Still Here

by Linda Grant

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

Genres: Fiction, Literature, British Literature, Jewish

407 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Linda Grant was born in Liverpool on 15 February 1951, the child of Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. She was educated at the Belvedere School (GDST), read English at the University of York, completed an M.A. in English at MacMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario and did further post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada, where she lived from 1977 to 1984.

In 1985 she returned to Britain and became a journalist. From 1995 to 2000 she was a feature writer for the Guardian, where between 1997 and 1998 she also had a weekly column in G2. She contributed regularly to the Weekend section on subjects including the background to the use of drug Ecstasy (for which she was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette Feature Writer of the Year Award in 1996), body modification, racism against Romanies in the Czech Republic, her own journey to Jewish Poland and to her father's birthplace and during the Kosovo War, an examination of the background to Serb nationalism.

Reviews

[WarpDrive · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF.

I really could not care less about the sexual hunger of a midde-aged woman who does not bother for a second to stop and consider the morality of initiating an affair with a married man - and this just for the sake of "cheap sex", to use her own words. A morality that she defines, with contempt, "Mosaic" - enough said.
Moreover, I was supremely un-interested in her precocious sexual awakenings, and bored to death by her whinging about her dimming sexual attractiveness due to her middle age, and her whinging about the vicissitudes of her grandparents and mother, when she herself is in an enviable economic situation (vicissitudes with which she has only partial empathy, by the way). If, when you reach your early 50's, all you can think in relation to your life is your diminishing capacity to physically attract individuals from the other sex, then this can only be an indictment of the utter vacuity of your life. Sorry, but I can't even begin to relate to such a character.
Her youth "adventures" with her friend, consisting in exchanging and consuming men as a matter of fun, was so tedious that it would make, by comparison, waiting under the rain for a late bus at a uncovered remote bus stop quite an exciting and fulfilling experience. The implicit message that women are needy and unsatisfied if they do not have a male partner, or the capacity to attract one, is something that should have died with the 50's.
Her flat, boring, shallow self-absorbed personality compounded the excruciating reading experience. The platitudes was another ingredient. Her sexual fantasies of intercourse with a long-dead industrial revolution entrepreneur bordered on the utter ridiculous, and it was firmly in the realm of the pathetic.
Reading half of the book was painful enough, and I did not have the strength of will to stomach another half. I want my reading time back.

Avoid like the plague (unless you are a Trumpette, of course).

[Emma Allan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well if I wasn't depressed about approaching 50 then I would be after reading this. Grant writes about middle aged women as though their lives have ended now their bodies are sagging. Either she was being ironic or I was being over sensitive but I felt there was a bitter edge to the females portrayed in this story. All the characters struck me as narcissistic except for the Liverpudlians who were stereotypically portrayed as thieving scum who were descendants from those that failed to make the successful trip across the sea to be saved in wonderful America back at the turn of the previous century.

I also struggled with Grant's writing style, continuously having to go back and re-read sentences because they didn't make sense the first time I read them. There was nothing wrong with the grammar, I just found it really hard to fathom out at times who was talking or who was sharing their thoughts.

I'm still not actually sure what the book was supposed to be about. I think it was meant to be a love story between two middle aged people but it didn't strike me as that at all. Perhaps once you reach middle age it is impossible to experience romance.

Aside from all this, the book had lots of strengths. It gave some really interesting facts about Liverpool that I didn't know about and Grant's idea of putting an amazing boutique hotel on Chavasse Park was quite perceptive. A year after the book was published, Liverpool won the Capital of Culture for 2008 and so began the amazing transformation of the city. It is almost hard to recognise it now, the city has once again reinvented itself and is working hard to cast aside it's harsh and largely unjust reputation that it still wears following the hard times and wanton neglect it has had to bear. Now Chavasse Park is the centre of style and boutique hotels are a plenty.

I also enjoyed the insight into the Jewish lifestyle and the migration of those that managed to escape Germany before the Holocaust. And the book touched on the Six Day War in Israel which up until now I hadn't had much exposure to.

