The last two books I have read came from the library last week and I've read them already! Both books are powerful and the stories linger after the they are closed for the last time.Firstly, Every Light in the House Burnin' by Andrea Levy tells the story of Angela, the youngest child of her Jamaican born dad who is now dying. While helping her mother through the trauma of the British National Health Service, Angela recalls her life growing up with her two sisters and brother in the over stuffed house where food is different from what her friends eat (her mother tells her not to tell the lady upstairs she has eaten sausages for Sunday lunch, and a friend refuses to eat the spicy hot food when going for tea). The book is full nostalgia and I recognised so much here from my years growing up - the games the children play, the TV programmes, the feel of the estate. It was like stepping back in time. However, Angela has to deal with the prejudice of being non-white. Her father is a man of few words and habit. Levy has a wonderful the way describing him from Angela's perspective as she grows up, and later as an adult as she fights for her father to be treated with dignity as he declines. Despite the sadness of the subject matter Levy peppers the story with amusing recollections of the past from the strange light her father buys for her mother in a cheap shop which has the Pope popping out from it every so often like a weatherman (but we are not Catholic she tells her father, who didn't even know there was a Pope inside!) to the gone off meatballs he serves for lunch which end up outside where all the neighbours glare at the mess that even the dogs refuse to eat. There is the terrible torture of visiting the hairdresser for the first time with her mother to have her frizzy hair straightened and her father eating six buttered rolls and six cups of tea to save them from being wasted (trip by coach to Devon for a holiday).
As Angela's father deteriorates it is she who takes much of the responsibility in tackling the GP, hospital doctors and nurses as she tries to find her way through the system. The last part of the book I found quite harrowing as her father comes close to the end, and Angela is trying to find someone sympathetic to administer pain relief to her suffering father. There is nothing worse than watching a loved one suffer and Levy writes this well and true. This was an emotional read and like all Levy's books they stay with you.
Moving by Jenny Eclair is a brand new book and this is one of three books I have on a list from a selection of summer reads from The Evening Standard. I was thrilled to find it in the library with its crisp new pages and I am the first one to borrow it! Another book about family but a very different one. Edwina is in her seventies and about to sell her large house, now falling down around her ears. But in this house, where she brought up twins Rowena and Charlie and lived with two husbands and a visiting stepson, holds a great many secrets and memories.
The story is written in four parts, each through the eyes of someone different - Edwina, Fern (a lover of Charlie's), Lucas (the stepson) and very briefly Sophie (who I don't want to reveal in case I spoil it for you if you decide to read the book for yourself). Each person looks back on their life as they are touched by members of the family and the tragedy that comes. Edwina is a bohemian woman firstly married to Ollie (the twins father) who dies suddenly and tragically on a family beach holiday and Edwina is left to pick up the pieces with two small children. She is saved by Alicia, who comes to work for her and cooks and cleans, leaving Edwina time to paint and illustrate children's' books. Then she meets Dickie, a man in politics and very different who leaves his wife Barbara for her. Edwina struggles to love Lucas, the stepson, who does not fit in and very unlikable.
The lives of the children intertwine over the years with tragic circumstances for all of them as well as for Edwina. Writing from different viewpoints was enlightening, especially with Lucas, who I thought a stuck-up kid who was awkward and rude. We all know kids suffer when marriages break up but this kid was particularly vindictive. I was not keen to read Lucas's story but when I did I saw a whole new part of him and why the child was a victim of his parents.
The story weaves around Charlie who flits through everyone's life leaving a trail of destruction. Charlie has no viewpoint of his own. You see him only through the eyes of his mother, his lover and his step-brother, Lucas. The story unfolds stretching loyalty, love and inciting jealousy and revenge.
Brilliantly written, very insightful and a great summer read. I've never come across this author before but she has written three previous books. I would read more of hers if they are this good. I only finished the book this morning so it is still very much with me - such a haunting tale.
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