Acclaimed short story writer Patrick Ryan’s debut novel follows two families, linked by a devastating secret, over forty decades beginning in the 1940s.
Cal was born with a disability that makes him ineligible to serve in the war, enduring the usual cruelties dished out by schoolchildren. Becky had also been the subject of derision thanks to her claims to hear the dead. No earth-shattering bolt of lightning makes these two fall for each other but their friendship leads to marriage, and eventually a son. On VE day, a beautiful redhead walks into the family hardware store asking Cal for a radio. They listen to the news together, Margaret so delighted that she kisses him. It’s some time before she has news of her husband, presumed missing, who returns carrying a grief he can’t talk about. When Margaret tells him she’s pregnant, Felix has the hope of the family life he’s buried so much to attain.
The story of these two families plays out against the background of great social change, exploring themes of family, sexuality, infidelity, love and forgiveness with a perceptive compassion and a touch of gentle humour. War is an underlying background hum – the ruinous effects on those left behind, on those who go to war and the ones that come home unable or unwilling to talk about it. Often doorstoppers make me feel desperate to cut swathes from them but Ryan’s impressive powerful novel kept me engrossed throughout.