Something kept me turning the pages of this book and as you can see, has given me enough fodder to share in a review. If you want something with strong discussion points for a book club read, then this book is an excellent candidate.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me a while to warm up to this, initially I disliked the characters and found it tough going but have to say it did grow on me as the narrative progressed. Alix, a single independent woman and Joseph separated opinionated infuriating man meet and sparks fly. Alix has returned to Liverpool where she grew up as her mother is dying and Joseph is an architect building a hotel. Liverpool is in itself the third character in this story. But I definitely would not call this a romance. It's more of an exploration of their lives, their family backgrounds including in a historical context, their work, their views on life etc.

At times the narrative does have you biting your tongue as some of the opinions particularly of Joseph are vexing. He is a snob at times. He doesn't seem to see the value of others unless they fit within his purview of life. Joseph and Alix play tennis together. He asks her for a walk and kisses her. But SHE gets the wrong idea. WTF! Joseph describes Alix as having a "horse face" yet with his rotund tummy he is certainly no Brad Pitt! He has had sex whilst on business trips but they didn't mean anything as they didn't impact on his marriage and how much he loved his wife! That's only because she didn't bloody know and yes it is cheating! As you can tell he's a real catch!

I didn't really understand Alix's character at times why was she living such an isolated life in her house in France if she didn't have to. She wasn't traumatised for any reason she was a very outgoing person. She struck me as very independent and self-sufficient which I admired, it didn't seem in keeping with her personality that she needed a man to complete her life.

I found the historical background interesting but felt at times that I was getting a lecture on Jewish culture and history it could have been knitted better into the story.

This was a book club choice so I would say it does succeed in that respect as there is plenty to talk about.

[sisterimapoet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grant seemed to pack quite a bit into this book. And one of my main reactions was to find it very interesting. I felt there was a good amount of detail and introduction to people and places I haven't encountered before - I felt I was learning as I read. We had professions, families, pasts both near and distant, cultural differences, relationships. However the central thread of the story itself didn't really hold me, which is probably a weakness in a novel.

I didn't enjoy this as much as her 'The Clothes on their Backs', while it clearly shared similarities, but I'd still be keen to try her other books.

[Martin Boyle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not really sure I know where to start. I found this book unbelievable and unbelievably tedious.

It tries to fit in too many peripheral things and it is then almost like Grant gets bored with them and she drops the idea.

For me the writing sank to the bottom with a description of Alix's underwear. But it was pretty damn close in other "space-fillers" (of which a digression on which countries - the former Axis powers, according to Alix - produce the best fashion).

As for the characters, given the possible interesting back-stories from each of them, they were too flat, wooden, boring, self-absorbed: sorry (in case you haven't got the message!), they just did not work for me. People who made good and are too full of what they are, what they want don't really do it for me.

While I finished the book, I'm not sure why. It was a struggle and not worth the effort.

[Always Pink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another unflinching, honest-to-God kind of book by Linda Grant. She tackles all the big questions here, and does it entertainingly, quite an achievement. What is love, what is desire, what makes a marriage and what a family, how do we grieve, how does war change people, how can we cope with feelings of guilt. Add to that a hefty dose of Liverpool from the fifities until the millenium, a sprinkling of The Beatles (including a cameo appearance of George Harrison) and the result deservedly made it unto the Booker loglist of 2002.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I couldn't get past the first chapter, it was dry, it didn't pull me in, so slow going 🙁🙁

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Linda Grant is one of favourite authors, so I was catching up on an earlier novel from 2002. It was one of her best, tracing the brand new friendship of Alix and Joseph whilst exploring the backstory of their lives and that of their families. But they are both approaching fifty, one single, the other trying to make his marriage work.

Alix is one of the best female characters I have ever read, prickly, fiercely intelligent, outspoken (she calls it mouthy), a product of a Jewish family from Liverpool. You wont understand until you read the book when she says "Be gone with you Issie, a new phantasm will come to me tonight". Joseph is an architect from Chicago building a hotel near the docks. His story alternates with that of Alix.

Grant writes with a sharp point to her pen, describing Alix's grandparents escaping from Dresden and making a new life in Liverpool. As Alix says "I have to admit that my generation, born after the war, has had the easiest ride in the whole of history. ". Haven't we just.

