EIGHT MONTHS ON GHAZZAH STREET: Hilary Mantel

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I lived in the kingdom for four years. My first published novel was completed in a dark apartment in downtown Jidda. I wrote my second in a small expatriate compound, in an ageing prefabricated house where rats bounced and scurried in the roof. I had met my Muslim neighbours; women in seclusion speak, sometimes, with a freedom their men don't possess. I knew I was privileged. I did not believe anything I read in the papers. I did not believe much I was told, but I wrote it down all the same. Out of my notes I planned to make a novel, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. But I couldn't begin writing it until I had left the kingdom behind me for good. What happens in Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw for a reviewer to make this comparison? (None of us had read it!) My last house was outside the city. I felt less scrutinised, more desolate. I remember the hostile sunshine, the barren line of hills, the absence of birdsong and the distant line of the freeway: the tiny, silent cars moving from somewhere to somewhere, leaving me behind with my journal. Well listen, Fran, we won't be apart for long. And by the time you get out to Jeddah, we'll be fixed up with a house, and everything will be ready for you." believed him, but did not feel herself a better person for the belief. She had been round and about southern Africa for five years, in regions where, by and large, the possibilities of corruption had not been fully explored. Andrew thought

sensation of movement, no intimation that they were in flight. She closed her eyes. Sleep now, she coaxed herself. Tomorrow I will have people to meet and there will be a good deal to do. How pleased I will be, to do it; and to be there, said the man who despised Fairfax. "Infrastructure" was a word she had heard on Andrew's lips; he had grown fond of it. It seemed that when oil was discovered in the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia had no infrastructure, We all thought that the Fairfax bit got interesting. Felt like things were going to start connecting.Keep the young lady sober," the businessman advised. "She's got the customs to face, and it's her first time. They go through everything," he told her. "I hope you haven't got anything in your suitcase that you shouldn't have?" No, not really," she said. "I think I was just there for too long. I liked it, in a way. At least, I'm glad I went there. I wouldn't have missed it." of the President Hotel's gift shop: crocodile handbags, skin rugs, complete bushmen kits with arrows and ostrich shells, direct from the small factory in Palapye which had recently started turning them out. "I can hardly believe

I don't believe they should ever have sent him. Trouble with Fairfax, he's got no credibility. They treat him like some bit of a kid." I'm going to join my husband." She filled in the details again, aware that she was more polite in the air than she was on the ground: the six years in Africa, and now Turadup, and the new Ministry building; aware too that as soon as she had said "husband," the slight interest he had taken in her had faded completely.

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Look," Frances said, "there are two kinds of cheese in Botswana, cheddar and sweetmilk. They are imported from South Africa, which makes any number of kinds of cheese, but they only import two; they realize that people must have cheese, Yes." He had a boring job, she supposed, and a right to people's life stories. "Zambia for a bit, then Botswana." Saudi run this standard airline ploy had the status of charity work. His fingers, dispensing the miniature bottles, were as clean and careful as a bishop's. Eight Months was first published in 1986, pre- Wolf Hall, and is a reflection of the few years that Mantel spent living in Saudi Arabia. I mention this to give some context to some later comments! As always, feel free to comment below, and get involved.

now, dribbling a little onto their airline blankets. There was a sound of subdued laughter; brief-cases intruded into the aisles. The steward relented. He leaned over her seat. "Listen, if anything goes wrong, if by some mischance

This reads like a nightmare. It has a foggy, feverish, this-can’t-really-be-happening atmosphere. But then Mantel’s prose, while elegant, is always a bit dreamy. I like her style for the most part - it worked fabulously well for me in Wolf Hall - but I wanted this story to be a little more solid and detailed. The non-fiction essay she published about her years in Saudi Arabia has much of the same vagueness. Description: Nearly 30 years on from its original publication, Hilary Mantel's third novel is still as disturbing, incisive and illuminating as ever. three nights in succession, he had sat by himself, seemingly disconsolate, on a corner stool in the bar of an expatriate club, not even looking her way, but concentrating hard; until she had asked him to go home with her. She had fed her it strange from three paces, never mind three thousand miles. Could the man be right, she wondered, had someone been bribed on her behalf? It seemed such a small thing, obtaining a visa for one unimportant woman to join her unimportant The details were fixed up, at the President Hotel this time (there being, in Gaborone, a choice of two) over a tough T-bone steak and a glass of Lion lager. Andrew Shore shook hands with Eric Parsons, the Saudi man; Jeff Pollard, talking, conducted him down from the terrace and out into the street. Across the road, the nation's only cinema was showing a double bill: a kung fu drama, and Mary Poppins. Andrew stood in the dusty thoroughfare known as the Mall, gazing into the window of the President Hotel's gift shop: crocodile handbags, skin rugs, complete bushmen kits with arrows and ostrich shells, direct from the small factory in Palapye which had recently started turning them out. "I can hardly believe I'm finished in Africa," he said.