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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

Watch the Wall, My Darling: The Insect Rosary by Sarah Armstrong

18/6/2015

8 Comments

 
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Nancy and Bernadette have spent every summer at the remote farm where their mother grew up. Despite the sullen nature of their uncle, Donn, and the religiosity of their aunt, Agatha, who returned from training to be a nun to keep house for him, it’s an idyllic place to a ten and twelve-year-old from London. But the bond between the sisters is weakening, as Nancy, now at the comprehensive school, wants to play at being a grown-up. And there are far darker forces at work than sibling rivalries. For in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, the English are unwelcome in certain parts and a lonely farm has every chance of being co-opted into the undercover war.

Thirty years later, having barely spoken to each other since childhood, the sisters return to the farm with their families on the pretext of seeing the place for one last time before it’s sold. It starts badly: Nancy’s American husband is both overly chatty and bored; Bernie is critical of her sister’s hypervigilance around Nancy’s fourteen-year-old son, who appears to have some kind of attention-deficit disorder (p79):

Children don’t want to get things wrong, they don’t want to antagonise people. They’d much rather get everything right, and you have to behave as if they’re trying to.

Bernie’s concern for Hurley reflects her own teenage years of being misunderstood, of being sent to therapists and labelled. And she’s returned to the farm with an even greater agenda than Nancy’s. Bernie believes that it’s Nancy’s denial of the events of that summer at the farm that made her ill. Nancy just thinks she’s mad.

Yet her nostalgic desire to recover the bond she felt with her sister in childhood, drives Nancy to explore both the ramshackle farm buildings and the landscape of the past (p136):

She wanted to see things from a new perspective. The people from a new perspective. She couldn’t distinguish what was real and what was imagined any more.

Memories emerge of her uncle’s friend, Tommy, “dangerous in a Byronic way” (p138), who nevertheless made her feel like the grown-up she longed to be, even if (p176):

being an adult means knowing when to ask questions when to let things be.

My title for this piece is taken from Kipling’s smuggler’s poem about turning a blind eye, which I recall from my own childhood. The Insect Rosary is a brave debut about sisterhood and the damage done to fragile minds when their truth is blatantly denied, within the context of a period of recent history which is still painfully contested. For the author’s take on the themes and structure of the novel, see my Q&A with Sarah Armstrong. Thanks to Sandstone Press for my review copy.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Charli Mills
19/6/2015 02:21:20 pm

Enjoyed your review of a book I now have on my TBR list. Turning a blind eye seems to be more prevalent than facing the truth, yet it can set us free to acknowledge the harm of circumstances. An interesting theme for a debut novel. The author gave good insights into the publishing industry right now in your Q&A, too. I can relate to what she says about NaNoWriMo as a draft process.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/6/2015 06:25:27 am

Glad you liked the sound of this one, Charli. I think it's sad, but true, what Sarah says in her Q&A about the publishing industry – while some edgy novels definitely do get through, big publishers seem to want the tried and tested formulae. But without their backing, it can be a real challenge getting these kind of books to the readers' attention. Quite annoying for those of us trying to do something a bit different.

Reply
geoff link
19/6/2015 02:56:40 pm

Ah yes, Watch the wall, my darlings while the gentlemen ride by. My dad would recite this alongside Smuggler Bill (Thomas Ingoldsby I think without checking) when we ventured to Romney marshes in the summer holidays. Happy memories. I like the idea of this book; I don't think I've read much centred around the Troubles which has to be a ripe area to explore. Is it me or did I gain the slight impression that you weren't entirely convinced by some of the characterisations?

Reply
Annecdotist
22/6/2015 06:28:32 am

Glad you connected with the title, Geoff. I'm not sure, whether when my mother read it to me, it was an instruction – not that there were smugglers passing through our house but certainly things that couldn't be said!
Interesting question, I wouldn't say I was unconvinced by the characters but perhaps I didn't have so many of those "oh yes, that's what people are like" moments as I might sometimes. And I suppose it was marginally more plot driven than character driven, but I did feel it worked.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
20/6/2015 12:56:10 am

As usual, your reviews make for interesting reads. I find this one particularly attractive as my husband comes from Northern Ireland (Belfast) and left there in 1973 at the height of the troubles. His upbringing was "orange" and mine "green" so there were mixed responses when we connected. I had already read "Trinity" by Leon Uris at that time so I had some idea of the history of the troubles, from that point of view anyway, which was not always the same as the one that was being shared with me at the time.
I enjoyed reading Kipling's poem and the interview with Sarah. Silencing children is something we have discussed before I think. I don't like this "watch the wall" and pretend nothing is going on. Too many bad things can go by that way.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/6/2015 06:33:17 am

I grew up with The Troubles regularly on the news, but can't say I've ever really understood it. This novel brought home to me much more than any of the news reports I've heard or read about the terrible impact on children. And we see this in other kinds of warfare: how do we keep children quiet and stop them exploring for their own safety? I think sometimes the adults don't see the damage they are doing in trying to protect. And of course "watch the wall" isn't only used in order to protect children.
Interesting to think of the green and orange coming together in your family – maybe it has to be at the other side of the globe for it to work!

Reply
Paula link
20/6/2015 11:38:22 am

Yes, I could definitely get into trouble reading all of your book reviews, Anne. Although I do have this superstition that as long as I have a TBR list online at my local library, my brain will feel obligated to stick around.

Reply
Annecdotist
22/6/2015 06:34:37 am

LOL, Paula, but what a good idea to have your TBR list at the library – and yes to keep looking for it for the good of your brain. Proof if ever we needed it that healthy can be fun.

Reply



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