Reading – Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld

I have read all of Sittenfeld’s books, my favourite being Sisterland her brilliant novel about twins. I also would also thoroughly recommend her very witty short story collection You Think It, I’ll Say It. Partly set during the pandemic, Romantic Comedy is a story about Sally, a writer for a late night comedy sketch show and Noah, a successful and handsome pop star. Noah appears on the show Sally writes for, Night Owls, as a guest host and asks Sally to help him finesse a sketch he has written himself. Like many of Sittenfeld’s female characters Sally pulls off an epic act of self sabotage putting the brakes on any burgeoning romance between her and Noah. She can’t bring herself to believe that he could be interested in her. Then the pandemic hits and they being to exchange emails. Sally’s surname is Milz and her email address is Smilz (Smiles – get it?) little details like this are so beautifully thought out

Romantic Comedy is brilliantly funny and very touching. Sally and Noah are such lovely characters that I found myself really caring about what happened to them. I also particularly liked Jerry, Sally’s step-father and his pet beagle, Sugar. This is a long story but, like any book by Sittenfeld , it is well worth the effort

Watching – Expats on Netflix

Expats, based on the novel by Janice Y.K. Lee, stars Nicole Kidman as Margaret and Ji-young Yoo as Mercy. Margaret’s husband, Clarke, played by Brian Tee, is offered a chance by the big conglomerate that he works for to relocate to Hong Kong for three years. His company put in place a generous package including private school for the children, a maid and chauffeur and they move into a spacious apartment. The chauffeurs are privy to all the comings and goings and private conversations, they are so quiet their passengers seem to forget they are even there. The family, including Margaret and Clarke’s three children, Daisy, Philip and little Gus find themselves amongst the the community of other wealthy ex-pats including neighbours Hilary and David who seem to have a complicated relationship to say the least. Life seems to be a round of glamorous but dull dinner parties and Margaret, who is a landscape gardener, has no real purpose. She looks down on the other women who are just “wives” despite being one of them herself. Then, on one such social occasion taking place on a boat, Margaret and Mercy cross paths. Three year old Gus is being a terror and Mercy steps in and helps. Margaret offers her an evenings trial as a nanny as she feels that the children are becoming too devoted to their current “help” , Essie. Mercy and Margaret take the children to visit the busy night-market and life changes forever.

I know that Kidman has won Oscars but, it seems to me, that she often plays the same person over and over. Margaret has stiff mannerisms, is uptight and is rather brittle with her speech. Kidman, aged fifty-six, is also too old to be playing the mother of a three year old. For some reason, when she is dressed to go out for an evening her hair is styled like a WWII evacuee. I have watched the first three episodes, it is a little slow but, no doubt, I’ll finish the series now.

Listening to – Hunting Warhead Podcast on Apple Music

Hunting Warhead tells the story of the Australian Police’s investigation into a huge child pornography website and the peadophile responsible for running it, Canadian, Benjamin Faulkner. The host is Daemon Fairless who sounds uncannily like Alec Baldwin. He is very sensitive in his presentation of the case and in his interviews with the people involved including the mother of one of the infant victims.

The subject matter definitely makes for difficult listening. The lengths some of the investigators go to to identify children at risk are extraordinary. The victims can be absolutely anywhere in the world and there is a huge market in supplying horrifying, exploitative content. The investigators refer to such websites as child abuse sites, not pornography. The website featured in this particular investigation, Child’s Play had over a million subscribers. It is staggering to think how many people get gratification from looking at images that most of us would find sickening. 

One of the guests on Hunting Warhead is a psychologist specialising in peodophilic behaviour and he explains that often a person will realise that they are attracted to children at around the time they are twelve or thirteen years old. If that person wants help with controlling their inappropriate feelings they are usually met with a brick wall, there is little research on curtailing this type of impulse. They grow up ashamed with nowhere to turn to for help. Most of these people realise that it would be wrong to act on the attraction they feel but some, of course, do go on to abuse children. The psychologist states that not all child abusers are peodophiles and not all peodophiles are chid abusers. Faulkner himself states that he was madly in love with a four year old. It really is horrifying to listen to his interviews, he is not remorseful at all. Had he been detained in Canada he would have received a relatively light sentence but Faulkner was arrested in Virginia and will serve thirty five years in prison.

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash