I Have to Tell You Something

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This is the author’s debut novel and I’m looking forward to reading more from Michelle McDonagh in the future. This is an engaging story that will appeal to fans of well-constructed murder mysteries, with the added bonus of a focus on rural Ireland. To be fair, the book is in no way graphic and we are rarely taken inside any of the well-used bedrooms, but, oh boy, even when Jay’s not actually doing sex, she spends an awful lot of time thinking about it. Can we please have some professional female characters who are ruled by their heads, not their hormones? Is that too much to ask? If even women writers show women as unable to perform professional roles professionally, what hope is there for us?) I mean, even for a grown person like myself who is older than both Mr Buttigieg and his more famous husband, this was a much needed look at how much better life has gotten for queer people in the United States in the last fifteen to twenty years alone. The author candidly discusses how he went from being a closeted, unhappy teen in a Traverse City, Michigan high school that had no out queer students, to returning as an adult to speak to their LGBTQ+ Club. Mr Buttigieg's honest recounting of his own experiences and feelings underscores just how awful things used to be only a very short time ago.

I liked a lot the twist I had as a reader with Jimmy’s character which up until very late in the book is written to be liked by everybody, but ultimately without your will, you must admit part of the guilt is his as well. He became a made-up father, a collage assembled from bits of the real one. Each of us had our own notion or fantasy of him, while he stood in the shadows, like Orson Welles in The Third Man, always about to step into our lives—we hoped.

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It’s the story of middle life crises where multiple characters find themselves with much of their life behind them they wonder have they done enough of the right stuff? And how much more can they do and achieve to become noticed and accepted? There are some murkier elements to the storyline (I’ll add in content warnings in the comments) but sadly these felt very realistic for a modern Irish setting. I spotted @sharon.read.this mention in her review that this feels like a darker version of Graham Norton’s writing, and I’d fully agree with that. Both authors capture the Irish psyche well and are adept at depicting family drama where all is not as it seems. Lots of chopping and changing between referring to people by their surname or first name, confusing on who is who and who is being referred to. This isn't marketed as a crime thriller and that technique only really works in established crime thriller series when the characters are quite well known. On a seemingly normal day on Glenbeg farm, Ursula and her husband Jimmy are found dead in the slurry pit. Their daughter Christina, son Rob, and his wife Kate are immediately thrown into a living nightmare. Jimmy had recently shown signs of memory loss but could that have somehow caused him to fall in? Even so, that wouldn’t explain how Ursula met her untimely end.

His novel Intimacy (1998) revolved around the story of a man leaving his wife and two young sons after feeling physically and emotionally rejected by his wife. This created certain controversy as Kureishi himself had recently left his wife and two young sons. It is assumed to be at least semi-autobiographical. In 2000/2001 the novel was loosely adapted to a movie Intimacy by Patrice Chéreau, which won two Bears at the Berlin Film Festival: a Golden Bear for Best Film, and a Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox). It was controversial for its unreserved sex scenes. The book was translated into Persian by Niki Karimi in 2005. Clearly no contender for Mother of the Year, Ursula also repeatedly broke her promises to her second son Robert and his wife Kate, who lived on the farm and worked alongside the older couple. Their marriage was on the verge of disintegration immediately prior to the two corpses being found at the farm, so it could truthfully be said that Ursula's death gave Kate and Robert a second chance at working out their relationship. College wasn't exactly the escape Chasten hoped it would be. He still didn't fit in and switched his field of study numerous times. Finally ending up majoring in drama, he found his people. Also by then, he knew he was gay, but opening up about it especially with his parents was a challenge. I’m giving this a 4.5, rounded down because it was quite wordy and a bit slow in places. The actual story is fantastic, and I really found myself rooting for Jay. I thought I had gotten to the ending, and I liked it, but then there was ANOTHER ending that took this from a 4 to 4.5 for me. It’s a nice, cozy mystery/psychological thriller, and one I’d recommend if you don’t mind a drawn-out book. Kureishi attended Bromley Technical High School where David Bowie had also been a pupil and after taking his A levels at a local sixth form college, he spent a year studying philosophy at Lancaster University before dropping out. Later he attended King’s College London and took a degree in philosophy. In 1985 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, a screenplay about a gay Pakistani-British boy growing up in 1980’s London for a film directed by Stephen Frears. It won the New York Film Critics Best Screenplay Award and an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay.What I loved about There's Something I Have to Tell You is that it combines the intrigue of a suspense novel with a high level of psychological insight, and the kind of skilful character development that is all too rare - especially in a first novel. The news is so depressing and distressing at the moment. Far from ignoring it, I am consuming all of it while also trying to ensure it doesn't consume me. Reading as ever is proving a good distraction. Quite often had to remind myself that the main character is not a police officer - she regularly oversteps the boundaries, does a whole host of above and beyond investigating herself and holds on to crucial evidence. Clearly no contender for Mother of the Year, Ursula Kennedy also repeatedly broke her promises to her second son Robert and his wife Kate, whose marriage was on the verge of disintegration immediately prior to her and her husband's corpses being found in the slurry pit of the farm. If psychoanalysis is about cutting to the heart of things, as I truly believe it is, then Hanif Kureishi promises a lot with this tale, narrated by a psychoanalyst in his fifties whose past catches up with him—an ingenious spin on the return of the repressed. Inspired by the analytic process, Kureishi aims 'to live without illusions. I want to look at reality straight. Without hiding. No more bullshit.' Still, there is a lot of it in this book. I was surprised, disappointed even, that the narrative seems to be less concerned with telling it straight than with the superfluous, the extremes and excesses of human behaviour.

I Have Something to Tell You explores a variety of topics… murder, infidelity, love and trust to name a few. This is a remarkable tangled web of a story and I was thoroughly engrossed from the opening chapters. I loved being the fly on the wall in the successful lawyer, Jessica (Jay) Wells's family and watching their dramas and dynamics impacting Jay's professional life.Unfortunately, I feel that there are so many psychological thrillers and crime novels out there that it must be virtually impossible to write something original. So praise to those that do it – I just think it’s time for something totally new. This family drama/whodunit is told, in third person narrative alternating between events leading up to, and subsequent to the fateful day. Chapters are told from the perspective of various members of the Kennedy clan, all of whom have something that they'd rather the investigating officers didn't know. Words matter. Actions matter more. Everyone has a responsibility to create a society that is tolerant, respectful, inclusive, and productive. Name calling, bullying, actively creating barriers against folks we disagree with makes for a small table and a hostile environment. It also diminishes people into two dimensional stereotypes instead of the complex human beings they are.