I have been away for a while again haven’t I? I do so hate
it when real life stops me from doing blogging. I’m back now though, my mojo
sorta returned and to make up for it I have a list of books I’ve read that I
want to talk to you about and maybe even a special guest. We’ll talk about that
later though, because right now I wanna talk about this:
I went into CJ Fisher’s When We Were Alive not
really sure what to expect.
Do I need to mention that Fisher is also on YouTube under
the handle Ophelia Dagger? Most people probably
already know that already. I didn’t; I’ve seen her videos but hadn’t realised
that this was her. I’m not actually sure how relevant it is, actually, because
I’m not here to tell you that you ought to read this book because books by
YouTubers are super cool. I’m telling you to read this book because YouTube
Channel or not, CJ Fisher is A Very Good Writer. I tell you, for a debut, this
is seriously good. In fact, that might be unfair. Probably I should just say
that it’s good, because it is.
It’s very wordy, which, well I loved. All the pretty words,
all of the time thank-you please, and it’s very cleverly written, with three
equally excellent stories interwoven together and taking us from 2011 to the
1970’s to the 1930’s and back again, each voice sharp and unique and strong
with a mixture of third person narrative and letters from a young boy to the
Mother he doesn’t know. It’s witty and clever and very perceptive and I was
gripped. Utterly gripped.
Lemme tell you a bit about it because I’m being vague, and
being vague does not a helpful review make.
It’s three stories – I said that already I know, bear with -
seemingly unconnected stories, told independently of one another but woven
together so intricately that sometimes it makes your breath catch. Themes are
repeated and ideologies are repeated and it’s so damn clever that you don’t
even realise it right away. I love that.
In 2011 you’ve got Myles. Myles is in his early 20’s and
though it’s never explicitly stated you can’t help but think he places
somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. He reminds me a little of Charlie a little
bit, from Perks. He tells his story, random and
wonderful and a little bittersweet as it is, through the letters he pens to the
Mum he never knew – gimme all the epistolary stories please – and he’s candid
and honest and open even though sometimes he’s a little bit inappropriate and
he’s really intriguing. Probably not the most reliable of narrators lets be
honest but that’s kind of the appeal.
Then, in the 70’s there’s Will who is on a path to self
destruction in a bid to just feel. He gets
drunk in a hotel in Vegas and meets a girl. Dawn turns his life upside down.
Will’s kind of fascinating, a bit of a train wreck, and you kind of want to
help him, to save him, and at the same time (because you know he’s not real) you want to sit back and watch, see where, exactly
he’s going to end up.
Then further back still, right back to the 1930’s and Bobby.
We meet Bobby when he’s 12 and he’s a misfit and he wants to be a magician and
he has no friends but his parents until he meets Rose. Rose who becomes his
friend quite by accident and is part of his story through WWII and after and
Bobby might be my favourite actually, partly because of the setting of his
story and partly because he sort of makes your chest tight. Gah. I love him.
It’s a book about life, skipping from one decade to the next
and back again and showing you with no holds barred these snapshots into these
three lives and making you root for them, ache for them, believe in them. There
are twists and there are turns, there are things you see coming and sometimes
you find yourself saying ‘oh hello foreshadowing’ and things that you
absolutely did not see coming but at all. It’s not a barrel of laughs (and I
know, I hear you say: probably that’s why I liked it so) but it’s a good book. It’s about love and it’s about life and it’s
about how with the passage of time some things remain the same even as others
change beyond recognition. It’s about how sometimes things look truly fucking
awful but you have to find a way to pick yourself up and carry on. It’s a book
that wraps it’s arms around you and clings; you can’t help but be absorbed. I
cannot wait to see where Fisher goes next.
