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Review
Elizabeth Buchan, Daily Mail, 24th August 2002
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We are shown a single street in a northern town. The narrative records the actions of the people, almost of of them unnamed, and is like a documentary camera - observing but not judging, letting actions and words be their own story.
"In his kitchen, the old man measures out the tea-leaves, drops then into the pot, fills it with boiling water. He sets out a tray, two cups, two saucers, a small jug of milk, a small pot of sugar, two teaspoons. He breathes heavily as his hands struggle up to the high cupboards, fluttering like the wings of a caged bird"
The roving camera sees the same events from different angles - the boys playing with water pistols seen from their angle, that of their victim and that of a neighbour at a window. This binds the characters together - a common thread shared by overlapping lives. Imperfect lives - there is pain here; broken hearts, broken bodies, loss and dispair. The imperfect lives of ordinary people on a single ordinary day.
Alternating with this we have a first person narrative. A girl in her early twenties, who we come to discover was a resident of the street, facing her own personal crisis. And suddenly the reader's perspective shifts - the street becomes the past, becomes a story.
The threads are similar in their melancholic narrative. McGregor has a lightness of touch which conveys great emotional. He exposes souls with his words.
As the two threads develop, the overlap becomes greater, the story more compelling, the outcome more emotional, and the reader becomes a helpless observer in a stunning denouement
To say more would be to spoil a extraordinary book.
5 stars.
The punctuation style was occasionally annoying, having to re-read speech to check exactly who said what. But overall the style worked, adding to the dreamlike quality. It reminded me a little of Ian McEwan's 'The Cement Garden' - that hot, late summer feeling, with tragedy like a thunderstorm building in the distance.
I enjoyed the anonymity of the characters - no one from the past had a name, until Shahid is named at the moment of crisis, and the man with the damaged hands calls and calls his name, trying to use its power to heal, or at least make the world notice. I wonder what the narrator (anonymous, like the 2nd Mrs de Winter) will call her twins?
Of course the novel has its flaws, but I found it unputdownable, much easier to read than reviews had led me to expect, and I think its little details will stay with me for a long while.
For me the positives far outweighed these negatives. McGregor provides us with incredibly vivid snapshots of what happens on this street on this particular day. Rarely have I come across a writer who can describe a scene in such detail without being tedious. These snapshots are enhanced by the fact that many of them are presented from different angles within minutes of each other. You are filled with the sense of being in the street, BUT only as an observer, which at times is fascinating.
Although, characterisation is not central to the book, there are some extremely moving pieces of characterisation which ARE developed; in particular the relationship between the elderly couple and the relationship between the father and the young girl.
Not everyone will have the patience to read this novel and not everyone will enjoy it. But in my opinion, it's well worth the risk. I'm looking forward to his next one.
McGregor's writing style is poetic; beautifully and meticulously structured. The story of a single day slowly unfolds through a series of little vignettes that... Read more
The 'day in the life' of a street made me feel like a nosey neighbour, peeping through curtains of so many houses and lives. Read more
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