What’s with books that make me cry? Books about children, about birth, death, love and loss. How are they sneaking up on me out of the dark, whispering their way into my mind, tweaking at my heartstrings?
This is a debut novel – it doesn’t show. Reading it with half an eye to a review the comparison I kept thinking of was with Jodi Picoult, mistress of wangling her way into your mind with moral quandaries that are still all too horribly real. I think she may have a competitor here.
Set just after the first world war, unlike other novels the historical setting doesn’t jar and while it brackets the story and explains some of the motivations, isn’t thrust into your face in the way some settings can be. Similarly the location of Australia is a background rather than a focus. I want to steer clear of spoilers here, but I will warn that if you are particularly affected by pregnancy loss, this may not be a book for you. (I seem to be saying that a lot about books I’ve read atm. I guess authors believe that something that affects so many of us should be dealt with in fiction even if we deal with it so poorly in real life.) This is a story that goes deeply to the heart of a tragedy, and lets you see how all the participants are affected. And brings home the truth that in some situations there have to be winners and losers. I was hoping for a different ending, but the way the book is crafted it just wouldn’t have worked – this feels authentic, accurate. A strange thing to say about fiction? But you must know what I mean, sometimes authors wrench stories around to where they think the ending should be, and lose a little part of the greater truth they are telling in the endeavour. M.L.Stedman keeps on to the bitter end, with only a tiny nod to what could have been, and it is so much the better for it.
At the beginning I found her habit of slipping in passages in a different tense slightly jarring, and resented it. Once I was immersed in the story I stopped noticing – those little passages work well to set an atmosphere apart from the narrative. This is a one sitting book that you won’t want to set down, even though it isn’t dramatic in any way. It just drags you in and you want to be there right up until the very end. At the finish I felt a little bereft, I wanted to be able to have all the other endings as well – but that’s the way with a good book.
Does it remind me of anything else? Yes, it also brought to mind Water for Elephants for some reason, although it’s a very different book. Perhaps something to do with the love story and the main focus being on the man in the story, although there’s also plenty said about the women.
Is that enough to give you a taste without giving it away? I hope so. Highly recommended. And if you do read it, please come back and let me know how it goes.
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