[Siobhan Markwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still Here is, at heart, a romance, a tale of attraction between middle-aged Jewish professionals, one who's built a family in an enviably long-term marriage and another whose serial monogamy has left her alone and craving intimacy. It's also a meditation on aging and our responses to this ubiquitous human curse that is, proverbially, better than the alternative. Who better to appreciate this than the immigrant children of those who dodged the death camps or soldiers who've seen first hand what an anti-tank missile can do to the vulnerable human body? It's rich in reflection on family history, the power of parents to control or free their children and the ultimate control we have in choosing to make outrageous demands or dignified concessions. It also manages to weave in great sense of place in its Liverpool setting, some great observations on modernist architecture and reflections on ideals of beauty. The plot never drags and there's warm warm intelligence on display on every page.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

To me this isn't one of Linda Grant's best books although there is a lot of fine writing which looks forward to her later books. The two narrators were convincing and struck the right balance of funny and sad. The book told us a lot about the experience of Jews who had to uproot and make the best out of their sometimes random landing-placea, and about the never-resolved feelings about loss and dislocation which are passed on to the next generation. The experience of the male narrator in the Israeli army I thought was particularly powerful and also his reasons for never ever speaking about it to anybody. However I found it a bit patchy, with some passages feeling a bit like being lectured at with sociological and historical data, and there was a bit too much sex for my liking. (I'm not prudish - I just think it's hard to write about well, and is often better left to the imagination.)

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only the faintest memory of reading this for the first time; ten or more years ago, it was one of two or three similarly absorbing books read avidly before moving on.

Re-reading it I am astonished I didn't remember it as a book that MUST be read again, and again, because it is rich, informative, enlightening, thought-provoking and thoroughly entertaining.

[Jacqueline Worboys · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two middle-aged people, entirely proficient in their own fields, meet in Liverpool, once the embarkation point for nine million or more who sailed to North America, but a dying port in the early 2000s.

[Lorna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like how she writes and I liked most of the book but it didn't grab me the way others have. Very Liverpudlian and very Jewish and interesting but at times she lost me. I wish there was a 10 point scale.

[Charlotte · Rating 2 out of 5]

The opening chapters are brilliant and then it really declines but I can’t put my finger on why. The writing is good, the storyline and themes are great, it just doesn’t work.

[Liz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was bored.
At times, it read like a travel book on Liverpool and its history, at other times it read like a history of Judaism. I wanted to read about people, not places.

[Linda · Rating 1 out of 5]

Only got through two chapters.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my fourth Linda Grant novel, and I've loved them all. Still Here is no exception, though not what I expected. Reading the synopsis leads one to believe that this is a romance novel showcasing a middle-aged Jewish man and woman who find one another in Liverpool. They secure a second chance at love, wind through their respective secrets and live happily ever after. It is much more complex and nuanced. It is also about being a woman growing older and becoming, or at least feeling, invisible. Ms. Grant poses questions without asking them. Who wins the battle? The surgeon's knife or the feminist mind who continues to pass a mirror and wonders who she sees? She separately questions whether evil can be independent of intent. She weaves this question into the theme of being Jewish and surviving the Holocaust. She asks whether Jews can "distinguish between self defense and aggressive indifference to the suffering of others." The book explores ironies - the irony of escaping the Viet Nam War by fleeing to Israel only to be swallowed by the Yom Kippur War and haunted forever, yet bearing this angst in secret. "Was shot again at work today. I guess only bank tellers and airline pilots can make that claim today."

[Victor Gibson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I suppose I would give any book I finished two stars, which indicates that I finished this one. Before I go on, I found Linda Grant's book about her mother "Remind Me Who I am Again" really great. If you do not have experience of dealing with a relative with memory loss, read it. But back to "Still Here". It appears to be fashionable to wend a fictional narrative into a patchwork of real events, and actually to write with more than one voice. I would say that the two voices were indistinguishable from one another - so I had to keep looking to see who was talking, this particularly since both characters kept coming out with some sort of cod philosophy about life. Obviously when recounting actual experiences I knew, but these were unfortunately few and far between. So if you are a lady approaching your middle years, a bit of a feminist, Jewish and come from Liverpool this might be for you. But that being said I note that lots of people really liked it, and it was apparently on a literary prize list, so what do I know?

