When I say I’ve been in need of an escape lately, I don’t think I’m alone. And while I’ve been reading throughout the pandemic, the main escape for my exhausted brain has been streaming whatever fits in the few minutes between my kid’s bedtime and mine. My husband and I quickly run through the good stuff, so many nights are spent wishing for better as we switch between interfaces (I miss channels, they loaded so much faster), which is to say that it was a huge relief to run into Slow Horses on AppleTV.
I love spy stories and the performances by Gary Oldman, Kristen Scott Thomas, Rosalind Eleazor, Saskia Reeves, Christopher Chung, Jack Lowden, Dustin Demri-Burns and company were outstanding. The writing was so sharp and I really appreciated the fact that this isn’t a story about a group of crackerjack super spies who are besting the world. Instead, this group of “Slow Horses” has found themselves at Slough House because they screwed up. Deeply. That doesn’t mean they are not without their merits, but something about people inching through their days until they face a challenge where they are very much starting from behind suits the world of today. So when I say that unwrapping a Mother’s Day package with the first three books of Mick Herron’s series (on which the show is based) made me feel both seen and loved, you might guess how much.
The trouble was, I couldn’t stop reading the books. That was the intent, of course, of my husband’s ordering them for me, for me to get some time on my own to just recharge. But I don’t think he expected me to get halfway through the first book, Slow Horses, in a bath on that first day. I was glad to have watched the series because the writing was faster than my brain and it took me a little while to fully understand their world, that said, the first book and the first season of the show are nearly identical, though I’m not sorry I experienced both. And the casting of that series is perfect enough that I’ve carried the images of the actors through the books as I’ve read each one.
Truth is, I got so into the series that I read everything I had at hand in the first week. But before I finished the third book another package arrived. My husband had ordered the next three. And so on it went as I raced through every single book, including the accompanying novellas. I got sick one week and spent an entire day reading in bed with the fireplace on during the rainiest spring ever over here. I was reading the books so fast I couldn’t even keep up with my own progress on Goodreads.
Mick Herron Pulls No Punches
As much as the series is one strong continued story line, I’ve loved every book in its own way. I won’t go into details on the stories because I want you to experience them for themselves, but regular, beloved characters die often in this world of intrigue. And sometimes they die ignominiously. There aren’t a lot of rays of sunshine in these books except in the sheer fortitude of these characters going forward to face another day with whatever they have at hand, even if it’s aged technology and a rotting building.
The series is still being written and I appreciated the way that Herron wrote in contemporary events like Brexit, the pandemic, and Jeffrey Epstein without bogging the story too heavily in them. I hope this is something that happens in more books going forward (once we’ve had some time to process anyway), an acknowledgement of some of the heaviness of the last decade as the action of life continues on.
Can A Spy Novel Be Feminist?
The characters are beloved and the characters are awful. Sometimes they are both. One of my favorite depictions is of Roddy Ho, the resident hacker, because Herron does such a brilliant job of inhabiting scenes from Roddy’s stunted (at best) point of view as he cyberstalks women he’s certain are gagging for his love. Spoiler alert, they are not, but the way Herron takes us into his head we understand Roddy better but are not forced to have sympathy for his worldview.
I was jarred when I read the word “tits” in book two or three because the descriptions of the female characters don’t veer into the woman as object trope (thankfully) except when seen from the eyes of specific characters. There are women I fell in love with in these books and women I hated. Mostly they get to be people with good traits and bad. I loved that.
Jackson Lamb, the ostensible caretaker of the whole bunch is easily one of the most offensive characters of the bunch, treating his employees awfully and saying often (“in jest”) things that should not be said. Even he gets complicated, though, as he will go to the ends of the earth for his “Joes” (at least when the threat is coming from outside the office). Gary Oldman was especially beautifully cast in this role.
The Pacing of Slow Horses is Exceptional
One of the tricks Herron employs exceedingly well is constructing the books almost entirely out of very short scenes (one to two pages) that end with small cliff hangers. Each scene is then followed by one from a different point of view that ends with another cliff hanger. The writing and reading feel breathless (in a good way) as a result, and it’s hard to put the books down. Even at bedtime.
A careful reading will show, too, that the cliff hangers are not always what they seem and it’s worth reading as slowly as you can to see exactly what Herron wrote, not what he’s led you to want to read into it.
What Made Me Sad About These Books
There was only one thing that I regretted when reading these books—that my Baba and Djiedo weren’t alive to share them with. My shelves are filled with their old books (see that Bob Hope lingering in the back of the photo above?), and their mystery and spy novels are especially cherished. These Slough House novels are books I very much would have sent to them to share. But I’ve sent them to my dad for Father’s Day instead. The first three anyway, and if he loves them as much as I did then maybe I’ll keep sending them until he’s all caught up. Because the best part of a good book is sharing it.
