Book Reviews

RIPE FIGS

BY YASMIN KHAN / BLOOMSBURY $45.00

Life in Northern Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s was, as I recall, sustained by ‘good plain cooking’, the basis of which was the famous Ulster fry and suet pudding – ‘good stuff that sticks to yer ribs’. I can’t remember too many spices or herbs in our larder apart from Saxa white pepper and the occasional bunch of parsley. As a newly arrived immigrant to Perth in 1976, I was agog at the range of aromatic plants and spices which adorned the burgeoning shelves of Coles and Charlie Carters. A cornucopia of new and exotic dishes was now available to enhance my food adventure. Since then I have been an active experimenter and sampler of diverse international culinary dishes, with the notable exception of those emanating from the Eastern Mediterranean. Yasmin Khan’s exquisite new publication is an ‘open sesame’ to cuisine from this region. The recipes feature the expected ingredients such as citrus, tahini, olive oil, yogurt, various herbs, spices and nuts, with the chapters focusing on meals such as breakfast, salads, soups, mains, deserts and breads. Traveling through Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, Khan has assembled an array of diverse recipes from people she encountered at various locations on her journey. But this 300 page, sumptuously illustrated volume, is much more than a ‘cook-book’, as Khan, of Pakistani-Iranian heritage, also explores issues of migration, refugees and war. “It’s about the people I met, shared meals with and cooked alongside …. But most of all … it’s a book about the resilience of the human spirit”. – Reviewed by John Hagan

THE IMITATOR

BY REBECCA STARFORD / ALLEN & UNWIN $29.99

It was while a pupil at boarding school that Evelyn Varley learned to fit in; to become one of ‘the girls’; not to challenge the status quo; to disappear into the background in order to survive. These were skills which would serve her well in later life when she was recruited in to espionage. While at school, Evelyn developed a close friendship with Sally Wesley, daughter of a wealthy industrialist, and her cousin Julia, an older brooding

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girl with a dark edge. Thanks to Sally’s influential father, Evelyn, on graduating from university in 1939, is recruited by MI5 where, the former misfit enthusiastically sets about trying to make a valuable contribution to Britain’s WWII counter intelligence planning. Her pragmatic spymaster, Bennett White, teaches her the intricacies of ‘the trade’ before assigning her the task of infiltrating a cabal of Nazi sympathizers who operate from a small London restaurant specialising in Russian cuisine. But nothing is ever as it seems, and Evelyn is gradually drawn deeper into a morass of duplicity and intrigue before she realizes that befriending people in order to betray them is no easy matter. Can she continue to trust her own instincts? Can she still trust Sally and Julia, who know some of her own secrets? This is a character study of a woman caught between two lives in a suspenseful thriller filled with spies, deception and double crossing. Starford explores Evelyn’s character, revealing her inner thoughts and how she finally deals with the predicament in which she becomes fatefully embroiled. Attention to detail throughout the whole narrative is impressive, even down to the bed fitted with Northern Ireland’s Moygashel sheets. Starford has produced an eloquent, well constructed, sublime novel full of enough twists and turns to keep the reader tearing through to learn of Evelyn’s eventual destiny. – Reviewed by John Hagan

KARACHI VICE

BY SAMIRA SHACKLE / GRANTA $32.99

On her arrival in Karachi, investigative reporter Samira Shackle, receives two pieces of advice; “If a man on a motorbike stops by your car window and flashes a gun, don’t ask questions, just hand over your cash and phone”, and, “If you pass through a dangerous district, don’t stop – not even if someone crashes into you”. Salutary warnings indeed. As she settled in to her assignment, Shackle began her day perusing the ‘Shootings and raids’, ‘Mishaps and bodies found’ columns in Karachi’s English-language newspapers. Violence in Karachi, a teeming, sprawling megacity of some 20 million inhabitants, has deep and enduring roots, and it is through the eyes of five of its residents that Shackle explores the city’s complexity, its violence and politics. Karachi is a city where lavish wealth and abject poverty live side by side, and where the line between idealism and corruption is often difficult to recognise. Safdar is a Pashtun ambulance driver who, despite his many years in the job, still struggles to process the trauma of retrieving corpses from blast sites, rescuing abandoned babies and rushing gang-war victims to hospital. Parveen is a teacher whose classroom is the street and whose seven to eight year old pupils are on the payrolls of local gangsters. She ‘can’t recall the good times in her neighbourhood’ and complains to Shackle about regularly having to clean the expended bullet casings from the step outside her home. Cartographer, Siraj’s job leads him in to danger when he begins to explore who is controlling Karachi’s water resources and who is providing strong-arm assistance. Crime reporter, Zille, is a shadowy figure whose motives are not always apparent, but who relishes his crime beat role. “When you are on a terrorist hit list”, he tells Shackle, “everybody knows that you’re a real journalist”. Jannat is a woman from a village near Karachi who describes its destruction and the ensuing misery for its inhabitants thanks to the illegal moves of a property developer. Through the accounts of these five individuals, Shackle sketches life of a violent, turbulent, troubled city with its rampant corruption and overt sectarian conflict. While there is much to enrage the reader, Shackle also uncovers moments of genuine courage, love and human decency amidst the seemingly unremitting Karachi gloom. – Reviewed by John Hagan

THE BEAUTY OF LIVING TWICE

BY SHARON STONE / ALLEN & UNWIN $29.99

In the mid-1990s, Sharon Stone was at the zenith of her acting career. She was the highest paid movie star on the planet; it’s impossible to overstate just how famous (or infamous) she was. Acclaimed for her notorious role in Basic Instinct, she also starred in Casino and The Muse, before her world came crashing down in 2001 when she suffered a massive. Movie roles eventually dry up and Stone is plunged into physical debilitation and financial ruin. An

acrimonious divorce from husband, Phil Bronstein, and the death of her father compound her problems. Born to Irish –American, blue-collar, parents in rural Pennsylvania, Stone began her working career as a waitress, pool hall manager and part-time model before chancing her luck in Hollywood in the early 1980s. Minor breaks ensued, and she gleefully describes how Woody Allen plucked her from near obscurity for a part in Stardust Movies, but getting that big break in Basic Instinct (her eighteenth film) proved to be harder. At Stone’s behest, her agent burgled the casting director’s office to steal a copy of the script, while star actor, Michael Douglas, initially refused to screen test with her. The role was offered to twelve other actresses who all turned it down making Stone the mere thirteenth choice for the film. While she reminiscences on her Tinseltown experiences and relationships with other stars, it is perhaps not her movie career from which Stone derives most satisfaction, but her ‘second life’ following her neardeath encounter. She describes how embracing the Buddhist faith bought her tranquility, raising three sons fostered contentment, while her charitable work and efforts in pursuit of world peace have seemingly brought her more satisfying and lasting acclaim. In 2013, Stone received the Nobel Peace Summit Award which was presented to her by Betty Williams who, in tandem with Mairead Corrigan, had won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for their efforts during the Northern Ireland conflict. The three forged an enduring friendship. This is a memoir of great gusto in which Stone delivers a torrent of self-reflective, and sometimes self-deprecating, anecdotes. She is consistently candid, often feisty and frequently tender. The narrative is a big-hearted tale of female strength and resilience; a book for the wounded that choose to speak up, make a stand and face down the problems that life dishes out. – Reviewed by John Hagan

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