The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley

Strange things are afoot in Andrew Michael Hurley’s Gothic tale, The Loney. Not overly creepy at first, the story begins with the discovery of a body following a landslide in a grim part of northern England, atmospherically called Coldbarrow. The narrator decides to tell his view of events that happened forty years before.

As a boy of fifteen, the narrator – we never learn his name – spends Easter with his parents, his brother Andrew, their priest and several parishioners at an old house called Moorings. It is a kind of pilgrimage - the boys’ mother is intent that Andrew, who is slow and never speaks, will be cured when they visit a nearby shrine. We already know from the first chapter that Andrew has been given that second chance, but what is the real nature of the miracle that cures him?

Hurley is a brilliant story teller, slowly building up tension with revelation after revelation. We learn about the sudden death of the previous priest, Father Wilfred, shot through with accounts of his strict religious fervour. There is light relief in the power play between the female characters: newly engaged Miss Bunce and Esther, the boys’ devout mother. There are quaint and sinister locals and weird noises in the night. Moorings is filled with secrets and peculiar taxidermy.

In the distance the wild coast beckons the boys to explore the perilous spit at Coldbarrow, so quickly cut off from the tide. Danger lurks in many quarters, but when it takes hold of people’s imaginations the story takes a darker turn. Amid all this, Hurley probes the workings of faith with perception and humanity. The Loney is one of those books that gives you a lot to think about, but is a ripping read as well, earning for its author a Costa First Novel Award.

While The Loney is not available at this library, you can order it as a City Loan - just another of the many services available at Hastings District Libraries.

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My Name is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody

Mahtob Mahmoody – does the name seem familiar? Perhaps ‘Betty Mahmoody’ rings more bells? How many of us hearing that name see actress Sally Field in our mind’s eye? Betty’s book Not Without My Daughter was published in 1987, just a year after she and her daughter, Mahtob, escaped from Iran, where Betty’s husband had held them against their will for two years. The movie based on the book came out just a few years later. In 1992, Betty wrote a follow-up book, For the Love of a Child, that described the events in their own lives as mother and daughter readjusted to life in Michigan, and also described Betty’s work as an advocate for parents in similar situations, and her push for changes in state and federal laws concerning international abductions.

But that’s enough about what went before. Now in her late thirties, Mahtob feels able to write her own story of her life before, during and after the events of 1984-86. She tells us that she has never read her mother’s books, nor seen the movie, on the advice of a wise older lady who worked for her mother’s German publisher. That way, her memories are her own, and are from her own perspective as a child, rather than being coloured by either her mother’s very different perspective as a wife and mother, or distorted by the images and dialogue of the movie.

Mahtob’s story is gripping. The years before and during the time in Iran are covered in the early chapters. She then tells the story of her childhood and adolescent years, coping with many moves and a lot of overseas travel with her mother along with the constant fear that her father would make good on his threats to abduct her and take her back to Iran. She describes how she moved from hatred of her father to forgiveness, knowing how important that was for her own mental and spiritual health, but how that forgiveness was tested when she learnt that a filmmaker was making a documentary with her father to counter the claims made against him in her mother’s book and in the movie.

Mahtob battles illness at the same time as struggling to avoid the documentary makers who want to bring father and daughter together for their production, and this while trying to cope with university study. It is a physically and emotionally draining period in her life.

I enjoyed reading Mahtob’s book. Sometimes it jumped around a bit from the present to the past, but not so much that you lost track. The ending, which is the text of an email she wrote to a friend, seemed a little flat and an odd way to end, but in no way spoilt the book as a whole. It was a good read, and a satisfying update to a fascinating story. 

Posted by Jessie Moir

Catalogue link: My Name is Mahtob