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All That Follows A Novel Jim Crace 9780385520768 Books

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All That Follows A Novel Jim Crace 9780385520768 Books

Picture yourself sitting down with a cup of tea [in England] in front of your television, tuned to CNN's [maybe BBC's?] latest breaking news. There on the screen you recognize the face of the terrorist.
More precisely, his hair. You know this guy.
So you pull up an archived image from the "on-screen toolbar" [the year is 2024 so the technology is there...] and sure enough -- this "terrorist" is an old acquaintance of yours. You haven't seen him for 18 years, but that hair gives him away.
This is exactly what happens to Jim Crace's protagonist in the new novel All That Follows.
Leonard Lessing is a middle-of-the-road jazz saxophonist taking a bit of a breather from the music circuit due to a terrible shoulder injury. He's had his own brief / half-hearted history of social activism, but apparently his friend Maxie Lermontov has continued to be a radical.
Here he is on the tele, holding an entire family hostage in a nearby house.
Intrigued, Leonard joins the throng of media and curious onlookers at the actual scene, and there he discovers Maxie's teen-age daughter, Lucy -- who has made the courageous move [one Leonard was hesitant of doing] of identifying her father to the authorities.
Leonard befriends her and becomes embroiled in her scheme to force her father to surrender before anyone is harmed.
The pre-story is that back in Austin, Texas [2006], Maxie and Nadia [<-- Lucy's mother] along with Leonard, had staged a botched attempt to heckle the then-president of the United States, George W. Bush. At that time, Lucy was still in the gestational stage of life, and Leonard was madly in love with the pregnant Nadia. Now, 18 years on, and happily married to Francine, Leonard must decide how involved he is going to get in the current troubles of the Lermontov family.
The answer is --> he gets very involved.
And in doing so, Leonard discovers more about himself and his relationship with his wife Francine than he ever would have known had he flicked off his television that day, pretending not to see. Not to know.

This book is Crace's 10th novel.
And it is pretty much a "10".
This was a book that I remained engaged in, from start to finish. I found it well-paced, and would note that Crace maintained a reader-friendly grasp of the time frames being discussed. One is not left roaming between Texas and England [which, by the way, contains a lot of deep water to drown in]... he knows where he is going, he knows where these characters have been and where they are now, and you can trust him with that. He occasionally walks you through emotionally-charged avenues far beyond the skeletal synopsis above... which is to say [in disclaimer-like fashion] that the book is much weightier than my light words about it.
It is the third Crace book I have read and enjoyed. Shall not be my last.
Likewise, I encourage you to read All That Follows [or precedes] this one.


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All That Follows A Novel Jim Crace 9780385520768 Books Reviews

This is a modest, engaging story, with a protagonist who is not that common - a nice guy who is not very adventurous. I enjoyed how his wife's attitude evolved, as she reconnected with his good qualities and their importance. The various characters were all well done. The one negative Leonard is often alone and when this happens, the novel sometimes bogs down.
Not come across Jim Crace before. Great characterisation. As an ex-pro musician, tired old left wing ex-activist with a few dodgy relationships in my past but an ever-optimistic outlook, I thought it was about me! I was hooked by page 15 after an entertaining five page description of a hair-raising radio solo performance by the main character when his band was stranded in snow. I honestly can't think of another author who could have written the sequence and kept me interested. I now have to go back and read Crace's earlier stuff, and hope this isn't a one-off.
Leonard Lessing - stage name Lennie Less - is a saxophone player who has lost his zest for playing, lost the zest in his marriage, and lost the zest for engagement. So he's taking a break. An extended one that has his wife increasingly impatient with him, and he knows it. He also knows she is right. Then one day, Lennie sees a face on the news (he's a news and media junkie) that is straight out of the past, and he's jarred. Back in the day....

Well, I should say the novel takes place in a future world, but one not unrecognizable, not too far into the future 2024. An odd, but interesting choice. That world, 14 years on from our own, hasn't changed all that much, except in subtle ways. Personal freedoms seem to have been reduced, but not so that most people recognize that fact. If the loss of personal freedoms is a creeping loss, then this is what it would look like. "Security" and the forces that keep us "safe" seem to have grown, in the same creeping way. We've (they) have accepted it as the price necessary.

