I was reminded today of Olympia Dukakis playing Clairee in Steel Magnolias – ‘ If you can’t say anything nice, come and sit next to me’. Bearing this in mind, she might have had the following to say had she read Stef Penney’s ‘The Tenderness of Wolves’:
‘This is a novel? Even for a debut novel, it’s a little lacking. And that’s it with the wolves? What’s the point of a literary device if you don’t use it properly, even if it’s a McGuffin? Does anyone in this book have a three-dimensional character? I was almost keen on the woman who started narrating, even if she did do it in the present tense (or present progressive as we must now call it), she was sassy and sharp, but that’s all she was, no development. And that stereotypical Indian, Jeez, do they have creative writing classes in Scotland? Or maybe they do….First we’re chasing in the snow, then we stop, then we go a bit further, then we go another way, then there’s a bit of a mystery – ooh, no, resolved that a bit – then a character we’re supposed to have warmed to and identified with dies. Then some more moving about in the snow. And then that’s it! Is the Costa panel the one with fashion models? I’m sticking with Jonathan Safran Foer.’
She’s a harsh woman, that Clairee. I’d never be able to speak out like her.
