All Desires Known

All Desires Known by Tanya van Hasselt. Published by Matador Posted on March 28, 2014 by cayocosta72

Nell’s life is torn to shred when she discovers her husband has been having an affair with her best friend and that her daughter suffers from anorexia. She turns to friend and the subject of the painting she is working on, Martin, for support. Martin is struggling with problems of his own; he’s still trying to come to terms with the abuse he suffered as a child when he discovers the man who preyed upon him is back. Nell, meanwhile falls for the psychiatrist who is treating her daughter. In the midst of the chaos, Nell and Martin try to find a sense of peace as they search for answers and try to do the right thing.

A powerful novel about secrets, marriage, teen-age angst and betrayal. Compelling.

Set in and around a minor English public school, the novel centres on artist Nell and her family, and how her apparently happy life is destroyed by a betrayal which threatens not just her, but those surrounding her. With a tight-knit community as a basis, there is scope for all sorts of tensions to arise, and the author is both perceptive and observant in writing about these. There are a lot of characters in her novel, and this, perhaps, is its downfall. She tries to cover just too much material, bringing in psychiatry, religion and loss of faith, teenage angst, mental illness, abuse and accusations of paedophilia. A lot for one small school and its staff to deal with and too much for one novel. I’ve not often read about such a totally dysfunctional group of people. However, the novel is well-paced and well-crafted, and the author writes well and succinctly – although with the occasional lapse into cliché - but essentially the book cries out for a good edit. However, as a first novel, it is both readable and entertaining and even if I wasn’t overly impressed by it, I still quite enjoyed it.