EIGHT MONTHS ON GHAZZAH STREET: Hilary Mantel

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Andrew's letters had been short, practical. They told her to bring flat sandals, British postage stamps, a bottle of Bovril. His voice on the phone had been hesitant. There had been the odd, expensive silence. He didn't know how to describe Jeddah. She must, he said, see for herself.

Frances closed her eyes again. Drifting, she caught bits of their conversation: jargon, catchphrases. At home, at her widowed mother's house in York, she had been reading books about her destination. Despite her skepticism, her better knowledge, Search Reading Matters Search for: Archives Archives Categories Categories Tags #TBR21 1001 Books to read before you die American literature ANZ lit Australian crime Australian literature Australian women writers AWW2016 AWW2019 AWW2021 BAME writer Book lists British literature Canadian literature CanLit Charlotte Wood cold crime crime crime fiction Dublin French literature Giller Prize Irish literature Italian literature Japanese literature journalism London marriage memoir narrative non-fiction New York non-fiction novella OzLit psychological thriller Reading Australia 2016 religion satire Shadow Giller short stories Six degrees of separation Southern Cross crime TBR40 translated fiction travel Triple Choice Tuesday true crime William Trevor women in translation World War Two Follow Reading Matters on WordPress.com Follow on FacebookToo often. The Saudia flight's supposed to take off at twelve-thirty, but it never does. Not in my experience. I suppose the staff are having prayers. Bowing to Mecca, and so forth."

The reason Saudi Arabia is tolerated in the international community is that it is wealthy and produces a vital commodity. This reads like a nightmare. It has a foggy, feverish, this-can’t-really-be-happening atmosphere. But then Mantel’s prose, while elegant, is always a bit dreamy. I like her style for the most part - it worked fabulously well for me in Wolf Hall - but I wanted this story to be a little more solid and detailed. The non-fiction essay she published about her years in Saudi Arabia has much of the same vagueness. Eight Months on Ghazzah Street centers on the Shores -- Andrew, an engineer who came for the money to be made there, and his wife, Frances, who joins him. Melbourne, I think. He keeps a place in the Cotswolds though. He's been with Turadup for twenty years. He's a shareholder. Pollard says he's a millionaire. Anyway, he seems very enthusiastic about this building. About the whole scene

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Who knew that the author of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies had lived in Saudi Arabia? I didn't, but once I started reading the book, I thought "Holy Smokes! She's in my head!" Similarly, ''Eight Months on Ghazzah Street'' explores the vagaries of cultural misunderstanding, the excesses of fundamentalism, the insidious workings of greed and parochialism -- a heady brew of significance cleverly spiced with