Accoun Buzz review of Astral Travel

Just after I posted the last entry, I discovered another review of Astral Travel that my summer in Snowdonia had caused me to miss. Those periods away from everything are essential, really, I find - I must say that although I didn't get much actual work down on paper this summer, the ideas and images have been churning - but you do need to keep in touch with things (the constant writers' dilemma) and I completely missed this great appreciation on Accoun Buzz, in which Joshua R Conley calls the story of the book 'engaging and compelling', and the novel 'A beautiful book written with a lot of skill and empathy.' Thank you, Joshua!

Giveaway for Astral Travel's first birthday.

It's a year today that Astral Travel was published, and I'm celebrating by running a giveaway. If you'd like the chance to win a copy for yourself, or for a friend for Christmas, then you can enter here by commenting below, or on one of my Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (@elizabeth_baines_writer) accounts. There will be two winners on each platform. (Please enter on only one platform).

UK only. Ends 22.11.2021. Winners selected at random.

If you're wondering if it would make a good Christmas present, I'm pleased to say that many of the review comments have implied that it would. Ailsa Cox called it a 'great page turner' on Litro Magazine, Shiny New Books said it was 'a book to lose yourself in'. The Mole on Our book Reviews said he 'couldn't stop reading', and the Bookmunch reviewer 'greedily consumed every paragraph, and yearned for more free time when I had to put the book down to do something inconsequential like work or sleep.' Indeed, an Amazon reviewer said it had 'solved her Christmas present problems.'

So leave a comment if you'd like to enter here. It can be bought from all good bookshops or direct from Salt Publishing. 

A review by Katie Lumsden of Astral Travel, and the problems of getting reviews for small publishers

Another nice surprise, in that, 11 months after publication, Katie Lumsden has reviewed Astral Travel on her BookTube channel Books and Things (at 9.42 on the video), and it's a very nice review indeed.

What I discovered this time around, when Salt and I were setting out (under conditions of lockdown!) to tell the world about Astral Travel, is that many book reviewing bloggers are now tied up with the market campaigns of big publishing houses. The big publishing houses have - they can afford - long pre-publication marketing periods, and as a result those bloggers are too committed for the future with advance copies from those publishers to be able to consider the necessarily more short-term review request of a small publisher. And in this situation, with books from the big publishers keeping on coming at reviewers, there's not a lot of chance of a book that hasn't already made a splash being reviewed retrospectively. 

So I'm very grateful indeed that Katie has given Astral Travel this attention. She says it's 'highly recommended' and a compelling read, and really likes the structure and the way the novel deals with memory.

Thank you, Katie!

Astral Travel is at 9.42, but it's worth looking at the whole video for Katie's enthusiasm for the books she talks about, and to hear about her love of Victorian novels. (Astral Travel actually adopts - slightly ironically - a Victorian and earlier mode of captioning each section with a one-sentence summary of the section's content, but she doesn't mention that.)

An outing to the Brontes

It was hard for Astral Travel being published under lockdown - the launch event cancelled, a planned article and potential others cancelled, and bookshops closed. We tried to avoid the situation by postponing, but then, just in time for our rescheduled date, we hit the third lockdown. So now that things are easing up I decided to give my book a bit of an airing by taking it on an outing or two. Astral Travel is hugely if subtly influenced by Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, both in its stories-within-stories structure, and its brooding male protagonist with mysterious origins. So its outing last Friday couldn't have been more apt: the unveiling of the blue plaque on the Bronte birthplace in Thornton near Bradford, followed by the launch of Michael Stewart's new book in which he describes following the historic footpaths walked by the Brontes - a book that will be exciting to Bronte lovers and walkers alike.

The Bronte birthplace, where Patrick and Maria Bronte lived for a few short years before moving to Haworth, and where Maria gave birth to the four famous children, has undergone various uses, including at one time, a butcher's shop. At present it's a bistro and coffee house appropriately called Emily's, which, for the unveiling, laid on prosecco and the most wonderful ciccheti - Italian canapes.

It was a very, very wet day, with rain so incessant it came through umbrellas, yet about a hundred people happily turned up to squeeze into the hilly and cobbled Market Street - clearly Bronte enthusiasts, all. Afterwards we all walked over to the Arts Centre for the book launch, where it was decided in view of the weather to hold it in the meeting room indoors instead of in the garden as planned. However, there were so many people there that Michael had to do his talk and reading in relays, while people waited their turn under the big umbrellas in the yard or sheltered in the cafe and bar. 

