Catherine Raynes: A Better Life and Rasputin

A Better Life by Lionel Shriver  

Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme - Big Apple, Big Heart - that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom. 

As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico's sisters, while finding her way into Gloria's heart. But as Martine's disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother's altruism and the 'migrant crisis' in general - though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself. 

  

Rasputin by Antony Beevor  

When Russia’s Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she ‘lived under the pressure of the prophecy’. Did the prophecy come true with the arrival at court of a mysterious, barely literate moujhik from Siberia, Grigori Rasputin?

In this extraordinary portrait of an enigmatic character, Antony Beevor brings readers closer than ever before to Rasputin’s scandalous life and death. Though he had no official position at court, Rasputin’s hold over the Romanovs became the stuff of legend. Exaggerated accounts of political and financial corruption swirled around him, to say nothing of the stories of his debauchery with the Empress and even her daughters. The consequences of the rumor and conspiracy theories were devastating—when the February revolution broke out in 1917, hardly a sword was raised in the Tsar’s defense. 

Through extensive use of previously unpublished reports, interviews, and interrogations, Beevor shows the truth of Rasputin’s rampant lust and opportunism, victimization of poor and vulnerable women, and deep hypocrisy and corruption. Part political thriller, part gothic mystery, Rasputin is a fascinating story of human perversity. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to this Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Be This time last week, our book reviewer Katherine Rains
was in Melbourne counting down the minutes to the Melbourne
Grand preci As well. It's now get a Catherine, Good
morning Jack. I know Liam Lawson didn't have the greatest weekend,
but how was it for you? Did it live up
to your expectations?

Speaker 3 (00:28):
It sure did. Yeah, it was a great event. Melbourne
does it incredibly well. But yeah, it was just so
much fun to be there, Yeah, and experience it in
an atmosphere and everybody there was having such a good time.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
So yeah, no, it was really enjoyable.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Oh I'm pleased to hear it. Look, you've got two
fantastic sounding reads for us for this weekend, So let's
begin with Better Life by Lionel Shreiver.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
So this story unfolds through the eyes of one person,
a twenty six year old man called Nico, and he's
ended up in his mother's basement in this upscale New
York queen's neighborhood, and he's ready to detach from work responsibility.
He has no purpose and he seems really lost and
feels pretty inconsequent and Gloria is his Mum's in her sixties,

(01:10):
and she kind of directs a lot of her energy
towards strangers rather than her own family. So she'sn't interested
in a traditional role of being a grandmother or surrounded
by her grandchildren. Instead, she's much more interested in what
outside has bring to her life. And she's driven a
lot more by ideology than she is really by what's
going on in her own life. And things in their
lives are about to change though. There's been this initiative

(01:32):
from the Mayor of New York, and Gloria applies to
participate in this program, which is to help the immigrants
that are arriving in the state, and she's got the
room and there's a monetary incentive as well. So Martin
from Hondrea Andrea Andreas arrives in their home, and initially,
to start with, she's the perfect guest. She's helping with
cooking and cleaning, and Gloria and her girl's lover, Niko,

(01:55):
is not quite so happy. And then visitors of Martens
start to arrive at home, and then her brother arrives,
and there's this real contrast and what's going on, and
these traditional family structures that Martine have and what Gloria
and Leko are used to. And it's really eye opening
this dynamics between sort of modern Western society and this

(02:19):
strange moral right that often disguises itself as empathy. And
there's observations of people and communities and institutions and the government,
and there's lots of ideas and concepts that really keep
you thinking and considering long after you've finished the book.
Really interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Nice, Okay, great, So that's Better Life by Lionel Schreiver.
Tell Us about Rasputin by Anthony Beaver.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
So this is nonfiction and it's a fascinating look at
the life of one of Russia's most intriguing residents, a
guy called Gregor Rasputin, and his involvement with the ruling family,
the Romanovs, and he changed the course of history really
and the court of the early nineteen hundreds was in
this grip of all, you know, very spiritual and religion.

(03:03):
Was king and the Czara and Zarena Nicholas to Alexander
maintained this belief in the czar's god given right to
rule and his deep connection with the Russian people. And
you get this portrayal of this dynasty that's really frightened
and isolated and dysfunctional, and it places all its faith
in one man, Resputant, and his story actually is almost

(03:26):
completely the opposite of where it begins. He was completely impoverished.
He grew up on the settlement of the banks of
a river, lived in timber houses. His father was a peasant,
and nothing about his early life suggested that he would
become the notorious man that he was. And he made
his way from this peasant upbringing to the center of
Russian power, particularly because the young Tsarevich Alexey suffered from hemophilia,

(03:50):
and that was where Russian Resputant asserted his presence and
helped out when court doctors were helpless and prayed beside
his bed, you know, and Alexandra believes that Resputant had
saved her son, and those consequences were extraordinary, and by
the First World War he's well ingrained in the Romanovs
and he's one of the most hated men in Russia

(04:12):
by the stage, and it's just really interesting looking at
that historical context of the time and why he was
so important, and you know, the fall of the dynasty
and Anthony Beaver does a superb job of making this
history just so interesting to read.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
It's so fascinating, very good. Yeah, I'd love to read that.
So let's rest Bootin by Anthony Beaver. Catherine's first book
was Better Life by Lionel Shreiver. Both of those will
be on the News Talks EDB website for.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
More from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live to
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