.

In this book, we follow Chinaski through a succession of different women as he drinks booze and plays at the race tracks. Because of that, in many ways, it’s a quintessential Charles Bukowski book, and if you’ve read any of his prose before then you’ll already know roughly what to expect. For me, some of the pieces even gave me a sense of deja vu, as though I’d read them before. It’s hard to tell whether that’s because they were collected elsewhere and I had actually previously read them, or whether it’s because Bukowski’s style is so iconic that once you’ve read a few of his books, you’ve effectively read them all.

Now, I definitely wouldn’t say this is my favourite Bukowski book, but in many ways that’s because there’s so much choice on the market. But it is a very good introduction to his work and his writing style, and it’s an essential part of any Bukowski fan’s collection. Sure, he may have been an alcoholic, gambling–addicted womaniser, but the man could write. I imagine his work is probably more controversial now than it was when it was first published, in part because of his attitude towards women, but if you can separate the man from his art and just enjoy his brutally simple style of writing, you’re going to have a lot of fun.