In brief: The Catchers; Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife; Every Man for Himself and God Against All – review

Ben East
·2-min read
<span>‘Rabble-rousing autobiographer’ Margery Kempe, one of the subjects of Hetta Howes’s Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife.</span><span>Photograph: Wikimedia Commons</span>
‘Rabble-rousing autobiographer’ Margery Kempe, one of the subjects of Hetta Howes’s Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife.Photograph: Wikimedia Commons

The Catchers

Xan Brooks
Salt, £10.99, pp272

After the success of his debut novel, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times, Brooks returns to the 1920s for an evocative musical road trip. John Coughlin is a “song-catcher”, who records Appalachian country songs in the hope he can find a musician to make his fortune. As he travels towards the Mississippi Delta, he gets wind of that young man, a black guitarist called Moss Evans. Brooks turns this voyage of discovery into something of a magical quest, layered with memorable characters and thoughtful ideas on racism, exploitation and naked greed.

Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife

Hetta Howes
Bloomsbury, £22, pp320

In this brilliantly revealing history of medieval women who – in their own way – changed the world and provided inspiration for feminists hundreds of years later, Howes sensibly chooses writers whose enduring work is proof of their heroism and stoicism. So poet Marie de France, mystic Julian of Norwich, “proto-feminist hustler” Christine de Pizan and rabble-rousing autobiographer Margery Kempe are all celebrated for their unique battles against the mores of the time. And expertly so: Howes’s debut has just the right meld of insightful research, enjoyable storytelling and contemporary contexts.

Every Man for Himself and God Against All

Werner Herzog
Vintage, £10.99, pp368 (paperback)

Though laden with eye-opening anecdotes about the films Werner Herzog has made, the bizarre accidents that have befallen him and the women he’s married, Everyman for Himself and God Against All is not your usual memoir. But then Herzog is not your usual director. Just like his work, he plays with form here, teasing the disparate and extreme strands of his life from childhood into a sort of scrapbook, as if growling one-liners while composing a work of fiction.

• To order The Catchers, Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife or Every Man for Himself and God Against All go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Latest stories