The Extra Ordinary Life of Frank Derrick, Age 81 (2014)

Author: J.B. Morrison  |  Page Count: 304

'He already had his free TV licence and bus pass.  Even though there was nothing on television and nowhere to take the bus to.'

J.B. Morrison is Jim Bob, who at one time was half of the phenomenally semi-successful music act Carter USM. I admit it was entirely due to my love for the band’s music that I checked out Frank Derrick. The clever word play in the title made me wonder prior to reading if we would see a return to the fiery satire of Jim Bob’s lyric writing style, or if it would more closely resemble the deeply poignant feelings of abandonment that 'Granny Farming in the UK' gave rise to. The text is neither; or rather it’s both but filtered through a more subtle and sensitive screen door. It's comedy with a thoughtful slant that's sweet but never artificial.

Frank of Fullwind-on-Sea is a cynical duffer with a healthy distrust of others. He's an active sort who frequents the charity shops and buys crap he doesn't need. He looks upon the curtain-twitchers in his neighbourhood with disdain, but often his vantage point is from behind his own twitching curtain. When an accident lessens Frank's independence some home-help is arranged. He resents the idea completely, fearing the worst: she'll treat him like a child; she'll steal his life savings! But Frank had been wrong about people before. Who's to say...?

Jim Bob's style is descriptive and wry. His sentences frequently take lengthy strides when a shorter, more direct approach could've conveyed the same information more succinctly. They're rambling, some might say, but I'm a rambler, too, so it wasn't a problem for me. I actually liked it; it showed that he was being honest with himself and his readers, not trying to mimic another's style. He wisely litters comedy throughout, instead of always holding back for a killer punchline.

The only thing I really disliked was the half a dozen movie spoilers. They were old movies and their inclusion was relevant to Frank's tragic situation, but that's no excuse. They were spoilers no matter how you spin it. Speaking of which, if the book was to be filmed it would most likely be an indie, suitable for the likes of HandMade Films, and in a perfect world it would star Michael Caine.

3½ mantelpiece giraffes out of 5

Escape From Camp 14 (2012)

Author: Blaine Harden | Page Count: 210

A perverse benefit of birth in the camp was a complete absence of expectations.

And so Shin's misery never skidded into complete hopelessness. He had no hope to lose, no past to mourn, no pride to defend. He did not find it degrading to lick soup off the floor. He was not ashamed to beg a guard for forgiveness. It didn't trouble his conscience to betray a friend for food. These were merely survival skills, not motives for suicide.

Escape From Camp 14 tells the true story of a North Korean man Shin Dong-hyuk as he was born in a political prisoner labor camp, his life growing up inside and his eventual escape from the camp and North Korea. The hardships that he faced are some of the worst crimes against human rights that can be imagined. I felt a sort of disconnect at first like I was reading a history similar to the holocaust or stories of Russian gulags; terrible but with a distance that time and historical perspective brings. The author and Shin however stress in the text how North Korea has perpetrated among the cruelest and most long running campaigns of human rights violations ever that is still going on right now and how it is allowed to continue by a clusterfuck of politics, denial, conspiracy and apathy.

That is the point, but the tale itself is more personal as it relates to Shin. He is one of many who were trained from birth to be subservient to authority with no cause towards things like human dignity and integrity as well as the physical hardships of forced slave labor, malnutrition, starvation and murder. Things like respect and love were not even foreign concepts; they didn't exist at all. When his mother and brother are executed for a planned escape, Shin is forced to watch and won't meet his mother's  eye not because he can't bear the sight of her death, but because he was angry at her for putting him in danger by escaping. She was his mother only by fact she birthed him, but there was no love. She was just a person and competitor for food who would beat him when he stole her lunch. Even his eventual escape wasn't prodded on by some grandiose uprising of the human spirit within him. He escaped because he was tired of being hungry and heard from an outside prisoner that grilled meat was particularly good.

A fascinating look at a personal tale behind North Korea's cloak that gives some insight to international geopolitics and the perhaps unseen side of the strength of human spirit.

5 spit roasted rats out of 5