Louise Tondeur

I found this book great company: the unusually named Rice loses her mother at the age of 13 and has to go and live with one of her mother's old friends in a hotel she runs in Bournemouth. This had a certain nostalgic appeal for me - I arrived in Bournemouth in 1987 as a student; in the days before the university had its own halls of residence we were all billeted in local hotels and guesthouses. I ended up just a few streets away from the fictional "Waters Edge", according to the hand-drawn map the author had added at the front of my copy. I was constantly reminded of those days as the novel plotted its gentle course through the 1980s and 1990s and the cast visited places I recognised, and it was quietly instructive as to the ins and outs of running a hotel where everyone has to muck in.

The local appeal was enough for me to pick the book up in the first place, but the reason to read on was the consistently excellent standard of the writing. The portrayal of Rice in the early stages of the story where she is understandably disorientated and wanders around in a cloud of pyjama-clad truculence/apathy is really well done. And at all points there is just enough mystery to keep the reader wanting to know more.

There is a surreal element woven into the story which sees a character from Greek mythology popping up from the underworld every year and knocking around in the hotel under an assumed identity. It's an odd and somewhat brave inclusion by the author and quite a contrast with the realism of the rest of the novel. It certainly makes a change from the bog standard omniscient narrator when it comes to delving into the characters' pasts. At one point we are presented with the vision of Poseidon driving a stolen car to Bournemouth and arriving "at Bournemouth Beach, near to the gateway to hell". Not something I'm expecting to see on any leaflets in the Tourist Info centre any time soon.

Oddly enough - because a hint of magical realism in a book usually has me running for the hills - I thought the Persephone sections contained some of the best writing - there was a fluidity and a poetry to it that really elevated it and took the text to a new level. All in all a really good, pleasantly quirky read.… (meer)