There was much praise and hype about this book in the past few years, and after my enjoyment of Any Human Heart, and a few of Boyd’s other novels read as audiobooks (Solo, Love is Blind, Sweet Caress, Restless), I bought this one last year and got around to it now.
Briefly, the story follows a trio of people connected to the production of a film in and round Brighton. Talbot (the film’s producer), Anny (the film’s American star), and Elfrida (novelist and wife of the film’s director) are impacted by and influence the work of the film in direct and tangential ways. Each has a troubling secret that they work to hide or manage throughout the story, and two come away largely successful; the third, not so much. Much was made in the reviews of the novel’s accurate period detail, which perhaps escaped me – while nothing seemed anachronistic, the period of the novel wasn’t its strength. That comes from the crisp and clever writing, the unexpected events, and the empathetic, if not always likeable, characters. These are really Boyd’s strengths.
I enjoyed this book but didn’t love it – several of his others are better. The setting, within the film set and in South England, was enjoyable, and the novel felt light because of it’s almost make-believe setting. There were a few characters I would have liked to know the end of, but otherwise the story felt sufficiently deep and complete.
Fate: little book library.
20 – one word title
32 – a book about art (kind of)
rclr 