says:
This is a little book, seemingly simple on its surface but deeply rich when you turn a closer eye to it.
The surface is about Frank, a local British newscaster for a regional news show, and his reactions to the death of his famous predecessor, the demolition of some buildings his father spent his life designing, the reality of his depressed mother in a nursing home, and moving his family from the country to the city.
But the undercurrent of it all deals with, essentially, what we do with old things: old people, old buildings, old jobs, old mementos piled in the attic.
This is a book about reinvention and demolition and what is involved in choosing one or the other, To borrow a term from across the pond, it's BRILLIANT, That was significantly boring. The characters were boring. The storyline was dull. I dont even particularly want to write a review, Not even the “exciting revelation” at the end did much for me, Can I get my two nights of reading back now please The News Where You Are starts and ends with death, These events shape life, and the necessity of ending causes some to become bitter, Some long for the past while others cling to the present, O'Flynn delivers a surprisingly engrossing and tender novel about very real people as they explore these subjects, Themes like longing and lost span each page, but O'Flynn's grace in telling each character's story is remarkable,
After Frank's beloved friend and former predecessor Phil is mysteriously killed in a hit and run accident, Frank becomes obsessed with death.
Both Phil and Frank are were smalltown television anchors,years Frank's senior, Phil is liked by everyone, corny jokes and all, His existence is just below the surface, due to hair dye and face lifts, Yet Phil always feared the future, and his passing shocks many, As Frank continues to deliver increasingly depressing stories, he starts to explore the passing of the lesser folk: those who have died without any kin, those left to the wind after asecond spot on air.
One particular case of Michael Church becomes a mystery after he's found dead at a park bench, cold and alone, Frank finds a connection between Michael and Phil, they are lifelong friends from their time serving in the war, Before Phil's passing, they lost contact, Such abandonment of friendship makes little sense, so Frank digs deeper into the past, On his quest, he meets a variety of individuals, including Phil's muchyounger widowed wife, Michelle, who hosts an awful reality show, Through Michelle and Mikey's friends, we learn about the feelings of uselessness that can come with age,
Meanwhile, Frank struggles to understand his parents, Interlaced with the presentday chapters are Frank's recollections of his younger self, Francis, When he was a child, his father was an architect and rarely spent time with his family, While Frank is absorbed with the past, his father always looked to the future, His buildings represented a legacy, but after he dies, all but one of his buildings are destroyed, to make room for casinos and the hubris of the present.
While Frank is filled with sentimentality, his mother's melancholia shows a different perspective, As a child, she had "orange days" with laughter and imagination and "purple days" with silence and nothingness, Her depression extends into adulthood, Placed in a backdrop of everchanging Birmingham, England, these differences in character are sharp and reflect their city, but the changes in tense are sometimes unfocused.
Though this novel may seem to be simply about the comings and goings of a handful of people, it delves deep.
O'Flynn truly respects each character, as well as the novel's landscape, so she takes time to develop the book, Some may find the pacing slow at times, but each character feels real, I'd read an entire book from the perspective of Frank'syearold daughter, Mo, Mo is always eager to research, unintentionally crack a joke, and has so much fire, Overall, by exploring the everyday, The News Where You Are carefully mixes humor, retrospection, and despondency, and it reminds readers that both nostalgia and progressivethinking pervade and distract from the present.
Frank Allcroft, a television news anchor in his hometown where he reports on hardhitting events, like the opening of canine gyms for overweight pets, is on the verge of a midlife crisis.
Beneath his famously corny onscreen persona, Frank is haunted by loss: the mysterious hitandrun that killed his predecessor and friend, Phil, and the ongoing demolition of his architect father's monumental postwar buildings.
And then there are the things he can't seem to lose, no matter how hard he tries: his home, for one, on the market for years and the nagging sense that he will never quite be the son his mothernewly ensconced in an assistedliving centerwanted.
As Frank uncovers the shocking truth behind Phil's death, and comes to terms with his domineering father's legacy, it is his beloved young daughter, Mo, who points him toward the future.
