Alix, arrogant, middle-aged and angry comes home to the derelict port of Liverpool as her mother lies dying. Irritably resigned to living alone for the rest of her life she suddenly finds herself erotically attracted to a stranger. Joseph is an American architect who has come to the city to build a hotel. Refusing to accept that his wife has left him or the trauma of a war he once fought in, the question is whether these survivors of the battles of the Seventies are meant for each other or not. And what happened to a factory in Dresden which long ago made the perfect face cream ...'Perhaps her most accessible novel to date . Grant's prose is blunt, honest, yet often beautiful and bitingly funny. Equally comfortable discussing concepts of justice and grooming routinme, the voices Grant creates are striking and authentic. Her characters are irascible, witty, fierce, and full of the contradictions and blind spots that make them wholly human. This is a compelling and satisfying novel' Rachel Seiffert, author of The Dark Room
Still Here
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Alix Rebick is the heroine of Linda Grant's Still Here, and at the age of 49 is still feisty, lustful, and larger than life--all the things that "real women" shouldn't be, according to Joseph Shields. She's also single, and hating it. "What do I want? Rapture. When do I want it? Now...You can't kill it in me...There is no point in looking for consolation in gardening, knitting, good works, pets, travel, cookery, country walks..."
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.
Review
"Expertly interweaving the trivial and profound... Still Here was deservedly long-listed for the Booker Prize" -- Observer
"Grant [is] a thoughtful and provoking commentator" -- Guardian
"Grant [is] a thoughtful and provoking commentator" -- Guardian
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By paperbackboy
Format:Paperback
The good bits: excellent characterization, particularly the male lead, and a plot with just the right amount of twist (calm down, no spoilers).
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).
... Read more ›16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
By K Mansfield
Format:Paperback
A warm, intelligent and thought-provoking book, beautifully written and with some interesting insights into the human condition. Aspects of what it means to be Jewish (religious or otherwise), the long-reaching arm of the Holocaust, self-knowledge (or lack of it in Joe's case), marital fidelity, sexual desire, the city of Liverpool today and yesterday, family and love are all explored with a compassion and wisdom I found hugely moving. I have not read Grant's previous Booker short-list but will certainly do so now - and if it was half as good as this novel it ought to have won.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
By P. Wilson
Format:Paperback
A fine book. Alix is an intelligent, argumentative 40 something woman who returns to Liverpool to comfort her mother, who is on the brink of death. Grant covers so many big ideas, love, desire, beauty, redemption coupled with some major surprises, makes Still Here a challenging but rewarding read.
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Kate Hopkins
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
A thoughtful, beautifully-written novel about two middle-aged Jews who on the surface seem very different, but turn out to have a great deal in common. Alix Rebick is a forty-something feminist, a successful writer and former academic who was once a femme fatale, but has found that her clever tongue and independent spirit have proved a barrier to marriage. In middle-age, she is single and unwillingly resigned to remaining so. Joseph Shields is an ultra-confident American-Jewish architect, who has believed for years that he has the perfect marriage and family life, and thus is extremely shocked when his wife asks for a 'break' from their marriage, and when his youngest son shows no interest in his academic work, or in graduating from school with good grades. Alix and Joseph meet in Liverpool, where Alix has returned, first to see her dying mother and later to help sort out her mother's estate, and Joseph has come to build a hotel. Alix is immediately smitten with Joseph, but Joseph believes that his wife is the only woman for him, and that Alix is somehow 'too strong' to be an easy partner for any man. But as the story progresses, circumstances draw Alix and Joseph back together, and they find themselves drawing closer...
This was an engrossing read from start to finish. I particularly liked Grant's descriptions of Alix's and Joseph's very different Jewish childhoods: Alix is the daughter of a thoroughly European German-Jewish mother (a refugee from Hitler's Germany) and a father from working-class Polish/Liverpool Jewish stock, while Joseph is the son of a Rabinical scholar and a gentle artist mother (a traditional 'Jewish mama' figure of the gentler kind).... Read more ›
This was an engrossing read from start to finish. I particularly liked Grant's descriptions of Alix's and Joseph's very different Jewish childhoods: Alix is the daughter of a thoroughly European German-Jewish mother (a refugee from Hitler's Germany) and a father from working-class Polish/Liverpool Jewish stock, while Joseph is the son of a Rabinical scholar and a gentle artist mother (a traditional 'Jewish mama' figure of the gentler kind).... Read more ›
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ten year old Ritchie and the walnut
The book opens with Alix, in Liverpool, whose mother is about to die. Alix is a bluntly honest feminist, but she has always had a frank sex-drive and when her new found friend... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Eileen Shaw
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow
I found I never engaged with any of the characters and wasn't that interested in all their problems and challenges in the novel.
Published on 29 Nov 2009 by AT
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