I once lived in Bradford - it inspired the story 'Where the Starlings Fly' which is in my collection, Used to Be - and the special atmosphere of those hilly streets and stone houses surrounded by hills hit me forcefully once again, awakening memories and melancholy creative stirrings. As we headed back to Manchester across hills shrouded in mist and driving rain, I felt that in fact the weather couldn't have been more apt for an occasion commemorating the writers of those darkly passionate books.

Emma's Book Blog tour stop

Last stop on the Random Things blog tour for Astral Travel was on Emma's Book Blog, where it received a nice review from Emma (left) which ends: 'Beautifully written, Astral Travel is a fascinating and sobering read about family dynamics, damning secrets and prejudice.' Thank you, Emma, and many thanks indeed to Anne Cater for organising the tour!

There are three days left to enter the giveaway on Anne's blog.

Astral Travel giveaway. Random things blog tour

Today on the blog tour for Astral Travel, Random Things tour organiser Anne Cater is hosting a giveaway. For the chance of winning a free copy of Astral Travel, simply go to this post on Anne's blog, Random Things Through My Letterbox, and click on the link for the prize widget. The prize is open for 14 days. (Uk only.)

Relentlessly Purple blog tour stop

Today Astral Travel lands on Relentlessly Purple, where blogger Ember says she really enjoyed reading a 'different kind of mystery book'. I find this gratifying, as although Astral Travel is metafictive and deals with some pretty hefty issues, it is after all basically a mystery. The fundamental mystery is narrator Jo's complicated father whose Irish background is shrouded in silence, and who is two very different men: a talkative charmer in the outside world and in her mother's tales about their early life together, but throughout Jo's childhood broody and bad-tempered in the home. And there are other mysteries: why does Jo's mother have such different memories from Jo's of their life during Jo's childhood? And why did the family move about so often in a way that isn't fully explained? The novel consists of Jo's quest to understand these things, and her discovery of the truth behind it all.

B for Book Review blog tour stop

Today on its Random Things blog tour, Astral Travel whizzes into B for Book Review, where you can read an extract from the beginning of the novel. This beginning is called 'Before and After', and is a kind of prologue in two sections, the first of which takes place after the major events of the novel, the second taking us right back to a time before it all started, to the narrator's childhood and the beginning of a mysterious change in her father which is to propel the whole novel. The extract on B for Book Review takes us from the very start to partway through this second section.

Booklymatters blog tour stop

The RandomThings book tour for Astral Travel kicks off today at Booklymatters with a review which begins:

This brilliant book is about the stories we tell ourselves, how we learn to handle the realities we cannot escape from, and exactly how much of our truest selves we are willing to expose or share in search of essential connection and resolution. 

The review then goes on to consider the 'stories within stories' aspect of the book - the way that stories can seem one way, but when you delve deeper, as m protagonist Jo does, you can find they have entirely different meanings and even be different stories altogether. You can read the whole review here.

Astral Travel Book Tour

Next week Astral Travel is indeed travelling - to some great blogs and Instagram accounts. Here's the schedule beginning Monday. There'll be reviews, an extract, and a giveaway if you're interested in trying for a free copy.

21st June: Bookly Matters (Instagram) @booklymatters

22nd June: B for Bookreview @BookreviewsB

23rd June: Relentlessly Purple @Lentlesslypurpl

24th June: Random things through My Letterbox @annecater

25th June: Emmaz Book Blog @corkyyorky

 

New story shortlisted

I'm very happy that a new story of mine has been shortlisted for the Short Fiction Journall/University of Essex Wild Writing Prize. I'm not allowed at this stage to say which one of the shortlisted stories it is, as they have to be presented anonymously to the two judges who consider them at this stage. It's a nice boost, as I have felt at something of a distance from writing recently, other, more practical matters having kept me away from my desk and displacing from my head a new novel idea I've had brewing. 

Astral Travel keeps me busy: all four of the videos I made about novels with which Astral Travel has certain connections can now be seen together on my YouTube playlist.

And in June there will be a blog tour for Astral Travel, organised by the wonderful Anne Cater.

