The Lido, Libby Page, Standard Deviation, Katherine Heiny, The trick to time, Kit de Waal

I haven’t written a book review for months. It’s not that I haven’t been reading, I have. The crime shelves of Ilkley library were my go-to for weeks back in the autumn as I found myself working my way through the detective novels of a previously unknown crime writer, Ellie Griffiths. I’d discovered her when plundering the shelves of my sister’s village book exchange during my September Somerset retreat. I read one while I was there and brought another back with me. Her novels, are in the same vein as Ann Cleeves or Val McDermid, featuring murders, flawed characters who infuriate you as much as your own family, and the other main character, the location.

I haven’t been to the Norfolk coast since a family summer holiday when I was about eight. I remember the farmhouse and its orchard. My incredulity as an oh-so mature eight-year-old that my six-year old cousin didn’t know who Elvis was, still less that he’d died the year before (there was an Elvis documentary on the TV, I hadn’t randomly started up a chat about Elvis), and the fact that my brother and I developed mouth ulcers because our grandparents had a never ending supply of boiled sweets they kept feeding us.**

So, if you fancy a straightforward crime novel with a coastal location, give Ellie Griffiths a go, and if you fancy visiting Shetland or Northumberland, go for Ann Cleeves, Val McDermid for Scotland. But this review isn’t about them. It’s about the novels I read once I’d had enough of the Norfolk’s fens and murder.

Because as much as I enjoy a crime page-turner, I needed waking from my reading stupor, and it happened while in Waterstones in Leeds a few Fridays ago. It was an impromptu end of the week afternoon trip into the city with a friend and we took in all the middle-aged sights, John Lewis, the Corn Exchange and Waterstones before finishing off with a bottle of rose and Spanish sharing plate at Friends of Ham. It was the perfect way to finish the day. I digress.

Standing in Waterstones we tried to remember the name of the book that had been recommended less than 24 hours earlier at a long overdue book club chat. As we were trying to remember the author’s name, ‘Was it Jane something?’ ‘No not Jane, hang on, I can remember the cover. Did someone share it on WhatsApp?’ and wandering around, I spotted The Lido by Libby Page. That wasn’t the book we were looking for, but the clear blue cover cut through my foggy head, and I picked it up, vaguely remembering having seen the title before and carried on my wander.

‘I’ve found it. It’s Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny.’ I called across the shop, holding another blue covered book aloft. But there’s only one copy. Sorry,’ (not sorry) and on my way back to my browsing friend, passed a table with a pile of Kit de Waal’s A trick to time on it. I’d been looking at the blurb on her memoir a few minutes earlier whilst trying to remember if I’d ready ‘My name is Leon’ and picked it up. It too had a blue cover.

Three books with blue covers. Coincidence. Maybe, but I do find myself reading books that look alike. Strange? Anyhoo, here’s what I thought. In short, I thoroughly enjoyed them all. Three very different books, different takes on life, different characters, but each one a worthwhile read.

The Lido, Libby Page

The Lido, Libby Page: Of the three, this was the most straightforward read. I could tell where the story was going, but that’s ok. Sometimes you don’t want to have to guess, you just want someone to guide you by the hand and show you want a gentle version of a life that feels familiar enough that it touches you, but not overly so. In a nutshell, a south London lido is threatened with closure.

Kate, a young journalist is asked to cover it for the local paper, and she meets Rosemary, an octogenarian who’s swum at the lido every day for decades and is behind the campaign to keep it open. I suspect there’s a bit of Kate in lots of us, anxious and uncertain how or where we fit into the world. And I also suspect a lot of us would like to have Rosemary’s determination and strength of character in our eighties too. The friendship between the two is rather gorgeous and shows the kind of warm, supportive community that I think we’d all like to have around us. It’s gentle, kind and sweet, but not saccharine. A lovely read.

Standard Deviation, Katherine Heiny

Standard Deviation, Katherine Heiny: I picked this up as soon as I put The Lido down. If The Lido is soft and gentle, Standard Deviation is sharp and direct and brilliant. If you love Maria Semple and Meg Rosoff who featured in The big summer read, give this a go. The story features Graham, his second wife Audra and their son Matthew who live in New York, and a revolving cast of characters who come to both visit and live with them. Audra is quirky, charming, never stops talking. She can’t help asking and sharing what some (like her husband Graham) might consider inappropriately intimate details and inviting people into their family.

Graham gives the appearance of a man who can’t quite work out how he’s ended up in this situation, living this life. Living in an apartment with Audra, a son he loves, but doesn’t quite know how to parent, and a revolving cast of characters he keeps tripping over. I absolutely loved this book. The sharp writing and observation, the clever similes and metaphors that brought the story and characters to life. I might not live in a New York apartment, but I could connect with the characters and the story. A book I nodded, smiled and laughed through.

The trick to time, Kit de Waal

The trick to time, Kit de Waal: Trigger Warning: the story involves baby loss.
The subject matter is tough, there’s no getting around it, but it isn’t a tough read because it’s written so beautifully, so tenderly and sensitively. I love Irish writers like Colm Toibin and Sebastian Barry, and I’m adding Kit de Waal to the list. I don’t know what I was expecting, even having read the reviews on the cover, but I didn’t expect to feel myself feeling like I was walking alongside Mona from the first page. I love writers who can blend gentle and piercing prose, juxtapose the cadence of the Irish accent and turn of phrase with the immense life events in the story.

There’s the contrast of the Wexford beaches from Mona’s childhood where she experienced grief and loss at such a tender age, her early adult life and love story across the Irish sea in Birmingham in the mid-1970s. How we meet her living in an unnamed English coastal town in her middle life, bereft and grief stricken. It is that beautiful thing, heart breaking yet with an undercurrent of hope and glimmers of happiness. How life can be fragile yet people so resilient.

I don’t know if there’s a word or phrase that adequately describes that feeling where you don’t want a book too finish. Where your reading pace slows and you close the book for the final time with a sigh, wishing there was another volume waiting for you. Love, love, love. My kind of read.

**When I say they kept feeding us, I mean we found their tin of boiled sweets which we helped ourselves to with regularity.