The time is 1995, but everybody is linked by their past. Brilliant Australian Caroline can command everyone except her own ghoulish mother, which means that things aren't easy for Josh and Zoe, her husband and twelve-year-old daughter. Josh has bizarre origins in a South African mining town, but now teaches mime in Bristol. Zoe reads girls' ballet books and longs for ballet lessons; a thing denied her until, on a school French exchange, she meets a runaway boy in a woodland hut. Meanwhile, on the east coast of Africa, Hattie Thomas, Josh's first love, has taken to writing girls' ballet books from the turret of her fabulous house - that's when she can carve out the space between the forceful presence of Herman and her crosspatch daughter Cat who, after some illicit snooping, is secretly planning a make-or-break essay on mask dancers in Mali. Hattie wakes from a dream of Stravinsky's Pulcinella and asks herself about the composer, 'Do his glasses look sexy?' His glasses are just like Josh's glasses from two decades earlier. From far and wide, they are all drawn together; drawn to Jack's place. Or is he Jacques? Or Giacomo? Beautiful, mysterious Jack, the one-time backyard housemaid's child who, having journeyed via Mozambique and Senegal to Milan, is back exactly where he started - only not for long. In its mix of people from different spheres, the book throws up the complexity, cruelty and richness of the global world while, as a sequence of personal stories, it comes together like a dance; a masquerade in which things are not always what they seem.
Sex and Stravinsky
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`A dazzling achievement. It's beautifully-written, deftly-plotted and moves skillfully from domestic drama to global themes and back again' --Emma Lee-Potter, Daily Express
'This is a treasure of a novel from one of our best authors' --Zoe Strimpel, City A.M.
`Beautifully structured, with flashes of wonderful eccentricity' --Kevin Telfer, The Times
'a real treat... Sparkling and witty, it is sure to delight her establishing fans and win her many new ones'
--Sarah Clarke, The Bookseller
'This is a treasure of a novel from one of our best authors' --Zoe Strimpel, City A.M.
`Beautifully structured, with flashes of wonderful eccentricity' --Kevin Telfer, The Times
'a real treat... Sparkling and witty, it is sure to delight her establishing fans and win her many new ones'
--Sarah Clarke, The Bookseller
Book Description
An astounding new novel from the bestselling author of Frankie and Stankie and Brother of the More Famous Jack
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I first read Barbara Trapido a long time ago, with the wonderfulBrother of the More Famous Jack. Her earlier novels have all now been repackaged, and I'm sure will tempt lots of readers. This new book, "Sex and Stravinsky", though, feels somewhat less obviously enjoyable than that first read. Josh is married to Caroline, he interested in ballet and mime, she more of an active, cake-baking, floor-sanding type. Their daughter Zoe finds her mother fairly unbearable, yet is nonetheless reluctant to go on her schedule French exchange. Josh is off to his former homeland, South Africa, for a conference, where he meets up with an old flame, Hattie. Hattie's daughter also finds her mother unbearable.
The way the story is constructed feels experimental, narrated in the present tense, and switching between all the main characters in turn. This means that you never quite get to settle with one main character in the way you would in a more conventional book. The book is a page-turner, and the reader definitely guns for the final page: Trapido ratchets up the drama by giving her first heroine an absolutely appalling mother, whose bad deeds are almost of Snow White stepmother proportions. You definitely wish for Caroline, the daughter, to have her revenge, and spend a lot of the book agonising over whether it will ever happen. There is also a lot of sadness, and many thoughtful observations of life in pre-Apartheid South Africa. Then it features two teenagers, both of whom detest their own mothers; mothers and children turn out to be the main theme of the book.
Yet despite all of this excellent raw material, I did come away feeling slightly flat. I might even have given the book 3 and a half, if it were possible. The descriptions are vivid and alive, and the themes deeply intriguing, but the neat tying-up of the plot at the end really annoyed me because I felt the possibilities of the book hadn't been met. I wondered what conclusions Trapido was drawing about the nature of mother-daughter relationships, when I got to the end - I felt her view was rather pessimistic.
All in all, though, this is a much better beach read than a lot of the trashier books you'll find in the shops. And I can imagine book groups really enjoying a discussion of the mothering on display in the book. (Some really, really bad examples to cheer most of us right up about our own efforts...)