And now I think I have a few days at least to sink back into that day-dreamy parallel dimension that a new idea always is...

Talking About Astral Travel (4)

Here's the fourth and last of the short videos in which I talk about novels with which my own, Astral Travel, has some connection. This time two classics I read when I was young, Tristram Shandy and Wuthering Heights. Both have had a huge influence on my writing in general. Tristram Shandy is particularly interesting for its non-linear structure, which seems postmodern long before postmodernism. To me it's a searingly truthful mode, as it mimics the non-linear way in which we tend to think and remember. Wuthering Heights is notable for its structure - a story filtered by first one narrator and then another to whom she tells the tale, in a way that explores viewpoint and the way that stories are experenced and told. Inevitably, with my literary obsession with the fluidity of time and with contingency, Astral Travel carries the imprint of both.

Talking About Astral Travel (3)

Here's the third of the videos in which I talk about novels that are connected in one way or another with my own, Astral Travel. This time, two Irish novels - Edna O'Brien's Girl With Green Eyes and John McGahern's Amongst Women - and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5.  The first two share with Astral Travel a figure common in Irish literature, the difficult and oppressive father. Vonnegut's book, which I first read a very long time ago, is a very different kind of novel from Astral Travel, but I guess it influenced a certain aspect of the structure of Astral Travel, and a particular motif. 

Talking About AstralTravel (2)

Here's another video in which I talk about novels with some connection with my own, Astral Travel, this time All My Puny sorrows by Miriam Toews and The Gathering by Anne Enright. I read both of these novels while I was already embarked on Astral Travel, and was struck by some of the similarities, particularly in theme. As I say in the video, sometimes when you're writing a novel, you keep coming across connections with what you're doing - in the news, in books, in things people say, etc - and it's a though you're tuning into something in the air, and it's a very exciting feeling!  

Talking about Astral Travel (1)

 

Here's a link to a video, the first of four in which I talk about some novels that in some way relate to Astral Travel.

Some of these novels were actual influences on my writing in general and/or on Astral Travel in particular - usually ones I read a long time ago; others I read while I was writing Astral Travel and they resonated in ways that made me feel that what I was doing was an acceptable thing to be doing; and others just have certain aspects with similarities to some of those in Astral Travel.

In this first video, I talk about Austerlitz by WG Sebald, which I read when I was already embarked on Astral Travel, and which, though a very different kind of book, had some very strong resonances for me, and Enid Blyton's Enchanted Wood, an extract from which I read at the age of 6 and which, after I had finished writing Astral travel, I was stunned to realise might be behind something that happens near the beginning of my book.

Ailsa Cox reviews Astral Travel in Litro

It's a particular thrill when a writer whose work you admire - Ailsa Cox writes accomplished and moving short stories - and a literature professor to boot, praises your book. Reviewing Astral Travel for Litro Magazine, she calls it 'riveting,' 'wonderful' and a 'page-turner'. 

Astral Travel is a story about a painful history, but I like to think it's told with a light touch, and to my gratification Ailsa corroborates this:

Astral Travel is written so vividly, in such a freewheeling style, that the narrative twists and turns are navigated with ease. Despite the underlying anger, and the sadness, Jo is a likeable narrator with an ironic tone of voice and a comic sensibility. 

(I have to return the compliment: this is a lucid, beautifully written review).

I'm not sure why Litro have chosen to illustrate this review with a picture of a church door, but perhaps it's because Ailsa picks up on the crucial theme of identity that is at the novel's core and what she calls 'the multiple allegiances that [protagonist Jo] inherits – Welsh, Irish, Jewish, Methodist, Catholic and more ... just part of her struggle towards self-definition beyond patriarchal control.'

Annabel Gaskell reviews Astral Travel for Shiny New Books

It's hard to describe how on top of the world I feel when I get a review that so understands what my work is doing, and at the same time really likes it, as does this fabulous review of Astral Travel by Annabel Gaskell for Shiny New Books.

She says of Astral Travel:

This book is beautifully constructed... At three short of four hundred pages, Astral Travel is a longish book, but it never dragged; nor was it a purely sensational read. This fine novel was, however, emotionally gripping, Baines shows great empathy towards her characters and I was totally engrossed by it, especially in Jo’s search for the truth. A book to lose yourself in – heartily recommended.

