book review: Keeping Up with Magda by Isla Dewar

-
The backstory: Keeping Up with Magda, Isla Dewar's first novel, was longlisted for the Orange Prize (now Bailey's Prize) in 1996.

 The basics: Jessie Tate walks away from her life and husband in Edinburgh. She ends up in Mareth, a small Scottish fishing village, and stays. She rents an apartment above The Ocean Cafe, which is run by the titular Magda.

 My thoughts: I'm quite drawn to tales of small town life, as well as stories of characters, particularly women, traveling to a town and starting a new life. So Keeping Up with Magda was right up my alley, yet it was so much more than I expected. While at times it is a quiet novel about a town and its inhabitants, it also was much deeper and darker than I expected. Jessie's journey to Mareth is not one of a woman searching for something new because she can; her journey begins because of a devastating event in her life.

While I laughed and smiled as I read, I also winced. Dewar's characters are flawed people who do some horrible things. They have horrible things happen to them. Still, this novel isn't as depressing as many of its events, which is a testament to Dewar's writing and strong characterizations. This slim novel has a large cast, even as the actions mostly center on Jessie and Magda. Dewar fully forms a community and tells the story of its part and present.

 The verdict: Keeping Up with Magda is a gem I would not have discovered were it not longlisted for the Orange Prize. I'm eager to read Dewar's other novels, as this debut is impressive in scope and execution. Dewar surprised me many times in this novel, and I loved the time I spent in the village of Mareth.

 Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: September 14, 1995
Source: purchased

 Convinced? Treat yourself! Buy Keeping Up With Magda from Amazon (no Kindle edition.)

Want more? Follow Isla Dewar on Twitter. 

As an affiliate, I receive a small commission when you make a purchase through any of the above links. Thank you for helping to support my book habits that bring more content to this blog!

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an...
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about ...
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the ...
Read more