Step Closer by Tessa McWatt

Emily is a Canadian writer living in Spain, trying to make sense of what happened between four people who walked together on the Camino to Santiago de Compostela. Besides herself, there was Marcus, Emily's roommate of two years, Gavin, a handsome crippled Brit who seemed to know Marcus from the past, and Claire, an American bisexual who was the only one of the four who set out intending to walk a pilgrimage. But all of them were seeking answers.

It happens often that there are ties between books that I read. I've just finished Waiting for Columbus, also set in Spain. The feeling of place comes through more strongly in Step Closer than in Waiting for Columbus. Both novels jump backwards and forwards in time, incorporate multiple narratives and use some experimental ways to tell the story. It was not accidental that Trofimuk mentioned writings by Nathalie Sarraute on Consuela's bookshelf; she is known for transforming the traditional novel's models of character and plot. McWatt has followed in Sarraute's footsteps as well.

Emily obsessively washes her hands (as does one of the minor characters in Trofimuk's book). She tells of her present day rocky relationship with Sam in first person, detailing her struggles with the writing of the story we are reading. She goes back to the events on the Camino four years earlier and to Scotland, 15 years earlier, using third person to relate her imagined accounts of Gavin and Marcus and what lay between them. Emily's deepest search, however, is for her own identity.

"My father is flamboyant. He is a sculptor and an aesthetic gourmand. Paris suits him, whereas my mother prefers the aesthetics of a canoe. That may or may not have contributed to why they are no longer together, but the fact is they made a daughter who would like to be in Paris. In a canoe. Paddling down the Seine at dawn might just be the perfect expression of my complete self."

McWatt's very nuanced portrayal of human interaction reminds me of the British author Sadie Jones (Outcast). So much happens below the surface. Both Step Closer and Waiting for Columbus have a mystery at their core, one that is not unravelled until the end. Canadian fiction at its best.

Waiting for Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk

A man claiming to be Christopher Columbus is fished out of the Strait of Gibraltar. He is cared for in a mental hospital in Sevilla, where nurse Consuela takes a special interest in him and listens to his stories. Columbus is eager to get back to his three ships. He tells Consuela about his long quest to fund the risky venture westward and also about the many women he loves in fifteenth century Spain. The anachronisms in his stories -- like telephones, tonic water and billiards -- become expected elements because they are encountered so frequently, yet they add to the puzzle of his identity.

Meanwhile, a French Interpol investigator named Emile Germain is tracking down various missing persons and Columbus may be one of the people he is seeking. Emile has a shadowy past of his own. I really liked the way Trofimuk drew all the threads of his narrative into a satisfying conclusion.

There is a great deal of wine consumed in this book; not only Spanish cava and Pesquera (I remember how wonderfully inexpensive it is to buy good wine in Spain), but bordeaux, pfaelzer, chardonnay, pinot grigio, pinot noir and more. If you are as open to suggestion as I am, you may wish to stock up your cellar before beginning to read.

Trofimuk is a member of Edmonton's Raving Poets Band. His fondness for cigars and the Scottish beverage is apparent in his earlier novels (The 52nd Poem and Doubting Yourself to the Bone) as well as this most recent one.

The Children of Freedom by Marc Levy

A French Jewish man looks back on the period in his life when he was 18 years old, working in the French Resistance in Toulouse during World War II. He and his younger brother, Claude, were part of the 35th brigade, which was a historical reality. The members of this brigade were almost all young people, aged 20 or less. They came from Poland, Italy, Hungary, Spain and other places. They risked their lives many times over to impede the Germans who had occupied France. Most of them died.

Adventure is coupled with tragedy. The storytelling is straight-forward and the chapters are brief. It's an adult novel that is suitable for teens in Grade 9 and up.

