Tales from Lindford - Catherine Fox

January 2020. Freddie, Father Dominic, Jane and all the other residents of Lindfordshire are celebrating the New Year with parties and resolutions. None of them is aware of the trails and tribulations the coming months will bring - not least the horseman of the Apocalypse who has set out quietly, with barely a jingle of harness, in a distant province of China...

Catherine Fox's novel Acts and Omissions, the first of The Lindchester Chronicles was named as one of The Guardian's books of 2014 and was followed by two more.  The Chronicles were intended to be a trilogy, but the events of 2020 gave Catherine the perfect opportunity to revisit Lindford's residents once more.  Tales From Lindford was originally written in real time as a series of blog posts and this makes it very 'of the moment' as you read.  

Perhaps this original blog style is also what made me find it a perfect book for picking up and putting down. The dramatic personae at the start does help a bit if, like me, you get a bit muddled as to who's who from time to time.  I suspect this was mainly necessary due to the fact I've not (yet!) read the earlier volumes.

There's a bit of something for most people in this book with its wide cast of characters.  I loved meeting Fr Dominic who worries for his elderly mother; Jack-in-the-greenhouse and Miss Sherratt who watches for the green card he places in the window each day; various clergy and lay people and their respective families; and my favourites - youngsters Leah and Jess.  Honestly, I promise that's not just because we share a surname!  Jess's diary is a highlight of the book for me, with her wonderfully pithy commentary on growing up and her tolerant affection for fiery older sister Leah who has strong views and expresses them forcibly. (Small spoiler: Covid comes very close to the Rogers family.) We also see how the ebb and flow of the pandemic affects everyone, with the resulting impact on family life and friendships, some of which show more obvious strain than others.  

The overriding reason this all works so enjoyably as a novel is Catherine's brilliant use of prose and the underlying wit which often appears. Early in the book, commenting on Brexit, she writes: 'But whichever way we voted back in June of 2016, the end has manifestly not come with the decisive bang of a Hazard Type 1 professional-only firework. It was more your back garden Catherine Wheel nailed to the clothes prop.' There's lots of political commentary throughout, told from various character's perspectives, and it's likely you'll find something with which you don't agree.  (You'll also find strong language from time to time, fyi.) But that's one of the factors which makes this book such a compelling read, and there are plenty of 'day to day' elements which are just fun (maybe even when they aren't funny, strictly speaking). You'll have to read the book to find out the amazing reason why, for example, Mrs Logan wants Turkish Delight. Go to pages 444-446 if you can't bear the anticipation for the entire book! The story (stories?) itself is sometimes 'stoppy-starty' by the very nature of writing about the lives and Time of a village and its surrounds, but anyone who lived in semi-rural England during 2020 will recognise elements of their own lives in its pages.

Halfway through the book, in June, Lindford is waiting eagerly for Lockdown to Lift.  'The pale horse is currently quietly cropping grass in an English meadow, but the horseman will ride again.' Reading this with hindsight, the author was clearly accurate in her expectation. Nearly a year on as I write this review, the pale horse is galloping hard across India even as we are waiting to see, here in the UK, whether all restrictions will be lifted soon. Yet even if they are for many of us 'normal' will be a long time coming. Tales from Lindford is a reminder that across communities people are coping with Covid and other things day to day in many and varied ways, with many and varied influencing pressures apart from The Pandemic itself. It's a clever, witty, engaging, sad, joyous and challenging read which I highly recommend. 

About the author: Catherine Fox is Academic Director of the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her debut novel Angels and Men was a Sunday Times Pick of the Year, and the first book in the Lindchester Chronicles, Acts and Omissions, was chosen as a Guardian Book of 2014. Catherine is married to the Bishop of Sheffield and is a judo black belt.

9781910674659, Marylebone House, UK publication May 21

Note: for transparency, I was sent an advance copy of this book, but I was not required to write any specific or favourable review. All views herein are my own.

  

The Restless Wave - Sarah Meyrick

The Restless Wave is told from the perspectives of teacher Nell, her complicated mother Hope and her D-Day Army Chaplain grandfather Edward. 

Nell’s part in the story begins when she makes a BIG mistake by posting a social media comment which rapidly wrecks her life.  (I’m not sure I’d have realised that a child’s name of Kar-ian would be pronounced ‘Kardashian’ rather than ‘Carrie-Anne’ either!)  

We first meet Hope in 1945, an evacuee child about to be torn from the Dorset countryside she loves, to move to Birmingham with a father she barely knows and who is scarred both physically and mentally by the war.  

Meanwhile, Edward’s story is woven in and out of both Nell and Hope’s.  We follow him from childhood in colonial India to his ordination training which will lead from an Oxford curacy to the French beaches of D-Day, and beyond.  

 

This is a complex, multi-layered book. The story (‘stories’?) is engrossing and I was eager to find out what happened next for each of the characters, and to find out the resolution of the mystery of the letter and photograph Nell finds in an old desk.  There is some swearing, and a rather nasty incident at Edward’s school.  The latter is a pity as I couldn’t see that it added anything to the rest of the story.  However, it’s a couple of paragraphs in what is otherwise an excellent book.

The Cromwell Enigma - Derek Wilson

In 1540 Nicolas Bourbon is sent as Queen Marguerite of Navarre’s secret envoy to find out what has happened to cause Thomas Cromwell’s fall from grace, and what the ripple effects of his execution might be. 

At first he feels somewhat ambivalent about his task, but he soon finds himself facing powerful opponents of Cromwell and all he stood for, who are keen to portray him as a dangerous man seeking only to fulfil his own ambitions.  

When he is called on to tell others what kind of man Cromwell really was, Nicholas finds he cannot say.  There are too many different versions, and very little information about Cromwell’s life before his meteoric rise. 

Before long he finds himself on a journey to find out who Cromwell really was – and to determine the significance of the broken crucifix found in Cromwell’s possessions, with the note ‘remember always’.

This is a very well written novel and a gripping read, blending fact and fiction seamlessly and believably as it weaves the fictional characters and actions around actual events and people.  The historical detail is helped by extracts from letters and documents of the time and would thrill the soul of serious historians.  Some authors of novels based around real people or events have a tendency to drown the story in the historical detail, but Wilson skilfully avoids this.   Despite occasionally withdrawing from the novel for a little investigation of the facts vs the fiction (helped by the useful ‘Notes on historical characters’ section at the back of the book), I found this book a real page-turner, being both complex and accessible at the same time.  It’s a fascinating insight into the political and religious turmoil of the period after Cromwell’s death.

At the end of the book, Nicholas says ‘If we make no search for truth we abide in windowless mansions, content with what lies within, satisfied with the mental chattels we gather for our amusement. Life is a quest or it is nothing.’  An interesting point on which to close this review.

9781910674529, Marylebone House 

For transparency, I was sent an advance copy of this book, but I was not required to write any specific or favourable review. All views herein are my own.