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Amazon.co.uk Review
Alix is back in Liverpool watching over her dying mother; Joseph is an American architect, building a hotel as part of Liverpool's regeneration. They meet: she wants him; he admires her, but longs to reunite with his wife Erica back in Chicago. The alternating first-person chapters each ruminate about the past, speculate about the future, and only occasionally refer to the other, despite their involvement--or lack of it--being presented as the novel's pivotal axis.
Linda Grant is brilliant at creating setting, historical and contemporary, and her affectionate rendering of Liverpool--warts and all. This observation and precise detail is what brings Still Here to life: the turn-of-the-century Jewish diaspora longing for the United States and having to make do with Liverpool; the 1960’s city of Alix's youth; her mother's Dresden childhood; her father as saviour-doctor to the Irish poor; early Beatles; and, of course, the weight of the Holocaust. Joseph's rebellion against his rabbinical father, his refusal to recall his fighting in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Berkeley and early marriage are also recounted in his sometimes priggish, sometimes uptight and uncomprehending way.
Grant is good on ageing and its effects on body and mind, and at the way the past tunnels into the present. But for a novel with sexual desire--and crucially women's desire--as one of its themes, the momentum keeps getting stalled over the issue of will they, or won't they? A sort of coitus interruptus instead of any real dynamic between Alix and Joseph frustrates Grant's otherwise very readable novel.--Ruth Petrie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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In comparison with the rather clunking setting of "When I Lived in Modern Times", the historical material is deftly handled. The characters mesh seamlessly with their histories, despite the broad canvas on which the action is painted (encompassing, directly or indirectly, Jewish lives in Germany, Eastern Europe's 'shtetelekh', Chicago, London, Israel, and, naturally, Liverpool. I don't think I've missed anything out).
As a study of two people emerging from their personal and family histories and facing up to their present-day selves, "Still Here" is excellent. The switching of narrative voice between the two lead characters works extremely well. However, the author's attempts to ram home one of the novel's key "points" via the heavy-handed reiteration of the "immigrant" motif are unnecessary. There's no need to keep underlining any of the metaphorical meanings of "still here". The action and characters speak for themselves most effectively.
The style sometimes grates, too, with short, staccato sentences, in particular, used to poor effect in descriptive passages.
And then there's the beginning and the end. The opening sentence ("From the river the city seemed like a colossus") nearly made me put the book down. Perhaps the author is making ironic use of an "unskilled" narrative voice? That doesn't seem to happen to such a dramatic degree elsewhere in the novel. It seems to me that this metaphor falls flat, to say the least. Or maybe it's just a tactic to avoid the cliché of saying that the city "bestrides" like a colossus (something which Liverpool, as far as the River Mersey is concerned, famously does not do). Still, I'm very glad that I read on.
And the end? No spoilers, I just found it a little glib and unconvincing.
As a Liverpudlian (originally from Wavertree), I found an extra dimension in the precise placement of events in the city. But the novel never becomes a mere travelogue, and has plenty to say about universal modern themes that touch all of us. Like Woody Allen's best films (I don't know whether the author would welcome this comparison), it has things to say about the meaning of life that initially sound trite, but which transcend their immediate context when you think about them more carefully.
Joseph is the object of Alix's unrequited desire, his character is warmly drawn by the author. Whilst far from Chicago, Joseph's thoughts are with his wife and children. His love for his wife is central to his being, but what has happened in the year or so they have spent apart? Meanwhile, he struggles to build his hotel against a background of Scouse gangster interference.
Joseph and Alix's visit to one of the gangsters to resolve the issues, demonstrates the concept that a little bit of knowledge can go a long way ... walnuts I ask you.
In Still Here, Linda Grant writes warmly from start to finish, Some of the ideas will haunt you long after you've finished reading. I'd never considered plastic surgery as such a complex subject before.
Still Here is a thoroughly intelligent and enjoyable read. For what its worth, this is a book I'd be glad to recommend to family and friends alike.
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