Tony Parsons, Departures, 2011

In August 2011 Tony Parsons became writer-in-residence at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, and these seven interlinked short stories are the result of that fruitful week. Having been connected with Heathrow for most of my professional life I thought this collection might be a bit of an unrewarding ‘busman’s holiday’, but it’s the details of the working lives of other Heathrow mavens that really caught my eye, and for readers unconnected with Heathrow other than when just passing through these stories will probably be even more eye-opening: the mysterious green plane near the perimeter, the bird-scarers, the relentless attempts of small-time criminals to evade border control, the stressful lives of travelling animals, the remote coolness of the air traffic controllers, the pull of the sky and the amazement that can come from thinking too much about modern aviation. I had a problem with the feasability of the first story in this small collection but in truth that’s a minor cavil; Parsons’s characterisation is good (particularly the seen-it-all humanity of his Border Agency immigration officer Jaswinder Smith) and this successful collection is going on my shelf for keeps. Nice one, Tony.  PY

MORE ON TONY PARSONS : WIKIPEDIA

Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain, 2008

Being one of those people who sees dogs as having distinct personalities if we only bother to look, this kind of imaginative take on a dog’s point of view is actually the type of book I like to find. Like all dogs, Enzo thinks and feels like a human and he considers this incarnation to be a trial run for being reborn as one. Now at the end of his life and looking back on his time with his Seattle motor racing master Danny, he considers his karmic track record particularly when Danny’s family falls apart after the death of his wife. This is a very likeable book indeed and Enzo’s first person story actually adds to its authentic feel, because Stein’s aim is to put him across as being essentially the same as us and deserving of a human rebirth. Sad in many places but also pretty uplifting, I’ll probably be thinking back to this haunting book for weeks to come.  PY

MORE ON GARTH STEIN :  AUTHOR'S WEBSITE  |  HARPER COLLINS WRITERS PROFILE  |  WIKIPEDIA