Spacemen and soldiers

Cryers Hill by Kitty Aldridge

Jonathan Cape 2007, 352 pages

Cryers Hill, Buckinghamshire, 1969. Man has landed on the moon and eight year old Sean thinks he’s an astronaut as he shuttles around the half-built houses and countryside near his home on a new development. Sean and his class mates are part of an experiment; they have been taught to read with the Initial Teaching Alphabet but having learned the “liar” alphabet, Sean struggles to read true words. Rewind thirty five years to 1934 and Walter Brown is working for the water company in Wycombe, a clerk like his father and grandfather before him. However, he is in love with Mary Hatt and aspires to be a poet. But Walter doubts that he will ever be a real writer, not if he remains in Cryers Hill; he needs to sample life and so he enlists with the Royal Artillery.

Every now and again a book comes along that blows you away and this time around Cryers Hill was the one that did it for me. A truly exceptional novel: superbly written, funny and intensely moving this is a book to give as a gift or to keep and return to again and again because, like Walter’s war-time letters to his sweetheart, it should be tied with a ribbon and cherished.

Mother’s gone mad

Disquiet by Julia Leigh

Faber and Faber 2008, 128 pages

Olivia has returned unexpectedly to her childhood home, a French chateau, to escape her violent marriage; her two children are with her. At the same time, Olivia’s brother Marcus and his wife are due to arrive with their newborn baby, but there will be no celebration of a family reunited.

As this story unfolds it has the uneasy quality of a dream as it slides towards the realm of nightmare; we observe the behaviour of the characters without knowing what they are thinking while they struggle to gain control of their situation. I first saw this one over on http://dovegreyreader.typepad.com and as I commented there, it’s another of those little gems that you can read in one sitting.

It’s Grimm up north

Once Upon a Time in England by Helen Walsh.

Canongate 2008, 368 pages

Once upon a time there was a man with hair like flames. He fell in love with a beautiful woman who came from a far away land and together they had two children with skin the colour of caramel. They all lived together in a little house on a council estate in Warrington but some of the people there were not very nice. They moved to another house but still things were grim and they did not live happily ever after.

This is the tale of a family’s unravelling, of racial intolerance, seedy sex and drug abuse. It is also a book about the things we try to hide from society, but more especially from those who are closest to us. It is gritty, it is raw and it is also incredibly sad.

Wall update

Following on from the argument a van had with our garden wall recently (see offmyface), I am happy to report that a builder has been given the go ahead by our insurance company and the bricks are on order. Also, our little family of wrens (oblivious to all the commotion) have made their way into the big wide world.

Very Fine indeed

Fly in the Ointment by Anne Fine

Bantam Press 2008, 224 pages

Lois Henderson is estranged from her parents and has lost her son to drug addiction. When her husband ups and leaves she gains a new lease of life: moves house, changes her job and acquires fresh interests. She then discovers that her son has fathered a child, offering her what she regards as a second chance and an opportunity to make amends for past mistakes. But there’s a “fly in the ointment,” only this time Lois is determined that nothing is going to come between a child and the happiness she thinks he deserves.

Anne Fine is probably best known for her children’s stories but Fly in the Ointment is her seventh novel for adults. This is a compelling page turner which addresses the issue of bad parenting, in particular the neglect of children. Anyone looking for an entertaining read which demands very little effort on the part of the reader should look no further. A brave book.