So. Back in the day is 2006, and Lennie had spent some time in Austin, Texas with Max and his girlfriend Nadia in that year. Max had befriended Nadia in England and had his own designs on her, but upon arrival in Austin, he found her living with Max. The three of them were political activists Max of the radical and confrontational kind, Lennie of the more muted variety, with ""Red" Nadia somewhere between the two. When Max had left Austin (not on the best of terms with either of them), he had not seen them since. But now there was Max on the television, right in the middle of a hostage taking. He decides to go to the scene of the crisis (Max had not yet been identified).

On the way there in his car, he listens to an old concert of his. Here, and elsewhere throughout the book, the writing on music is vivid and informed. These are my favorite parts of the novel. Crace really shows his chops here.

When he arrives, he finds he has been beaten to the identification by Max's estranged daughter, Lucy. Nadia had been pregnant with Lucy when he left Austin. Lennie is talked into a scheme cooked up by Lucy, but backs out before it can be put into action. He gets cold feet, blaming his wife Francine for his reticence. A sofa activist - an acronym that Lucy runs with.

Crace also writes effectively on the relationship between Lennie and his wife, which is complicated, but loving. They bicker a bit, and though it's all a bit stale, it's still a solid marriage. Francine's daughter Celandine from a previous marriage had left the house many months prior, without a word since. This is a gnawing hurt for Francine that is there between them, though Lennie had been the voice of reason between mother and daughter.

The day of Lennie's 50th birthday is a turning point in all their lives. It's the day in which Lennie speaks frankly to Francine about his Austin days (at her insistence), something he had not before. This is the part of the novel where the reader learns the back-story as well.

The hostage situation comes to its conclusion, and Lennie has an epiphany. Back in their apartment, watching the denouement of the story he realizes something about himself

It is astounding to discover that while he has not been watching the news, he has become the news, he has been living it. It's too early to know if this is a pleasing or a costly development. A pounding heart can signify both things.

This is a hopeful novel by a graceful writer, a good story-teller, who has a thing or two to say about where it is possible to end up if we lose the spark for living. The knack and desire for engagement.
Picture yourself sitting down with a cup of tea [in England] in front of your television, tuned to CNN's [maybe BBC's?] latest breaking news. There on the screen you recognize the face of the terrorist.
More precisely, his hair. You know this guy.
So you pull up an archived image from the "on-screen toolbar" [the year is 2024 so the technology is there...] and sure enough -- this "terrorist" is an old acquaintance of yours. You haven't seen him for 18 years, but that hair gives him away.
This is exactly what happens to Jim Crace's protagonist in the new novel All That Follows.
Leonard Lessing is a middle-of-the-road jazz saxophonist taking a bit of a breather from the music circuit due to a terrible shoulder injury. He's had his own brief / half-hearted history of social activism, but apparently his friend Maxie Lermontov has continued to be a radical.
Here he is on the tele, holding an entire family hostage in a nearby house.
Intrigued, Leonard joins the throng of media and curious onlookers at the actual scene, and there he discovers Maxie's teen-age daughter, Lucy -- who has made the courageous move [one Leonard was hesitant of doing] of identifying her father to the authorities.
Leonard befriends her and becomes embroiled in her scheme to force her father to surrender before anyone is harmed.
The pre-story is that back in Austin, Texas [2006], Maxie and Nadia [<-- Lucy's mother] along with Leonard, had staged a botched attempt to heckle the then-president of the United States, George W. Bush. At that time, Lucy was still in the gestational stage of life, and Leonard was madly in love with the pregnant Nadia. Now, 18 years on, and happily married to Francine, Leonard must decide how involved he is going to get in the current troubles of the Lermontov family.
The answer is --> he gets very involved.
And in doing so, Leonard discovers more about himself and his relationship with his wife Francine than he ever would have known had he flicked off his television that day, pretending not to see. Not to know.

This book is Crace's 10th novel.
And it is pretty much a "10".
This was a book that I remained engaged in, from start to finish. I found it well-paced, and would note that Crace maintained a reader-friendly grasp of the time frames being discussed. One is not left roaming between Texas and England [which, by the way, contains a lot of deep water to drown in]... he knows where he is going, he knows where these characters have been and where they are now, and you can trust him with that. He occasionally walks you through emotionally-charged avenues far beyond the skeletal synopsis above... which is to say [in disclaimer-like fashion] that the book is much weightier than my light words about it.
It is the third Crace book I have read and enjoyed. Shall not be my last.
Likewise, I encourage you to read All That Follows [or precedes] this one.