Emma's Luck
by Claudia Schreiber
John Murray, HK$160
In a recent review, British newspaper the Guardian described Emma's Luck as a 'Disneyfied pastoral tale' - a bizarre description of a novel that is sometimes painful to read and often bloody. In one scene the protagonist, Emma, as a little girl, is forced to witness her grandfather plucking sparrow chicks from their nest and hurling them against a brick wall.
The lesson: no freeloaders are welcome on the farm. This is a tale that manages to portray both the beauty of luscious nature and the cruel reality of rural life.
Emma is brought up on a farm in the middle of nowhere Germany. The land groans with produce and the country people make the most of it. In the local town 'good, filling food was eaten: meat and sausages, potatoes, air-dried ham, game with pear halves and cranberries ... You ate fish only if your false teeth were broken ... The women's dress sizes began at size 16 and could easily go up to size 32.