Fiction: Second novels can be tricky. It might well be said, the more impressive the debut, the more likely the second is to disappoint. Thankfully this is not the case with Monica Ali's latest Alentejo Blue, a highly original and multi-faceted work in which Ali not only lives up to her early promise but glides past it with ease, writes Christine Dwyer Hickey.
Her first novel, Brick Lane, a witty, insightful account of Nazeen, a young Bengali woman who, by way of an arranged marriage, comes to live in high-rise London, has enjoyed worldwide success, getting on to various shortlists, and it was generally acknowledged that a new, important voice had emerged.
Monica Ali was born in Bangladesh and grew up in London. How easy it would have been for her to remain on known territory. How fortunate for us that she dared to do otherwise.
Alentejo Blue, set in rural Portugal, for the most part in the village of Mamarrosa, takes its title from a shade of blue particular to the area. It might just as easily be regarded as a collection of short stories, each perfectly crafted.
This doesn't mean the stories are disconnected, indeed, they rub off one other in passing until the last chapter when a local festa brings everyone together in the village square. Here the strings begin to tighten without ever quite drawing to a close, so that we are left with the sense that the stories continue offstage.
Reminiscent of John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun, it is the prose, rather than the plot which eases the narrative forward. And the ever-changing landscape, now gentle, now brutal, seems to physically leak into and influence each character in a different way. It's an unusual approach and in lesser hands might well have faltered. However, Ali knows her characters, indeed becomes her characters, to such an extent that to force them into a more conventionally structured novel would be to take from their very nature.
Local or ex-patriate, neglected child or elderly one-pig farmer, Ali moves, bag and baggage, in and out of each consciousness and on each occasion the voice is unique, appropriate and wholly unpretentious. An obese cafe owner sits late at night and assesses his life while he talks himself in and out of eating the last unsold and slightly stale cake. A self-centred English writer reluctantly gets involved with a dysfunctional family and ends up having sex with both mother and daughter. A local shopgirl plans the loss of her virginity. The neglected child of alcoholic parents wanders about on his own.
This is a novel that demands much of the senses. It is often funny and occasionally wise. Yet, as much as it delights, it can just as easily repulse or sadden. A dead cow lying in a ditch for over a week is finally towed away and explodes like a "maggot-bomb", much to the delight of the young boy. A teenage girl overcomes her disability through promiscuity and ends up pregnant by God knows who. An old man considers the blackening tongue of his dead friend and once-off lover as he cuts him down from a suicide noose. Lovers doubt and betray each other. Neighbours scheme and despise. The heat is unforgiving.
Alentejo Blue is not a book to be rushed and I would recommend taking a break after each chapter to allow the mind to absorb and adjust before moving on.
There has been some debate as to whether or not this book, in the form it takes, qualifies as a novel. I say it does, and how. Either way, Monica Ali is to be congratulated. A remarkable and enviable achievement.
Christine Dwyer Hickey is a novelist. The second part of her trilogy, The Gambler, has just been re-issued by New Island. Her novel, Tatty, is being re-issued next month by Vintage Originals
Alentejo Blue. By Monica Ali, Doubleday, 299pp, £14.99