Tuesday, March 8, 2011

A break in transmission

Here is a break in our regular transitions as I bring you this important message about a book being launched tomorrow. I will resume the transition of smut tomorrow...

Me and Mr Booker
Cory Taylor

I picked up this book because it was written by a regular Avid Reader customer and a good friend of the shop. I expected to like it perhaps as much as any other debut novel, but I was completely floored by the quality of the prose and admittedly jealous of how assured the book is. As a fellow writer, I wish I had written Me and Mr Booker myself. It has fast become one of my favourite books of all time, easily holding it’s head up next to my absolute favourite, Nabrokov’s Lolita.

This delicate coming of age story follows 16 year old Martha who’s own family is falling apart when the worldly, debonair and delightful Mr Booker walks into her life. The teenaged Martha and Mr Booker soon begin an affair, problematic for the girl, the man and also his wife who is desperate to have a child. Rather than condemning the affair outright, Taylor carefully, and with humour, paints a portrait of a relationship that is full of love, desire, joy, heartbreak and complications. Nothing is simple in this tale but everything is superbly human. The world is described so beautifully that it transports any reader back to this very tangible time and place in 70’s small town Australia.

Cory Taylor's Me and Mr Booker has the heart of Lolita and the soul of Catcher In The Rye, this is one of the most assured debut novels I have ever read. These characters feel so real that they become almost family. Refreshing, surprising, sexy and ultimately very moving.

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