Given that this was my recommendation for my book club, I was quite disappointed. I had been really impressed by Linda Grant's latest two novels "The Clothes On Their Backs" and "We Had It So Good" but this earlier book was not nearly so well written, even though it won the Orange Prize. It didn't help that our narrator, the 20 year old Evelyn Sert, is so bogged down with an identity crisis about her Jewish background, having been brought up in London, that there is a complete lack of humour and wit. The mood of her experiences in the Palestine of 1946 is sombre and lacking in emotion. It doesn't help that it is hard to feel any sympathy for Evelyn. She is naïve, attractive, totally self centred and thinks like a racist (being anti Christian with what she calls "their second rate God").
But I guess this is all meant to describe the complexities of the characters involved with the emerging new state of Israel. A lot of the people Evelyn comes into contact with are actually quite nice compared to her. Except (and crucially) for Johnny. The author has certainly done her research and I was very interested in her descriptions of these dangerous times. There are a lot of philosophical questions raised about national identity and I guess that we who are so lucky to have one find it hard to understand those who have not. Not an easy read, but one that is worthy and necessary.
P.S. I think everyone else at Book Club enjoyed it more than me, which was a relief. There was a lot of discussion about Jewishness and the formation of Israel. So I guess that is what Book Club should be.
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