"Billy No-Mates: How I Realised Men Have a Friendship Problem" by Max Dickins

I so wanted this to be a good book, but ended up with very mixed feelings.  The author, Max, is getting married, but doesn’t have anyone to pick as Best Man.  Thus begins an odyssey exploring friendship - specifically the friendships largely experienced by men(*).

On one level, this is a book about the problems of loneliness and lack of close friendships.  There are some real issues here - for example when someone’s friendship group consists mostly of people from work, local clubs, or as parts of friendships with other couples that their partner largely manages.  There is a real issue of loneliness that can be experienced when life changes remove these friendship groups (leaving work, moving home, breaking up with a partner).  And for many people, the maintenance of friendships outside of these contexts is something that doesn’t come naturally, and therefore is often missing.

Some of the reasons for these crises are explored, and the book is very well researched, with extensive footnotes and endnotes, and features conversations with experts in every area.  There are some genuinely perceptive observations about the nature of friendships, and the issues some people find in initiating and maintaining them.  There are some very good examples of organisations that exist specifically to address these issues (for example, the various ‘sheds’ initiatives).

There is a lot of insight here, and I could relate to a lot of what was discussed.

The other side of the book is the author’s personal journey through his own friendships.  This is told through the lens of trying to identify a best man for his upcoming wedding, and works as a vehicle to explore the issues I’ve mentioned above.  But at the core of it, this feels like a “my diamond shoes are too tight” problem, as it turns out that Max has a significant circle of friends that he’s just fallen a bit out of touch with - there are 150 guests at his wedding.  The search for a best man also acts as a story arc that tries to bind the book together, with the inevitable happily-ever-after ending.  As the book came to a close, I found this to be glib and smug, as the author almost lords his newly rejuvenated group of friends over the reader.

So a mixed bag of useful insight and smug self-satisfaction.  At the end of the book I ended up feeling worse rather than better, which I think means that the book seriously missed the mark.  The 3 stars are for the genuinely useful content.

(*) I'm not going to comment on the gender issues here.  I suspect that many people will identify with the type of friendships the author is describing in the book.  The author also attempts to address this in a paragraph “A Quick Note from Max” at the beginning of the book.

My rating: ★★★☆☆

"Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel

Station Eleven is an poignant, moving and very human post-apocalyptic story told both before and after a devastating flu virus sweeps the world.

It’s an ensemble piece, with no one main character - it is told from the perspectives of a number of people, whose stories interweave before and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, and then follows their stories many years later.  At the beginning of the book, it isn’t clear what the purpose is of telling each person’s story - but the ways in which each character touches the lives of the others emerges organically as the the narrative artfully moves between each time and place.

According to the book blurb, the story revolves around a Hollywood actor who slumps over and dies during a production of King Lear, and 15 years later with “a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.”  While these things do happen, they are just the thread that binds together the various stories, rather than being the story itself.

As the pandemic started to take hold, the descriptions of the gradual collapse of civilisation are evocatively told and quite eery to read, given that it was written before COVID.  The hope that people had that it would all be over soon, and that civilisation would return, are tragic and moving.

Thankfully, this is not a gritty story of survival in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic.  The difficulties that the survivors must have gone through are hinted at, but the story moves forward to several years after the collapse of civilisation, where the survivors’ lives have reached some sense of stability.  The story does follow the “nomadic group of actors” mentioned in the blurb, and this is an elegant way for the story to move between various settlements, showing how people have coped in their own ways.

At heart, this is a story of humanity and hope.  As the various threads come together towards the end of the book, the thought that human community, endeavour, perseverance, and ingenuity will endure is ultimately an optimistic one.

My rating: ★★★★★

"The Psychopath Test" by Jon Ronson

This is an absolutely fascinating book from the investigative journalist Jon Ronson - a glimpse into his journey into what it means to be a psychopath. It starts when he almost gets sued for defamation after getting quoted in the press, ignorantly referring to someone as “quite psychopathic.” This leads him on a journey of discovery, from the accepted measurement and definition of psychopathy, to meeting various people who have been, or could be, diagnosed as psychopaths.

The writing is incredibly engaging, and the stories of the various people he meets range from the shocking, to the poignant. Stories and quotes are used to great effect to illustrate characteristics of psychopathy that he’s discussing. For example, when discussing one psychologist’s experience:

She was interviewing a psychopath. She showed him a picture of a frightened face and asked him to identify the emotion. He said he didn’t know what the emotion was but it was the face people pulled just before he killed them.

The pursuit of a definition of psychopathy leads Ronson to the PCL-R checklist - the titular “Psychopath Test”, devised, used and taught by Ron Hare. Ronson attends a course on the PCL-R and then goes about, armed with it, to try to find some psychopaths of his own - with a specific interest in the extent to which CEOs and other people in power exhibit the same psychopathic signs.

