Tag: Laurie Steed

6 Degrees of Separation

Six Degrees of Separation: From ‘Notes on a Scandal’ to ‘You Belong Here’

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Six degrees of separation logo for memeIt’s the first Saturday of the month, which means it’s time to take part in Six Degrees of Separation, a meme hosted by Kate at booksaremyfavouriteandbest. In this meme, Kate suggests a starter book and the idea is to then create a chain of six more books, linking each one as you see fit.

Anyway, without further ado, here are the six books I have chosen for my chain. As ever, click the title to read my full review of each book.

This month the starting book is…

‘Notes on a Scandal’ by Zoë Heller (2003)

This is one of the first books I ever reviewed on this blog. I read it in one sitting and described it as a “cracking read”. Essentially it’s two intertwined stories about two very different relationships: the secret and scandalous love affair between a teacher, Sheba, and her 15-year-old pupil; and the developing friendship between Sheba and her confidante, Barbara, a history teacher at the same school.

The Best Kind of People

‘The Best Kind of People’ by Zoe Whittall (2016)

Another novel about sexual misconduct at a school, this one was shortlisted for the Giller Prize in 2016. The book explores the outfall on three members of a family, whose patriarch, George Woodbury, a popular science teacher, is accused of sexual misconduct with three female students under his charge on a school ski trip.

‘Vladímír’ by ulia May Jonas (2022)

This is a story about a popular English professor whose husband — a professor at the same small upstate New York college at which she teaches — stands accused of inappropriate relationships with former students decades earlier. But the narrator has her own sexual picaddilloes and develops an obsession with  a new male colleague, Vladímír, which highlights timely issues about power and consent.

‘Stoner’ by John Williams (1965)

Another campus novel, Stoner charts the life of one man — William Stoner — from the time he begins university to study agriculture in 1910 to his death as a just-retired English professor more than 40 years later, covering his career, which becomes slightly curtailed by university politics and his rivalry with another professor as time goes on, and a loveless marriage that falls apart.

‘Matrimony’ by Joshua Henkin (2008)

Marriage between a young academic couple forms the major focus of this compelling novel which covers a 15-year-period, from the pair’s college courtship to the onset of middle-age. It’s essentially a novel about domesticity, and how easily we fall into it, but it’s also a story about friendship and how  life happens to us while we’re busy making other plans.

‘Everybody has Everything’ by Katrina Onstad (2012)

Another portrait of a marriage, Everybody has Everything is about what happens when a happily married couple — a high-flying corporate lawyer and an out-of-work documentary filmmaker — have parenthood unexpectedly thrust upon them when a friend’s toddler is left in their care. The tensions come to the fore because one is ambivalent about parenthood while the other embraces it with enthusiaism.

‘You Belong Here’ by Laurie Steed (2018)

The long-lasting impact that parents can have on their children forms the hub of this brilliantly written novel, which spans more than 40 years. It tells the story of Jen and Steven who meet as teenagers, marry young and begin a family. It then charts how the marriage disintegrates and then looks at the impact the divorce has on their three children who struggle with various psychological issues long into adulthood.

So that’s this month’s #6Degrees: from a tale about an inappropriate relationship between a teacher and a student to a novel that explores the long-lasting impact of a divorce on three children well into adulthood, via stories about sex scandals on campus, academic life and marriages under stress. 

Have you read any of these books? 

Please note that you can see all my other Six Degrees of Separation contributions here.

Australia, Author, Book review, Fiction, Focus on WA writers, Laurie Steed, literary fiction, Margaret River Press, Publisher, Reading Projects, Setting

‘You Belong Here’ by Laurie Steed

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Fiction – paperback; Margaret River Press; 250 pages; 2018.

Laurie Steed’s You Belong Here has been described as the kind of book Anne Tyler might write if she was Australian — and I think that’s a fair summation.

This domestic driven drama charts what happens to the Slater family over the course of more than 40 years. It tells us how Jen and Steven meet as teenagers in Melbourne, how they marry young, move to Perth and begin a family. It then charts how the marriage disintegrates and then looks at the long-lasting impact the divorce has on the three children — Alex, Emily and Jay — who struggle with various psychological issues long into adulthood.

It’s a masterful account of family relationships, of the ways in which we struggle to navigate the world and the importance of love and stability to our mental well-being.

Episodic structure

You Belong Here is told in an episodic style structured in parts —1972-1984; 1985-1995; 1996-1999; 2000-2002; and 2015 — which makes for a relatively quick-moving read.

Steed does not get bogged down in details; he takes a particular episode, for example, how Steven loses his job as an air-traffic controller or how Jay’s mental health deteriorates to the point where he needs to be admitted to a psychiatric facility, and tells it from the point-of-view of a particular character. He fleshes it out so we see how that snapshot in time illuminates what else is happening within and outwith the family.

Little details, like a song or a fashion item or a brand of food, pegs the episode to a specific time in history, so you get the feeling as you move through the story that you are also moving through time, from the 1970s to the 2000s. It’s an effective literary device.

Compelling and realistic tale

On the face of it, You Belong Here might sound like a depressing read — and in parts, it is pretty miserable — but on the whole, this compelling story is written with warmth and humour. It feels realistic and, indeed, normal. There are families everywhere who confront and deal with the same kind of issues — family breakdown, single parenthood and mental health, just to name a few — that the Slaters go through.

It’s tightly written — it has to be given that Steed covers 40-plus years of one family in just 250 pages — so the focus is razor-sharp and insightful, with not a word wasted. He’s very good at drilling right down to the heart of the matter, the ways in which humans fool themselves or pretend everything’s okay because it’s easier not to confront the truth.

For all their arguments and misunderstandings, their troubles and heartaches, I did enjoy spending time with this dysfunctional family.

For another take on this novel, please see Sue’s review at Whispering Gums.

The author is based in Perth, so I read this book as part of my #FocusOnWesternAustralianWriters. You can find out more about this reading project here and see what books I’ve reviewed from this part of the world on my Focus on Western Australian Writers page.