Later this year it will be 40 years since I started my working life in the world of books. I am, I guess a voracious reader, consider myself quite widely read, especially as far as fiction is concerned, and yet three months ago at a dinner party a friend recommended a book to me that I had not previously heard of by an author whose name didn’t ring any bells at all.
However such was her enthusiasm for this book, and I respect her judgment in these matters, I decided to buy the book sight unseen.
The book arrived in the mail a few days later and I have to say that the cover, the title and to some degree the back cover blurb all rather put me off so I put it aside and there it sat until 20 December when I was packing for our trip to New York. At the last minute I threw it in my brief case thinking I would read it on the plane. No, it was not to be as several magazines seem to suit the flight better than the rather severe looking paperback.
Then on the first day of 2008, having consumed the New York Times from first page to the last I finally picked up Martin Booth’s The Industry of Souls and began reading.
I have to say straight off that this is a truly great novel. Having just finished it I feel slightly stunned and I know Booth’s brilliant novel is going to resonate with me for a long, long time. Now I find it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1998, (the year the Booker was one by Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam). A little further research shows he has more than 60 (!) titles to his credit – novels, collections of verse, children’s books, and works of non-fiction. Most sadly I also learned that he died aged 59 in 2004 after an 18 month battle with cancer. For more about this hugely talented, prolific author read his obituary from The Guardian.
The book arrived in the mail a few days later and I have to say that the cover, the title and to some degree the back cover blurb all rather put me off so I put it aside and there it sat until 20 December when I was packing for our trip to New York. At the last minute I threw it in my brief case thinking I would read it on the plane. No, it was not to be as several magazines seem to suit the flight better than the rather severe looking paperback.
Then on the first day of 2008, having consumed the New York Times from first page to the last I finally picked up Martin Booth’s The Industry of Souls and began reading.
I have to say straight off that this is a truly great novel. Having just finished it I feel slightly stunned and I know Booth’s brilliant novel is going to resonate with me for a long, long time. Now I find it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1998, (the year the Booker was one by Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam). A little further research shows he has more than 60 (!) titles to his credit – novels, collections of verse, children’s books, and works of non-fiction. Most sadly I also learned that he died aged 59 in 2004 after an 18 month battle with cancer. For more about this hugely talented, prolific author read his obituary from The Guardian.
THE INDUSTRY OF SOULS - Martin Booth – Dewi Lewis – NZ$30
Alexander Bayliss, a British citizen is falsely arrested for spying in the Soviet Union in the early 1950’s, is reported dead to his family, spends 20 years in the gulag, becomes totally fluent in Russian and then on his release lives in the Russian village of Myshkino where he becomes a school teacher. That is the story in a nutshell.
Now though, Bayliss , or Shurik as he is known to his Russian friends, is 80 years of age, has been tracked down by the British authorities and must decide whether to take the chance to return to England.
This is an elegantly written, totally absorbing and compelling story that had me close to tears on several occasions. I warmly recommend it to all who enjoy a superbly written good read. Tomorrow I am off to buy his 1985 novel Hiroshima Joe.
2 comments:
I was quite excited to read your account of the discovery of Industry of Souls on your blog earlier in the week.
We at Books A Plenty were introduced to Martin Booth about 4 years ago and like you wondered where he'd been hiding. Most of the staff and many of our customers have also now read him. My personal favourite is Hiroshima Joe, after which you need to read Gweilo, Booth's autobiographical account of his childhood in Hong Kong. This we sell on a very regular basis and were devastated to hear that he died soon after completing it.
Islands of Silence and A Very Private Gentleman are 2 others we continue to sell, although their content (still on the theme of man alone) is not quite as poignant as Industry of Souls and Hiroshima Joe.
Oh, and by the way, we did find that Industry of Souls cover rather difficult to sell to customers.
I must thank you too for your blog - always interesting, always stimulating.
Regards
Chris
Books A Plenty
28 Grey St
Tauranga
New Zealand
I. too, just discovered M. Booth's Industry of Souls while browsing at used book store. What an incredible read. Amazing writer.
Lou W
Texas
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