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have really enjoyed reading Linda Grant's novels this year and this tale of two mature adults who meet in the decaying port of Liverpool is no exception. Grant presents the reader with a fascinating social history of Liverpool, especially the story of migrant populations. As usual she is great on clothes and food and Alix the female protagonist even met George Harrison of Beatle fame.

Alix is a feminist irreligious Jewess who finds herself both chidless and partnerless in the middle of her life. She travels the world researching and reinstating old Jewish places of worship!. Resigned to live the single life though consumed by bright flares of lust she meets an American architect when she returns to Liverpool for her mother's funeral. This chance meeting is the catalyst for a series of changes that lead to revealations from the past and aspirations for the future.

It is also blackly funny. Highly recommended

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have never lived in Liverpool but this book gives one some understanding of how the people of Liverpool have been forged from a melting pot of cultures.

Grant's architect enables us to understand so much about the place and it's role in the development of the skyscraper. (I put the book down to search the web to see if she had fabricated this element)

For me her story centres on the sadness of real people who have lived real lives as best they can. Some have lived on the doorstep of the promised land and never made it, others have tried other places but have returned. Others were lucky to reach Liverpool rather than stay where they were and die.

This is a brave attempt to deal with big issues which are as current now as they ever were and is very well worth reading.

[Marie (UK) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well written book with many threads woven together but none of them really relate to "the courtship of two prickly characters" that my back cover tells me the book is about. Grant weaves fact into fiction, the culture of Liverpool, the characters of it's city, Toxteth riots etc etc. Her Female character a sociology and criminology professor now involved in reparations for the Jews. Her supposed romantic interest , an architect who does not want to have an affair with her until his wife does something that he simply cannot understand. . This "courtship" is notable only by its absence

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hadn't read anything by Linda Grant for a long time and had forgotten what a perceptive writer she is. In this novel set in Liverpool, she shows understanding of being a woman, ageing, being Jewish and the inheritance from parents and grandparents. The novel focuses on Alix and Joseph but along the way we understand Sam, her brother, his wife, Joseph's wife as a separate entity from him, which maybe he is not ready to see himself. Grant is unique in that she can make the seemingly trivial aspects of how a woman dresses and looks central to her self esteem. I will definitely be reading more of her books soon.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes I think authors get a bit carried away with themselves and try to make story lines as they think life should be rather than similar to how it really is. I just couldn't buy that the principal male character hates that his wife loses her extra weight and has plastic surgery to look younger and instead prefers a late middle aged woman who, in his words, "acts like a man". On a more positive note it did deal interestingly with story of the Jews of Germany who fled to England during the Nazi regime.

[Diana E. Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

This “Orange Prize” winner is a quick read about two middle-aged people who meet in decaying Liverpool. There is enough family drama and history to keep your interest. The insights into Joseph’s perspective on his marriage and his desire to hang on to it are encouraging.

This story was okay, but nothing to write home about. This wouldn’t be a book that I would recommend as anything special, but is a light and enjoyable read.

Diana Young #1 Amazon best-selling author of Financial Fitness for Beginners

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not hugely inspired to write a review of this book. It was ok, not a page turner, I wasn't desperate to know what happened in the end and it was fairly predictable anyway, I didn't like the characters very much and I felt a lot of the story was implausible, though some of the more factual bits were interesting. Ultimately, it was an ok 'holiday read'. Not a book I would recommend, but I wouldn't say don't read it either.

[Kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting info about history of Liverpool in general, and the Jewish community in Liverpool in paricular. Interesting heroine, with some real insights on women and aging, but I utimately found her relationship with the hero (there are two narrators in alternating chapters), to be false and forced. I liked the review on Amazon.

[Isobel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitely not a page turner. The characters' endless introspection got tedious. Very negative portrayal of Liverpool and the Jewish community there. No mention of any of the positive aspects. I enjoyed We Had it so Good, but based on this one, I'll be giving this author a miss in the future.

[Sara]

02 longlisted for booker prize

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Already into it... Read 70pages nonstop which is unusual for me. Later... Book resonated with me. Complex characters and interesting setting.

[Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting characters that draw you in.