Bibliography
May. 27th, 2013 08:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_lady_lilyThe Friday Gospels - Jenn Ashworth
I have little to no excuse for not reading this, and indeed for not reading Jenn's previous two books, because I was at university with her and know her pretty darn well. But her first books came out when I was in the States, and I've been bad about chasing them up, and so a friend had to lend me this, her third book, and it is in part a sign of friend-fail that this is the first of them I've written about. I have to admit that I also caught Jenn on various things (Radio 4's Front Row!) when the book was first published, so I felt that I actually knew enough about it to want to read it. So I did.
I think that paragraph neatly makes all the 'she's a friend!' caveats I need to, so I can be honest and say that I really enjoyed this. Well, perhaps 'enjoyed' is the wrong word, because it's a dark book, with some dark people with some dark places inside them, although the ending has a kernel of hope for the future. I found it compelling reading, to the extent of not being able to put the book down one evening that I'd scheduled for an early night and having to read to the end before I could go to sleep. The novel is set on a single day, when a Mormon family in Lancashire are waiting for their son to return from his Mission in Utah, and when various other members of the family are making various momentous decisions. There's lots of flashback and context setting, though, so it feels like a deeper chronological texture (and I did have to think before typing that it's a single day). The chapters switch in between narrative voice, so you get inside the head of all of the family members, which offers some interesting shifts of perspective and attitude. All of the characters are fully realised, and it's interesting how various blind spots in self-perception turn up through how they appear in the eyes of others.
That kind of family jigsaw is what makes the book, I think - seeing how all those individual people fit together into a family unit. That's the basic question at the root of the plot, particularly given the son's return and how that's going to change things, just as his leaving has changed other things. There are a lot of cultural things there too, which add to that sense of dynamic, but also highlight the way in which families are shaped by the cultures around them as much as anything else. So if you think you can cope with some dark stuff but fancy this sort of thematic exploration, do go and pick the book up.
I have little to no excuse for not reading this, and indeed for not reading Jenn's previous two books, because I was at university with her and know her pretty darn well. But her first books came out when I was in the States, and I've been bad about chasing them up, and so a friend had to lend me this, her third book, and it is in part a sign of friend-fail that this is the first of them I've written about. I have to admit that I also caught Jenn on various things (Radio 4's Front Row!) when the book was first published, so I felt that I actually knew enough about it to want to read it. So I did.
I think that paragraph neatly makes all the 'she's a friend!' caveats I need to, so I can be honest and say that I really enjoyed this. Well, perhaps 'enjoyed' is the wrong word, because it's a dark book, with some dark people with some dark places inside them, although the ending has a kernel of hope for the future. I found it compelling reading, to the extent of not being able to put the book down one evening that I'd scheduled for an early night and having to read to the end before I could go to sleep. The novel is set on a single day, when a Mormon family in Lancashire are waiting for their son to return from his Mission in Utah, and when various other members of the family are making various momentous decisions. There's lots of flashback and context setting, though, so it feels like a deeper chronological texture (and I did have to think before typing that it's a single day). The chapters switch in between narrative voice, so you get inside the head of all of the family members, which offers some interesting shifts of perspective and attitude. All of the characters are fully realised, and it's interesting how various blind spots in self-perception turn up through how they appear in the eyes of others.
That kind of family jigsaw is what makes the book, I think - seeing how all those individual people fit together into a family unit. That's the basic question at the root of the plot, particularly given the son's return and how that's going to change things, just as his leaving has changed other things. There are a lot of cultural things there too, which add to that sense of dynamic, but also highlight the way in which families are shaped by the cultures around them as much as anything else. So if you think you can cope with some dark stuff but fancy this sort of thematic exploration, do go and pick the book up.