It did happen to be a beautifully sunny morning when I woke to this review (so different from some of our recent gloomy days), but everything does seems touched with magic as a result: the frost on the low roof just below my upstairs window is sparkling with rainbow colours and all the light on the bare sycamore across the road looks golden. And the first of the sweet peas I planted a fortnight ago has popped up a shoot!

neverimitate reviews Astral Travel, and a podcast interview for The Wormhole.

I so admire the industry and application of book bloggers. Jackie Law has a very busy blog, neverimitate - I don't know how she manages to read as much as she does, and write about it all. I'm very grateful that she's given Astral Travel a detailed and thoughtful review, and thrilled, I must say, that she says it's 'a lingering and recommended read.'

Charlie Place, whose blog is The Wormhole, conducts podcast interviews with the authors whose books she has reviewed - that must be such a lot of work! - and last week she interviewed me about my story collection, Used to Be and Astral Travel - with a little bit, too, about writing drama for radio. I realised I'd never done an interview like this before - via telephone or zoom - previously, it's always been in person or via email. We did it via audio zoom, and I wondered beforehand if I'd miss the visual cues/clues of an in-person interview, but in the event found it worked very well. You can hear the podcast here.

Reviews of Astral Travel and Joachim Boaz on The Birth Machine

It's the first day of February, and there are snowdrops up in the garden, a bit of hope in these dreadful times!  

Astral Travel has had a couple more nice reviews. The Mole at Our Book Reviews Online says he 'couldn't stop reading' and he 'loved this story', and calls it 'highly recommended'. (Full review here.) And an appreciative review comes from Nakisha Towers on Everybody's Reviewing, a website/blog of Leicester University's Centre for Creative Writing.

And I came belatedly across this nice review of The Birth Machine by Joachim Boaz in a blog survey he recently made of medical science fiction. It amuses me when people classify The Birth Machine as science fiction - it is actually listed in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction - since, as far as I was concerned, I was writing about social reality. The 'birth machine' of the title (which also relates to the alienation of the birthing mother through medicalisation) refers to a device for inducing labour that was actually introduced into labour wards in the early 70s, when the book is set. At one time I found the assumption that it was science fiction frustrating, as it seemed like a potential negation or at least continued overlooking of the re-life social experience of women. 

I know that Margaret Atwood has said the same about the Handmaid's Tale, that in fact nothing in that novel had not already happened to women somewhere in the world by the time she wrote the novel. The Birth Machine is not even set in a speculative future, as is The Handmaid's Tale, so would seem even less prone to being pushed into the science-fiction category. I'm more relaxed about it now, though, and think that if people want take The Birth Machine as metaphorical (as surely science fiction is), a metaphor for certain dangerous ways of thinking, then that's fine - and is better than its being taken as a simple plea for natural childbirth, which at times it has been, and which as far as I'm concerned it definitely is not.

I'm happy to say that, after a long period of being unable to write - of having no creative room in my head beside preoccupation with our strange new circumstances under coronavirus - I've begun to write again. (As I've said, I found I need to know what I'm writing into, and now I do: lockdown has become normality!) I've actually got a new novel brewing (nothing written down yet) and I've completed a new story which I realised, when it was finished, was a stepping stone towards the novel in terms of theme. It wasn't exactly a flash of lightning kind of thing as writing a story so often can be for me, and I abandoned it twice. I had a basic scenario with a compelling image which seemed to resonate deeply, but which seemed somehow too big to handle, to unpick and take further, and so the story kept going nowhere. Then one day it came to me what was wrong: the scenario with which I had begun was actually not the beginning but the end of the story, its culmination. Sometimes what seems like a complete writing block can be dispelled by a simple solution, in this case structural.

Astral Travel 'Best of Best 2020 Reads' on The Wormhole

I'm delighted that on her popular blog The Wormhole, Charlie Place (pictured) includes Astral Travel in her 'Best of Best' reads of 2020, and that in another blog post, for her December reading, she calls it 'superb'. She says it's 'probably the best book about child abuse I've read', which gave me a little weird twitch, since I don't regard it as a book about child abuse - but then that's the interesting thing about books, that readers make of a book what they will. Once you've written a book and it's out there, it's no longer yours really, but theirs. Indeed, that's the magic of reading that first set me on this route when I was a child...