This month’s Book Club choice is Something Might happen by Julie Myerson, a novelist and journalist who was born in Nottingham in 1960. Her first novel Sleepwalking was published in 1994 followed by The Touch (1996), Me and the Fat Man (1998) and Laura Blundy (2000). She has written two non-fiction books recently, Home: The Story of Everyone Who has Ever Lived in our House was published in 2004 and a memoir about PE at school - Not a Games Person (2005).
Something Might Happen was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and short-listed for the WH Smith Literary Award. It explores the devastating effect of a murder on the inhabitants of a small seaside town in Suffolk. Most reviewers tend to concentrate on the fact that this book is not your standard murder mystery and that the importance of the brutal event is the effect on a wider domestic story. Tess is the narrator and from her we discover that she, her husband Mick, her best friend Lennie, who is the murder victim and her husband Alex chose the quiet town to raise their families. An attempt at creating a perfect domestic existence.
In the foreword to Line Dancing the Book Club’s first choice back in October last year Julie Myerson wrote ‘About two years ago, I began researching my novel Something Might Happen. I didn’t know exactly what I was going to write - only that it would be set in Suffolk, a place I’ve had a passion for since I first went there on holiday when I was eight. I say I was researching, but mostly - as writers tend to - I just used the smokescreen of writing a novel as an excuse to spend more time there.’ I think reading this novel could be seen as a good excuse to spend time on the Suffolk coast. A weekend in Southwold or Walberswick would do it!
What do you think of the book? After registering, just sign in and post a reply! I would also be grateful for any ideas on other books with an East Anglian theme which you think we might include in the Book Club.
Jeff Taylor
You were asking for book suggestions with an East Anglian theme, Hammond Innes lived at Kersey and featured Suffolk in several of his thriller novels including Solomon's Seal, though I have not actually read any of his work.
On the other hand I can highly recommend the books by Susanna Gregory who lives in a village outside Cambridge and has set her series of novels featuring the medieval doctor, Matthew Bartholomew, in Cambridge when the universities are just beginning. Her novels are compared to those of Ellis Peters and are crime/mysteries, the first is 'A Plague on Both Your Houses' in which Matthew must unravel a conspiracy surrounding the university and the mysterious death of the Master of Michaelhouse, whilst also trying to deal with an outbreak of plague that is sweeping through the town and the seemingly never-ending student riots.
At the moment these are the only two authors I know of with East Anglian connections. Hope it Helps.
Sophie
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