The News Where You Are is an exploration of what we do and don't leave behind, 'He understands now. Our absence is what remains of us' Heerlijk boek over vroeger, over loslaten en behouden, Vergane glorie, gesloopte gebouwen, lichamelijk verval, alles wordt uit de kast getrokken om duidelijk te maken dat mensen zich willen vastklampen aan de tijd.
En hoe tragisch hun falen daarin is, Having enjoyed Catherine O 'Flynn's first novel so much, I was really looking forward to this, I wasn't disappointed.
Catherine O' Flynn has written a novel that is both entertaining and thought provoking, Peopled with authentic, well drawn, sometimes very funny characters, Frank a middle aged local news presenter is an unambitious family man who concerns himself with the sad, lonely deaths of people he didn't know.
Frank pays the rather pathetic Cyril to write terrible one liners for him that he doesn't really want to use, but the dreadful puns have been an unlikely success.
Frank's daughter Mo, a charming eight year old character, is on a mission to cheer her grandmother up, and enjoys hearing about Frank's father's buildings one of which is about to be demolished.
Frank begins to think again about the death of his predecessor and old friend Phil Smethway in an apparent hit and run, when he discovers a connection between Phil and another lonely death in the city.
This is remarkable page turner, that tackles big themes, family, friendship, the past and our place in it, The city of Birmingham is affectionately portrayed, some homage being given to our less glamorous buildings, Well written and thoroughly engrossing 'The News Where You are' is a great read and a must for Brummies, who enjoy reading about their city.
"La vida en titulares" resultó interesante si bien, a veces parece que la historia no va a ningún lado, el aburrimiento no cae.
Fue una sorpresa para mí, pues no tenía referencias de O'Flynn, una autora poco conocida en esta parte del continente,
Espero escribir algo pronto
sitelink revistalatente. com I really enjoyed this book which centres around Frank a regional TV presenter in Birmingham and son of a local architect whose out of favour buildings are being obliterated from the the city.
Frank takes an interest in some of the smaller stories he reads out and in particular those of people who have died apparently lonely deaths without friends or relatives.
His predecessor Phil, a very different sort of man, but still a friend, moved on to national fame, but was killed recently in a hit and run.
The stage, we know, but Frank does not yet, is set for some investigations,
Frank is demonstrably 'good' with older people and engages with others at his mother's residential home, although may partly be as leaven for Maureen's relentless insistence on not gleaning the slightest enjoyment in life.
I liked that his wife Andrea is not forced into some stereotypical role here she loves Frank, she has concerns about him and his pursuits too much in the past but there's no great posturing and they still do a lot together as a family.
It's a story that perhaps shouldn't be uplifting if you step back from some of what he finds out or comes to realise, but much about it is.
Jammer dat er sindsgeen boek meer van Catherine O'Flynn vertaald is, Ze schrijft soms wat sentimenteel, soms wat te expliciet, maar met het hart op de juiste plek, met oog voor de psychologie van kwetsbare mensen en het verlies dat de tijd en het leven met zich meedragen.
genius. loved every page. took me back to my childhood in lancashire where there was something slightly demigodly about the regional TV news readers, naff as they were.
there is one particular line in this book about a sausage that made me laugh so hard it hurt, and also wish that my dad was still alive so i could tell him.
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 readcombining 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 levelsthe loss of his architect father's buildings which are being knocked down one by one and the loss of his friend and colleague Phil who died in a never solved hitandrun accident.
As he shuffles through life, shackled with his corny onair 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 ownseeking 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 childhoodpopulated 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 storybecoming almost characters
themselves.
Like the Green Oaks Shopping Center in What Was Lost, buildings, new subdivisions and the assistedliving center become part of the storygiven as much attention by O'Flynn as her human characters.
O'Flynn tends to anthropomorphize cities, buildings and housesimbuing 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 readfrom 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 beatenup 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 freeform floating abstract projections through which Frank hurtled wideeyed 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 daytime 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 assistedliving center, her unrelenting Eyeorelike 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 wellaimed 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 heartrending 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.
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