The Color of Water by Kim Dong Hwa

I liked The Color of Earth better than this second graphic novel in Kim's trilogy based on stories told to him by his mother. He calls them "little gems from my mother's life at sixteen." Some of the episodes seem to be of a much younger girl's experience, which is partly why I didn't find the story entirely convincing. Ehwa's unfamiliarity with the shape of a man's penis, for example. On the other hand, her unfamiliarity with the similarity between the smell of chestnut blossoms and semen was fully plausible. The description of Ehwa's first experience with masturbation was overly twee and I think that extends to the rest of the book; too flowery and sweet. And then there's the repeated emphasis on the importance of looking pretty in order to attract a good man. On the plus side, the lush evocation of setting and culture - late 19th century village life in Korea - makes this an interesting read and Kim's delicate artwork is gorgeous. The close relationship between Ehwa and her widowed mother is another aspect that kept me turning the pages.

Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope by Emmanuel Guibert

French artist Emmanuel Guibert was 30 and Alan Cope was 69 when they met by chance and became friends. Guibert recorded Cope's tales of his life experience, of being drafted into the American army at age 18, serving in France and then continuing to work in France and Germany until his retirement. Cope made friends wherever he went and he maintained contact with many of them.

Cope was a dreamy, philosophical man. He returned to the States for a short time in order to attend university, but didn't finish his studies. "I realized that what I wanted was Europe. I didn't like America any more. Sure, I liked the country, the landscape, the people -- but I no longer liked the mentality. Even though there's a lot that's good about the American mentality, it somehow doesn't plumb the depths of existence. And that's why, in some ways, America is not doing well. Most Americans live on the surface of existence; I wanted to know its depths."

I found myself agreeing with Cope's comment about the largest living being on Earth, a giant sequoia named after General Sherman. "I don't doubt that he was a good general, but it's sort of too bad for the tree."

Cope died in 1999, the year before this biography was published in France. The English translation that I read was published in 2008. Guibert's black & white inkwash artwork is beautiful and easy to follow. It's quite different in style from his previous work in books like Sardines in Space and (with Joann Sfar) The Professor's Daughter.

It took me a long time to get around to reading this because the picture of a young soldier sitting on a tank on the cover made me think it would be too much about war for my taste. I was so wrong. It is far more existential than I expected. I loved it.

Then by Morris Gleitzman

Two children are running up a steep hill after jumping from a train on its way to a death camp in 1944 in Poland. Felix is 10 and Zelda is six. They must get to the safety of the forest above them before the next train comes along with machine gun-bearing German soldiers watching from the train roof. A third child has already died escaping as a result of the jump.

Felix narrates this harrowing and heartbreaking story of survival. Each chapter in this page-turner begins with the word "then." The word can also be used to describe consequences, like farmers being hanged in the town square along with the Jewish people they've tried to hide. "Then" can also refer to a past period of time, as opposed to now. The time of the shoah, the holocaust.

An obvious book to compare to this one is John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Bruno, Boyne's young narrator, is totally clueless compared to Felix. Felix has first-hand knowledge of atrocities. He and Zelda hear gunfire and afterwards come upon a pit full of the bloody corpses of children who have just been massacred.

The power of stories helps Felix and Zelda to persevere. When Felix prays, it is to Richmal Crompton, because she is his favourite author. As it happens, I have a copy of collected William stories by Crompton on my to-read shelf, so that has moved to the top of the pile.

A nine-year-old reader could easily handle the text in Then, but I would suggest the accompaniment of an adult's guidance because of the content. Teens and adults will find much to appreciate in this thoughtful novel. Readalike: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (in addition to The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas).

New, Aug 27, 2009: I've just listened to an excellent Australia Radio National podcast conversation with both John Boyne and Morris Gleitzman. This is the description:

How young is too young to read about the Holocaust?

Is there a danger of oversimplifying complex events or downplaying the true horror of Nazism by writing about history in this way?

That's what authors John Boyne and Morris Gleitzman are discussing live from the Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Creature of the Night by Kate Thompson

Bobby is fourteen and thinks he is a pretty tough criminal. He started stealing cars and other valuables with some of his Dublin mates when he was eleven years old. When his mother decides that Bobby and his little brother, Dennis, are moving with her to a little village in County Clare, Bobby has no intention of staying there. He will get back to Dublin however it takes.

Bobby had no idea that something about the little house they move into would change his life. He and his mother almost laugh when an old woman who lives nearby tells them that they must put out a bowl of milk for the fairies every night. But things get very strange. Soon Bobby's mother is just as eager to get back to Dublin as Bobby... if it were only that simple.