Tomorrow, When God Was a Rabbit and Faith Fox

 

An interesting concept, Paula is awake in the early hours contemplating what she and her husband will tell their sixteen year old twins in the morning. So that is it. It's as if Paula is already talking to her children in her head. About their history and all they need to know. Obviously something big and dramatic, especially for her husband Mike: "He'll need all he can muster tomorrow".

What is also interesting for me was that Mike was born a month after me, his dad (like mine) was away in the war in 1945. Mike and Paula met at Sussex University at the time I was at Brighton College of Advanced Technology (now Brighton University). We might have brushed past each other at a Saturday night gig, maybe that appearance of Dave Bowie and The Buzz. Mike and Paula "shared rented basement in Earls Court". Mine was a top floor attic in Chiswick.

I actually enjoyed how we were kept in the dark about the big secret, the prose is as brilliant as ever and the monologue format worked really well. However, I felt the story ran out of steam towards the end when a contrived memory of near disaster seemed out of context. So it actually outstayed it's welcome, unlike the perfection of "Mothering Sunday".

Despite my love for Sarah Winman novels, I was going to give this book a miss as I thought it was about a six-year-old girl. However, I actually preferred that first part of the book to the older Ellie. Our narrator is an even older Eleanor Maud, looking back on the events of her life. She was born in 1968 and the first part takes place around 1975 and the second twenty years later. It is the family that is of most interest. Nancy is Ellie's father's younger sister and a minor film star. Her story is wonderful.

There is a lot of humour in the story. In particular, a few pages about a nativity play (that I nearly skipped), reading it late one night I had to stifle my laughter on a number of occasions. Ellie has a best friend, the erratic Jenny Penny who one day cuts off all communication. Only to re-appear, but not in person, when Ellie is an adult. Lost then found. For a first novel this is quite outstanding. Full of rich and witty prose.

 I really wished I had kept a note of all the characters as they appear in this book. I remembered most, but lost track of Madeliene and Puffy, Pammie and Giles. At times, the alternating stories of the multiple characters and places left me dizzy. The book could also have done with being a third shorter than it's tightly packed four hundred pages.

But then Jane Gardam's writing is always first class. Chapter 21 begins: "Suppose yourself a gargoyle or perhaps a bird, or a very small photographer hanging in the basket of a very small balloon up in the vaulted shadows of the roof of the great hall of Farnham Castle on the occasion of the reception of for the Seton-Fairly wedding." Lots more, then "Stay up there in the rafters for comfort ...... or if you must swoop down" and so on. Seven hundred guests but no food?

Some of the dialogue is outstanding. Thomasina and Madeliene in a cafe escaping the wedding and getting something to eat. Thomasina loves her garden, "in dungarees, then tight pants, then jeans, then floppy trousers as the years rolled by". She opens them twice a year for National Gardens. I loved some of the other characters, eleven-year-old Philip brings some light relief, as do Faith's grandparents Toots and Dolly. On their own, they would have made for a better book. More important characters less so.