Fiona Palmer is delighted when she bumps into her former English teacher, Henry Morgan, in the supermarket. Although she’s been happily married to Dave for the last two years, she readily embarks on an affair. This is her opportunity, she thinks, to cement the bond they’d developed when she was a precocious fifteen-year-old, to bring that special relationship onto an adult level. But can an out-of-school friendship between pupil and teacher ever be innocent? What’s wrong with Fiona that she’s ready to give up on her marriage so soon? And what has become of her teenage promise as a talented writer? Why, if she was supposedly so intelligent, has she settled for a humdrum job in telesales?
It took me some time to be interested in Fiona Palmer. It wasn’t until about halfway through that I had any sense that my questions were going to be addressed. But when her friends refused to condone her behaviour, the tension was cranked up. Not quite thirty, Fiona seems to have settled down prematurely, and wants to revive her wild side by discarding Dave. With benignly neglectful parents, Mr Morgan made her feel special, like the twelve-year-olds in Pretty Is, and somehow she can’t let that go. Yet Henry is determined to keep her focus on the here-and-now of their adult relationship, disclosing very little about himself (p173):
‘The past, the past,’ you say irritably, putting down your wine glass. ‘All past. What’s the point?’
‘But the past is what makes us. It’s why we’re here.’
‘The past is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Made-up memories and unreliable stories. You said it yourself. Shadows. The only thing that’s real is right now.’
Precocious reminded me of a couple of my short stories: Kinky Norm about an English teacher’s dysfunctional relationship with adolescent girls, and In Search of Mr Right (unfortunately I don’t have a functioning link to this) about what happens when a middle-aged marriage goes stale. Maybe I’m reading everything through the prism of my own forthcoming novel at the moment, or perhaps it’s a happy coincidence of novels being published this month, but I also found a strong connection with Sugar and Snails. Like Fiona, my character, Diana, is stuck in adolescence, never having fully processed what happened to her at fifteen. Both women have tried to put it behind them; both, as teenagers, thought they were in control. Fiona avoids acknowledging that she was a victim; Diana doesn’t realise that she was a child, too young to choose.
In 2014, Joanna Barnard’s novel won the Bath Novel Award. It’s published this week by Ebury Press to whom thanks for my review copy.
‘The past, the past,’ you say irritably, putting down your wine glass. ‘All past. What’s the point?’
‘But the past is what makes us. It’s why we’re here.’
‘The past is nothing but smoke and mirrors. Made-up memories and unreliable stories. You said it yourself. Shadows. The only thing that’s real is right now.’
Precocious reminded me of a couple of my short stories: Kinky Norm about an English teacher’s dysfunctional relationship with adolescent girls, and In Search of Mr Right (unfortunately I don’t have a functioning link to this) about what happens when a middle-aged marriage goes stale. Maybe I’m reading everything through the prism of my own forthcoming novel at the moment, or perhaps it’s a happy coincidence of novels being published this month, but I also found a strong connection with Sugar and Snails. Like Fiona, my character, Diana, is stuck in adolescence, never having fully processed what happened to her at fifteen. Both women have tried to put it behind them; both, as teenagers, thought they were in control. Fiona avoids acknowledging that she was a victim; Diana doesn’t realise that she was a child, too young to choose.
In 2014, Joanna Barnard’s novel won the Bath Novel Award. It’s published this week by Ebury Press to whom thanks for my review copy.
RSS Feed
