Two Across by Jeff Bartsch: book review

Two Across (2015) is set in the 1960s on the east coast of America. At 15 years of age in 1960, Stanley Owens and Vera Baxter tie for first place at the National Spelling Bee in Washington DC. Stanley is from DC – he lives with his mother, Martha, in Suite 512 at the Hawthorne Hotel. Martha is anthropophobic – afraid of people. Vera is from New York – she lives with her mother, Vivian, in various hotels around the country due to her mother’s job as secretary to a sales executive.

Stanley and Vera meet again two years later in DC, when Stanley’s mother is pressuring him to apply for university courses in politics in order to become a senator. He wants to be a crossword puzzle designer. Vera loves mathematics and French literature – her mother wants her to become a mathematics professor.

On August 1, 1963, they marry, not for love, but for money. It is Stanley’s idea to have a fake wedding to get ‘sizable cash gifts’ from their wedding guests. They say goodbye to each straight after the wedding, and meet a month later in Cambridge, where Vera attends university on scholarship. Stanley is there only because his mother thinks he was accepted into Harvard, but he didn’t even apply.

Stanley takes tutoring jobs and creates crosswords to submit to newspapers, especially the New York Times. He gives Vera some tips on how to create crosswords, and they even design a few together.

But Vera lives on campus and Stanley lives in a studio apartment. ‘She was with Stanley, but also not with him, not the way she wanted.’ They don’t even spend term vacation together.

Stanley writes term papers for other students for payment and the cheating scandal is discovered. In 1967 Vera is disillusioned by this sham wedding and disappears from his life. Stanley goes home to confess his lies and secrets to his mother. She has secrets of her own – about his father Nick.

At the age of 29, in 1973, Stanley can’t get Vera out of his mind and continues to look for her. By now he is living in New York, working as the crossword editor for the New York Times. Can he find her through crossword clues? He gets a tip from an unlikely source – but can it be trusted?

This is Young Adult fiction and commences in a believable way – at the National Spelling Bee competition. I think the concept is interesting, and I like the idea of Vera’s ‘magic’ pen and the crossword themes. However, Stanley’s trickery becomes difficult to believe at times, and I’m not convinced about the TV show. The 10-year-gap period is long, drawn out, and forgettable. Although the story gathers momentum again, it ends too abruptly – and rather strangely. Young readers may like this novel, but it’s a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

MARTINA NICOLLS is the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...

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