The way the story is constructed feels experimental, narrated in the present tense, and switching between all the main characters in turn. This means that you never quite get to settle with one main character in the way you would in a more conventional book. The book is a page-turner, and the reader definitely guns for the final page: Trapido ratchets up the drama by giving her first heroine an absolutely appalling mother, whose bad deeds are almost of Snow White stepmother proportions. You definitely wish for Caroline, the daughter, to have her revenge, and spend a lot of the book agonising over whether it will ever happen. There is also a lot of sadness, and many thoughtful observations of life in pre-Apartheid South Africa. Then it features two teenagers, both of whom detest their own mothers; mothers and children turn out to be the main theme of the book.
Yet despite all of this excellent raw material, I did come away feeling slightly flat. I might even have given the book 3 and a half, if it were possible. The descriptions are vivid and alive, and the themes deeply intriguing, but the neat tying-up of the plot at the end really annoyed me because I felt the possibilities of the book hadn't been met. I wondered what conclusions Trapido was drawing about the nature of mother-daughter relationships, when I got to the end - I felt her view was rather pessimistic.
All in all, though, this is a much better beach read than a lot of the trashier books you'll find in the shops. And I can imagine book groups really enjoying a discussion of the mothering on display in the book. (Some really, really bad examples to cheer most of us right up about our own efforts...)
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By Ukrainereads
Format:Paperback
Always love Ms Trapido's books...the first one I read was well over 20 years ago and at the time was so frank and , to me, so daring, but believable, moving and affecting because of it .. with her normal dash of humour and clever use of serendipidty. I couldn't wait to buy this book and get started. Sadly, it was just not up to her usual gripping unputdownable standards. The story line could have been so much more meaningful. She kept tantalising the reader with issues surrounding Apartheid, Class differences, Bad communication et cetera..but never really followed through on these themes... The setting of the couple's first home together and subsequent chldren there .. was just NOT credible.....there were far too many characters which kept being introduced along the way, the seemingly important Mother and Sister, just dropped away half way through the book, it seemed tired, overlaid with events, complicated histories of NEW characters, and a very - well ALMOST - Mills & Boon ending ... Sorry Barbara...PLEASE get back to your more incisive and 'strike a chord' books...I'm still a fan!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Gwen C
Format:Paperback
I read this immediately after finishing a sad & difficult book (Marilynne Robinson!) & it quickly provided a tonic - although I was a little disappointed at first, wondering if it was going to be too insubstantial. The characters' voices are perhaps a bit too well drawn to take for page after page - in particular the two young girls, but overall it does work, & I was sad to reach the end.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read
Just the read I was looking for. Barbara Trapido is great at her craft. Her characters are all interesting. If I don't fall in love with them all they are nevertheless intriguing. Read more
Published 2 months ago by ruthamidthealiencorn
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lovable
Oh I love anything by Barbara Trapido, and although this book is nothing like as good as "Brother of the More Famous Jack", it's a lovely read. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Macy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty read
I read this for my book group and really enjoyed it - it cheered me up! The Midsummer Night's Dream-type plot with wonderfully eccentric characters made a refreshing change from... Read more
Published 10 months ago by T. E. Hart
2.0 out of 5 stars
My advice? Don't bother.
I read and enjoyed Barbara Trapido's Frankie and Stankie many years ago so thought this would be a similarly enjoyable read. Read more
Published 13 months ago by perfectionist
5.0 out of 5 stars
Skilful and Beautiful Tragi-Comedy
Barbara Trapido is often branded as a 'humorous' writer - in fact, she regards many of her own books as having some very sad elements to them. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Kate Hopkins
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sex and Stravinsky
This was my first Trapido novel. I enjoyed it hugely and found it to be a page turner BUT the ending disappointed. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Chorister
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magic
I cannot imagine a Barbara Trapido novel I would not enjoy,and this was no exception. A whirling,magical dance of characters and coincidences! I wanted to shake Caroline,but oh! Read more
Published 17 months ago by Jadi
4.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific Trapido
I love Barbara Trapido's books, so was really excited about getting this one. It's set in England and South Africa, so combines elements of 'Frankie and Stankie' with the... Read more
Published 18 months ago by pictureperfect
5.0 out of 5 stars
A really good read
Love this author and this book was on my wish list for a while.
Received it for my birthday and really enjoyed the plot and the characters
Received it for my birthday and really enjoyed the plot and the characters
Published 19 months ago by helonwheels
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very little Stravinsky and no sex at all - not her best
This wasn't Ms Trapido's best novel because a lot of the characters were caricatures, especially leggy perfect intellectual Caroline, mousy Hattie and Caroline's ghastly mother... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Puskas
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