Unsurprisingly, he finds some.

Along the way, Ronson learns about the categorisation of mental disorders, and the “DSM-IV-TR” - the canonical text book listing all recognised mental disorder (all 374 of them). He meets a diagnosed psychopath in Broadmoor Hospital (a high security psychiatric hospital); he discusses some of the eccentric and radical treatments for psychopathy in the mid 20th century; he meets the ex-leader of a far right military group from Haiti; he talks to the one time CEO of Sunbeam in America, responsible for laying off hundreds of people and consequently turning several communities into ghost towns, and he spends some time with someone who believes he is the Messiah, returned to save humanity.

It’s worth bearing in mind throughout the book that this is investigative journalism and not science - and Ronson doesn’t pretend anything else. This kind of material could easily have descended into something resembling a freak show, but Ronson has doesn’t do that - the subject and the people involved are all portrayed with respect and sensitivity. It’s a fascinating glimpse into this world, and Ronson is an engaging and interesting narrator.

It’s worth remembering, though, that these are cherry-picked stories to allow Ronson to tell a story, and to paint a broad picture of his journey investigating psychopathy and various related mental disorders. But this itself is knowingly referenced when Ronson recounts a conversation he had with Adam Curtis, a fellow documentary maker:

‘We all do it,’ Adam was continuing. ‘All journalists. We create stories out of fragments. We travel all over the world, propelled onwards by something, we sit in people’s houses, our notepads in our hands, and we wait for the gems. And the gems invariably turn out to be the madness - the extreme, outermost aspects of that person’s personality - the irrational anger, the anxiety, the paranoia, the narcissism, the things that would be defined with DSM as mental disorders. We’ve dedicated our lives to it. We know what we do is odd but nobody talks about it. Forget psycopathic CESs. My question is, what does all this say about our sanity?’

Perhaps. But it makes for compelling reading.

My rating: ★★★★★

"Floating Hotel" by Grace Curtis

The Abeona: a hotel in space, with an ensemble cast of crew and guests.  They all have their own stories, most of which overlap to a greater or lesser extent: an amiable manager; an anonymous political dissident; a professor and a mathematician attending a conference; some imperial spies; a chef; staff members who have fallen from fame, and those that have joined the hotel from more chequered backgrounds.

To the extent that there is an overall story, it is told, chapter by chapter, from the varying perspectives of each of the characters - sometimes overlapping in time with each other, and sometimes carrying the story forward.  These vignettes are almost like fully formed short stories of their own - with each character vividly drawn, and uniquely distinct.  This laying of stories and characters gradually builds an intricate picture of the vibrant life on the hotel, while weaving in a few mysteries and a (very) small amount of jeopardy, as the plot ambles forward.

While it was nice to immerse myself in the life of the Abeona, the stucture of the book isn’t without its issues.  The switch in point of view in every chapter was a little jarring until I got into the rhythm of it - the need to ‘reset’ to a new perspective at (almost) every chapter.  Some of the characters that have a chapter devoted to their point of view play quite a minor role in the overall plot - so, while their backstories and relationships with other characters were engaging, I wonder how necessary their inclusion was.  Some of the major characters had an emotional authenticity that I found quite poignant and moving (Angoulême being particularly memorable), and I would have liked to have explored their lives a little more.

This *could* have been a plot-driven book if it had gone into greater depth with the mysteries, imperial spies, and shady backstories - the material is certainly rich enough.  But, for me, that’s not what this book is.  The book is about the characters of the staff, the guests, and the Abeona itself.  The resolution of the plot in the closing chapters successfully ties up all the loose ends and mysteries that had been developed throughout the story, although this did seem a little weak.  But, for me, this didn’t really matter, as the overall plot was a vehicle to tell the stories of the individual characters - it’s just good form to give the story an ending.

Thank you #NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the free review copy of #FloatingHotel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★☆

NetGalley Review

"Small Hours" by Bobby Palmer

I loved reading this book. It is a beautiful story about loss, redemption, estrangement, but mostly love. Jack has been called home from the city, where he has been living with a job and life that he thought he wanted, but is no longer certain. His sister called him home, as their mother is missing. He navigates the broken relationships with his father and sister, while trying to work out what happened to his mother - all with the unlikely assistance of a fox.

I have so much that I could say about this book but don’t want give anything away. Gerry’s memories have been eluding him recently, and I found his inner monologue moving, poignant, and simultaneously tragic and hopeful. So many of the relationships in the story have been damaged by words unsaid, or things not done - but there is a strong thread of hope and love, and a desire to right wrongs, or at least come to terms with them, that runs throughout the story and binds it together.

As with Bobby Palmers previous book, “Isaac and the Egg”, this story touched me, and will stay with me for a long time.

Thank you #NetGalley and Headline Review for the free review copy of #SmallHours in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My rating: ★★★★★

NetGalley Review