I enjoyed the structure of this book, each short chapter told by one member of the two families in the first person. So you are given the views of more than one person on each event as it happens. And we see the relationships between the Colemans and the Waterhouses. But in the first half nothing really happens. I guess it was meant to give us the personality of each of the characters. But the main event is the opening of a new library! The second half takes on a much more dramatic story. I actually raced through the last third. It was only just worth the toil of the beginning.
I don't normally read short story collections, but Jane Gardam's are exceptional. She says in the introduction that "I have always preferred writing short stories to writing novels". Ad it shows. There are 30 here from thirty years of writing. I loved the first "Hetty Sleeping" and later "The First Adam" about a man wedded to a construction project abroad.
"The Pangs of Love" I nearly skipped as it is about a mermaid, but it is very funny. She is the seventh sister or "numera septima" and many other imaginative variations. Her elder sister had died for the unrequited love of a prince who number seven tracks down. He tells her "i always adored her ........ but I didn't realise it until it was too late". Mademoiselle Sept answers "That's what they all say".
"Damage" is 34 pages of a superior disturbance. "The Dixie Girls" and "Groundlings" are quite special but both end in a death. Then at the end there are two short stories from the "Old Filth Trilogy of novels that I loved. Another Jane Gardam novel is on order.
What encouraged me to read this book was that it was set in 1967 and was about a rock band. Early on, it even had their first gig at Brighton Polytechnic. Well, I was there that year, studying for the exams of the Institute of Quantity Surveyors, a body who ceased to exist when we joined the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. However, in those days it was actually called Brighton College of Advanced Technology, it only became a Polytechnic in 1970 when it merged with the School of Art. But I had left by then after five years there.
The long thin hall described in the book I think was called the Mezzanine, and instead of the few in the audience, it was always packed no matter who was playing. So not an auspicious start for me, and it doesn't really get any better. I didn't like the mix of fact and fiction as the band meet and talk to actual stars from the past. I thought that was lazy. There is also so much superfluous stuff that I found quite boring, as if the author had to meet his normal 500 plus pages.
It's not all bad. When Elf meets up with her sister Bea, she says "Bea, tell me something. I've been to University. I've survived the music scene for three years. You're still at school. How come you know so much while I know bugger-all? How does that work?" Bea replies "Basically I don't believe in people. Basically, you do". So there is some good dialogue, the story alternates between boring and brilliant and the ending is predictably rubbish. A lot of people will love it. But not me.
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