Rating: 5/5
Review:
A very good novel
Natasha Solomons is becoming established as a significant novelist, and rightly so, in my view. This is her third novel and, while I wasn't quite as keen on it as I was on The Novel In The Viola (her second) or The Song Collector (her fourth) it is still very good indeed.
The story is of Juliet Monague, a housewife in 1950s suburban England. Her husband has simply walked out and disappeared, leaving her in a very difficult limbo in the Jewish community in which she lives. It is the tale of her gradual breaking free of the stifling conventions and her emotional wounds to find a world in which she can be fulfilled. It sounds like a load of cliché-ed chicklit, but Solomons is a fine, thoughtful and intelligent writer who lifts it miles above that.
I love Natasha Solomons' writing. Her prose is readable, engaging and unfussy and she evokes period and place completely convincingly, but it is her characters an d hr treatment of them which really stand out. She is remarkably perceptive about people and sees her characters, flaws and all, with a very clear eye but also great compassion. I am always moved in some way by her books.
I can recommend this as a very good read indeed, which has important things to say about all sorts of human relationships. Warmly recommended.
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