If you try out the Slough House books, drop me a line and let me know what you think.
This collection of eerie short stories quickly became one of my most recommended books. I loved it so much I sent a copy to a friend (another way I’m trying to re-engage with life this year). Yap’s stories span parts of Asia and the U.S. and carry with them bits of lore from all over. They are surprising, smart, and delightfully creepy. Because I work in tech, I hardly ever read fiction about tech life, but the way Yap wove together magic with an insider’s view on this subculture in “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” was insightful and wicked and very much worth the read.
I have not finished this book yet, but it is one of the scariest things I’ve read in a long, long time. A true ghost story, I Remember You is also something that’s formed a new habit for my family: my husband reads a few pages some nights after I go to bed, I catch up in the mornings I wake too early, and our son questions us relentlessly about it over breakfast. I love the book. I love the sharing. I hope we get to do this forever.
I bought the book in the minutes following my second vaccination as part of a gleeful armload of treasure acquired during my first visit to a bookstore in over a year. It tells the story of three Muslim women in Scotland on a journey to visit the grave of the first western woman to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. Each of the women is beautifully drawn both in their individual struggles and in the ways they push and pull against one another. 
Speaking of patterns and being doomed to repeat history we haven’t learned from, In the Dream House was not at all what I expected from a memoir of abuse, but it might be the book I need to help me work through some patterns I’d like to shed. Machado’s writing is gorgeous, always, and the book is a tender recounting of a relationship that felt like love, for a time. 
My son entered a spooky place sometime during the pandemic where he latched on to Scooby-Doo and began asking for more. Although he’s only five, I thought he might be ready for The Dark is Rising series, one of my favorites from childhood. And I was right. I’ve loved every night we’ve cuddled late past bedtime reading just one more page. Over Sea, Under Stone taught me something important, too. As Jane, Barney and Simon crept up to the attic to explore the treasures of the Grey House, I found myself on an adventure with my son. And I remembered what that felt like. How essential adventure used to be to my sense of being, even when I was actively resisting it. 
I am a writer. This is a through line of my life that I have had to fight for. It is also what carries me forward in the hardest times (like the past year). I often look to Agodon as a model—a successful poet and publisher who lives on the side of the water I dream of. Dialogues with Rising Tides reminded me that her writing is also something I can learn from. I particularly enjoy the breadth of her voice, the way she embraces the quotidian “we’re replacing our cabinet knobs / because we can’t change the world,” casual wit “the apocalypse always shows up / uninvited with a half-eaten bag of chips,” deep insights “She tells me the reason I wake up / screaming is because / no one ever dealt with that pain,” and artful imagery “This is postpartum with suicide corsages.” I don’t always re-read poetry books (the way I should), but I will be re-reading this one.
Nell Zink is the best writer of my generation. She captures the essence of what makes us tick (for better or worse) as individuals and as a society and she’s not afraid to call bullshit when necessary. I was sucked into Nicotine by the descriptions of Penny trying to support her father through hospice and death while the rest of her family found anything else to do. What held me, though, was the nuanced descriptions of the squatters Penny encounters in her grandparents’ former home and the ways that Zink allows her characters to break past the labels we might want to place on them. 
Speaking of a post-capitalist life…this book is a gorgeous look at what life would look like if we embraced love and humanity as our underlying values, and it’s filled with reminders of the damage we do to ourselves and our planet every day we do not. The ideas lap like ocean tides against loving descriptions of sea life we don’t look at closely enough.
I confess that my reading of Garden by the Sea by Mercè Rodoreda was broken. I picked it up night after night and would read a few pages before falling asleep with it open and the lamp on. But it wasn’t the book’s fault and in some ways this was the perfect book to read in this way. (In my reading anyway) not a lot happens in the first half of the book. 
Now is one of the books my son pulls from his shelves when he knows I’m upset and could use a calm down. Beautifully illustrated, this book walks through moments of a young girl’s life. I bought it so he could learn (gently) about mindfulness. Clearly I need it as much for myself. Still, this book is an excellent reminder (for readers of all ages) about appreciating the moments we’re in. At the end of the book, the narrator says “and this is my favorite now, because it’s the one I’m sharing with you” and shows the girl being read to by her mother (at which point my son always gets an extra big hug). 
Phillip Lopate 
When I saw on Twitter that Robert Macfarlane had proposed a book group where we all start reading The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper on Midwinter’s Eve (the day the book starts) and share our experiences under the hashtag