Product Description

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

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #226827 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Alix Rebick is the heroine of Linda Grant's Still Here, and at the age of 49 is still feisty, lustful, and larger than life--all the things that "real women" shouldn't be, according to Joseph Shields. She's also single, and hating it. "What do I want? Rapture. When do I want it? Now...You can't kill it in me...There is no point in looking for consolation in gardening, knitting, good works, pets, travel, cookery, country walks..."

Alix is back in Liverpool watching over her dying mother; Joseph is an American architect, building a hotel as part of Liverpool's regeneration. They meet: she wants him; he admires her, but longs to reunite with his wife Erica back in Chicago. The alternating first-person chapters each ruminate about the past, speculate about the future, and only occasionally refer to the other, despite their involvement--or lack of it--being presented as the novel's pivotal axis.

Linda Grant is brilliant at creating setting, historical and contemporary, and her affectionate rendering of Liverpool--warts and all. This observation and precise detail is what brings Still Here to life: the turn-of-the-century Jewish diaspora longing for the United States and having to make do with Liverpool; the 1960’s city of Alix's youth; her mother's Dresden childhood; her father as saviour-doctor to the Irish poor; early Beatles; and, of course, the weight of the Holocaust. Joseph's rebellion against his rabbinical father, his refusal to recall his fighting in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, Berkeley and early marriage are also recounted in his sometimes priggish, sometimes uptight and uncomprehending way.

Grant is good on ageing and its effects on body and mind, and at the way the past tunnels into the present. But for a novel with sexual desire--and crucially women's desire--as one of its themes, the momentum keeps getting stalled over the issue of will they, or won't they? A sort of coitus interruptus instead of any real dynamic between Alix and Joseph frustrates Grant's otherwise very readable novel.--Ruth Petrie

Review
'It's a testament to Grant's skill that she can create a novel at once so serious and so readable' Independent on Sunday 'A passionate meaty book ... ultimately rewarding' Mail on Sunday 'Tough, lusty and resolutely unreconstructed, Alix is an unconventional, strikingly memorable creation' Harpers & Queen

Observer
"Expertly interweaving the trivial and profound... Still Here was deservedly long-listed for the Booker Prize"

Customer Reviews

A warm, intelligent and moving novel
A warm, intelligent and thought-provoking book, beautifully written and with some interesting insights into the human condition. Aspects of what it means to be Jewish (religious or otherwise), the long-reaching arm of the Holocaust, self-knowledge (or lack of it in Joe's case), marital fidelity, sexual desire, the city of Liverpool today and yesterday, family and love are all explored with a compassion and wisdom I found hugely moving. I have not read Grant's previous Booker short-list but will certainly do so now - and if it was half as good as this novel it ought to have won.

Still Here
A fine book. Alix is an intelligent, argumentative 40 something woman who returns to Liverpool to comfort her mother, who is on the brink of death. Grant covers so many big ideas, love, desire, beauty, redemption coupled with some major surprises, makes Still Here a challenging but rewarding read.

Joseph is the object of Alix's unrequited desire, his character is warmly drawn by the author. Whilst far from Chicago, Joseph's thoughts are with his wife and children. His love for his wife is central to his being, but what has happened in the year or so they have spent apart? Meanwhile, he struggles to build his hotel against a background of Scouse gangster interference.

Joseph and Alix's visit to one of the gangsters to resolve the issues, demonstrates the concept that a little bit of knowledge can go a long way ... walnuts I ask you.

In Still Here, Linda Grant writes warmly from start to finish, Some of the ideas will haunt you long after you've finished reading. I'd never considered plastic surgery as such a complex subject before.

Still Here is a thoroughly intelligent and enjoyable read. For what its worth, this is a book I'd be glad to recommend to family and friends alike.

More like 3.5 stars because of the beginning and end
The good bits: excellent characterization, particularly the male lead, and a plot with just the right amount of twist (calm down, no spoilers).

In comparison with the rather clunking setting of "When I Lived in Modern Times", the historical material is deftly handled. The characters mesh seamlessly with their histories, despite the broad canvas on which the action is painted (encompassing, directly or indirectly, Jewish lives in Germany, Eastern Europe's 'shtetelekh', Chicago, London, Israel, and, naturally, Liverpool. I don't think I've missed anything out).

As a study of two people emerging from their personal and family histories and facing up to their present-day selves, "Still Here" is excellent. The switching of narrative voice between the two lead characters works extremely well. However, the author's attempts to ram home one of the novel's key "points" via the heavy-handed reiteration of the "immigrant" motif are unnecessary. There's no need to keep underlining any of the metaphorical meanings of "still here". The action and characters speak for themselves most effectively.

The style sometimes grates, too, with short, staccato sentences, in particular, used to poor effect in descriptive passages.

And then there's the beginning and the end. The opening sentence ("From the river the city seemed like a colossus") nearly made me put the book down. Perhaps the author is making ironic use of an "unskilled" narrative voice? That doesn't seem to happen to such a dramatic degree elsewhere in the novel. It seems to me that this metaphor falls flat, to say the least. Or maybe it's just a tactic to avoid the cliché of saying that the city "bestrides" like a colossus (something which Liverpool, as far as the River Mersey is concerned, famously does not do). Still, I'm very glad that I read on.

And the end? No spoilers, I just found it a little glib and unconvincing.

As a Liverpudlian (originally from Wavertree), I found an extra dimension in the precise placement of events in the city. But the novel never becomes a mere travelogue, and has plenty to say about universal modern themes that touch all of us. Like Woody Allen's best films (I don't know whether the author would welcome this comparison), it has things to say about the meaning of life that initially sound trite, but which transcend their immediate context when you think about them more carefully.