R J Gould

Fifty years ago, four young people, three young men and a young woman, from quite varied backgrounds, started university. They lived in the same housing block, and were all studying geography.

In the present day, fifty years after starting university, three of them decided to go to their class reunion and meet up again, for the first time since graduation.

Sandy was the only daughter of well-off, upper middle class swingers. This is never admitted to their daughter, of course, but in her teens, Sandy figures it out. She's smart, talented, charismatic, and precariously balanced her own wild teenage life with being a decorous and dedicated student--and finally settles on a new university that isn't at all what her parents or teachers anticipate.

Michael has a childhood troubled by the fact that his father is a kind, loving, gentle parent, and committed but utterly inept thief. His mother is honest and reliable and rigid--possibly understandably. She's certainly not wrong when she finally kicks her husband out for good, but it doesn't make Michael's life easier. School, and ultimately a grant that allows him to attend university, becomes his escape.

Jonathan is from a secular Jewish family, has two sisters, and is the tormented odd sibleing out in a rather intense sibling rivalry where his sisters always manage to appear innocent. At the grammar school he attends, he also runs into some problems due to being Jewish--a thing he feels no connection to.

Stuart is the mystery, the one whose childhood we get no glimpse of. We only meet Stuart when the flashbacks reach university, and the four meet on their first day of class. Stuart is intelligent, flashy, embraces radical politics that not uncommon among students in the 60s and 70s, is an effective speaker, and indulges freely in drugs, He's not there for their reunion; Stuart's fate is the painful secret that haunts the other three and ended their friendship not long before graduation.

But while that secret haunts them even at their reunion, they're all struggling with their own family troubles, that at first they are very reluctant to share. Three adults in their late sixties, near retirement, and with changes and challenges facing them in their family lives, none of them are really sure why they came to the reunion, not even Sandy, who was the one who emailed the other two, nearly fifty years after they last met, to suggest it.

What follows over the course of the weekend is a rediscovery of their friendship, a rediscovery of the tensions in it, and the unfolding and sharing of the current stresses in their lives--as well as, ultimately, confronting what happened to Stuart, and how it ended their friendship. Three adults with successful careers behind them, doing things they enjoy and care about, and with family members they love and care about for all the stresses involved, discover they still have a little piece of growing up to do. And since they are all decent, honest, kind people who have tried to live in keeping with their values, we want them to succeed.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via Rachel's Random Resources, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (meer)

Neville Watkin's life has never been spectacular, but over the last year or so, it's taken a real turn for the worse. He and his wife, Stella, have been distant for years. Now, she has moved out, and is divorcing him. Then he's laid off from his job at the bank--where he's been working since leaving school, thirty years ago.

He really, really doesn't need the accident he has not long after, backing out of a parking spot, into the minivan of a woman and her two kids. The woman is yelling at him for his carelessness, and he can't really defend himself. Especially once his attempt to voice any defense at all ends in him passing out and collapsing at her feet.

He wakes up the next day in a hospital, not very badly injured, and receives an unexpected visitor--Laura, the woman whose car he hit. His life is about to take a truly strange change of direction.

Laura invites him to her house; they work on the insurance paperwork for their accident together. Neville figures that will be the end of it. It's not.

After finding that he is very familiar with all the same old albums her mother likes, she starts encouraging him to get out of his funk and open up to the world. She introduces him to her mother, Caroline. They convince him to use his current free time and severance package from the bank to take a vacation for the first time in, well, ever, it turns out. They get him to buy a more current and more lively wardrobe. They encourage him to get outside more--and a newspaper article about a volunteer conservation group that's looking for more volunteers catches his interest.

Caroline invites him to dinner.

It's a strange, funny, heartwarming journey.

Neville starts to rediscover some of the joys and passions of his youth, including the guitar.

The conservation group doesn't see Neville as the boring guy with the job that is being taken over by computers; they see him as the guy who shows up for every conservation project, and has a background in budgeting and finance.

He discovers along the way that he also has, when doing something he enjoys, interesting and creative ideas.

There are some rough bumps for him along the way, of course. There are also some rough bumps along the way for me as the reader, but my advice is, when you hit them, keep going. It's worth the trip. Neville learns more about himself, more about those around him, and that even a bad mistake isn't necessarily all there is to a person.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this bookk from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (meer)

This is a charming novel about an English seaside town.

There's not really a plot here; it's about the people of Cromer getting on with their lives, with all their friendships, relationships, their businesses and professions; their children and their parents.

Sharon Kipling and Andy Powell have been a couple since they were students; they're planning to get married. She's a teacher, and deputy head, at the local primary school. He's a real estate agent. They each meet many of their fellow Cromer residents through their work.

But Sharon's father, Jamie, owns the Cromer Curiosity Shop--he says antiques, but other people say junk. Jamie has never been reluctant to talk up the value of what he's selling, dishonestly or not. He's also not reluctant to talk down, dishonestly or not, the value of what he's buying. Sharon's conflicts with her father go back to Jamie's infidelity when her mother was dying. The conflict explodes when Jamie scams Andy on the value of Andy's newly deceased father's extremely valuable collection of art and artifacts from India.

Andy, hurt deeply by the sudden, tragic loss of both of his loving, devoted, parents when he was a child, is shocked that Sharon isn't just grateful to have a living parent, even a dishonest, unfaithful, unreliable one. It leads to arguments, conflict, and doubt about getting married.

Jamie, shocked at how very angry his daughter is, and her declaration that she never wants to hear from him again, is meanwhile wondering if he's made a mistake--if this is costing him what he cares about most.

Meanwhile, Rosemary and Clive, the retired couple that had befriended Andy's father, Samuel, happy to do his errands and visit with him, are in growing conflict over, of all things, diet. Rosemary is determined to get both of them on a healthy diet. With "healthy" mostly excluding meat of any kind, or sugar, or, well, a lot of things Clive enjoys. Neither one of them is really prepared to be at all flexible. After forty years of marriage, they're at loggerheads.

Clive, walking the beach regularly, and Sharon, teaching and supervising schoolchildren, become aware of a couple who seemingly have everything, and are in fact coming apart, with the strains affecting their son badly.

These and other residents of Cromer are living their ordinary lives, experiencing ordinary stresses and strains, and forming new friendships and relationships as they do. It's engrossing, warm, and satisfying.

Recommended.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher, and am reviewing it voluntarily.… (meer)