Real Life

Book club

The NEXT team shares favourite books for you to enjoy this month.

BOOK OF THE MONTH: The Gamekeeper by Portia Simpson

Simon & Schuster, $40

It was towards the end of September 2007 when Portia Simpson became the hunted. The 28-year-old was already something of a rare breed – a female gamekeeper with a penchant for designer clothing and sparkly lip gloss. But on this particular day she was about to become something else. Lunch.

After shooting a stag on the Scottish Isle of Rum, she’d expertly disembowelled the beast before dragging it down the hillside to wait for someone to take her back to base.

Lying in the heather in the autumn sunshine, she drifted off to sleep and who knows what woke her. Perhaps it was a flicker of light. Maybe some kind of ancient and instinctive sense of danger.

Whatever it was, she awoke just in time to see a large golden eagle swooping down, seconds away from grabbing her torso between its outstretched talons. Her piercing scream and instinctive waving of arms saw the predator off and, unsurprisingly, Portia Simpson never fell asleep in the heather again.

Fending off an attack by an eagle is a riveting way to start a memoir of how a woman, and a townie at that, followed her dream of living on a remote island, killing some things, nurturing others, and fighting for her right to do so in a profession still seen as a male domain.

Her path from tomboy child with a collection of pet snails to her fight to become the first woman to become a gamekeeper and wildlife manager in Scotland is at times surprising and, more often than not, hilarious.

TRUE STORY: The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy Hamish Hamilton, $38

Hamish Hamilton, $38

Twenty years after her Booker Prize-winning debut novel The God of Small Things dazzled the world, Roy is back with her second work of fiction. Anjum was born intersex and raised as a male, but she grows up to embrace her female side.

When a baby girl is abandoned amid the urban detritus, both Anjum and the book’s other protagonist, Tilo, try to claim her. And so, their worlds collide. Poetic, complex and worth the long wait.

TRUE STORY: From Cradle To Stage by Virginia Hanlon Grohl

Coronet, $40

As if giving the world Dave Grohl (Nirvana and The Foo Fighters) isn’t enough, in this book Virginia Grohl both chronicles how she raised a rock legend and interviews the parents of a number of other music idols – from Michael Stipe to Amy Winehouse – on the same subject.

She appears to come to the conclusion that the most interesting thing about rock mums is not their kids, but the ways in which they gave their children the freedom to follow their dreams.

Keep Me Safe is the atmospheric and mysterious new novel by Daniela Sacerdoti (Hachette, $35)

Meet the author

Tell me about Keep Me Safe.

It’s the story of a lost girl who shows a mother and her daughter their way home.

What inspired you to write this book?

It’s hard to say, because the story of this book came to me pretty much ready-made, on a summer’s day. I was so taken by it that I wanted to send it to my agent straight away, but I was on holiday in my home village in Italy and the only computer I could think of at that moment was the one belonging to the local retirement home. So I went there and asked if I could use it, and an elderly guest very kindly showed me how to send an email. It was funny, and very sweet.

You have written all your life but only worked up the confidence to submit to a publisher in 2010. What was the catalyst for finally taking that step?

My father’s death. He was a very talented man but very insecure, so I set out to fulfil not just my dreams and ambitions, but his too.

You were born and grew up in Italy, then lived in Scotland for 14 years before moving back to Italy with your Scottish husband two years ago. How different are the two places?

The main difference is the weather. It seems obvious, but it changes the whole culture. In Italy you spend a lot more time outside. A lot happens outside, such as festivals and celebrations. Actually Scots and Piedmontese people (Piedmont is the region in the North-West of Italy where I come from) have a lot in common: they’re reserved, proud and stubborn!

How has your degree in classics helped your writing?

It has helped immensely. Everything I read and studied in the first 37 years of my life, and then after I began writing professionally, feeds into my stories. My books are all very simple, but they have hidden layers that reflect my background.

What was the last book you read that made you laugh?

I’m reading a non-fiction book about how some ancient texts reveal that humanity was actually created by aliens, in a huge genetic experiment. Complete nonsense but a lot of fun. For me, anyway… I must have weird taste!

What’s the last truly great book you read?

I’ve been dipping in and out of a collection of Sorley MacLean’s poems. Sorley MacLean is a Scottish poet whose work has been a huge inspiration for me. My first published novel Watch Over Me was ‘sparked’ by his poem Hallaig, put to music by Martyn Bennett. This collection was a present from us to one of our sons when he was born, as we called him Sorley.

Is there one book you’ve read that you felt changed your life?

Different ones at different times. The book I read over and over again as I grew up, and I still re-read, is Anne of Green Gables. The Lord of the Rings made me dream of other worlds. Maeve Binchy, Sheila O’Flanagan and Philippa Gregory made me want to tell stories of women.

These Dividing Walls by Fran Cooper

Hachette, $35

Tolerance hangs by a tenuous thread in this debut novel set in a Paris few tourists experience. The vastly mismatched occupants of an apartment building live parallel lives: A harassed mother, a redundant banker, a young Muslim couple among them. When riots break out in the city, the residents’ secrets begin to unravel.

Domina by L S Hilton

Bonnier, $33

If you loved Hilton’s 2016 thriller Maestra, you’re in for a treat! Ruthless art historian Judith Rashleigh rashly returns for more intelligent, thought-provoking mayhem. The woman might not be entirely likeable, but she’s never boring. This time, living in Venice, Judith finds herself being blackmailed for, well, you know… her unsavoury murdering ways. A pacy, erotic page-turner.

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