The Light of Amsterdam [Hardcover]

Another beautiful book from David Park.
Each of the three main characters in this story is heading to Amsterdam; each with different hopes, fears and expectations of what the trip will bring them. Each will be surprised.
This book is primarily about love - its mark left on every page. Marion is going with her husband and plans to provide him with what she thinks he wants and needs to bring him happiness. Divorcee Alan is unexpectedly accompanied by his troubled teenage son and is (as well as firing enthusiasm within his own life) hoping to find a connection with him which will bring them back to a time when awkwardness and lack of understanding did not stand between them; when the love he had for his son was simple and unquestionably reciprocated. Karen is travelling with her daughter on her hen party, uncomfortable and not really wanting to go, but determined to be there for her. Karen has made it her life's work to make life good for her daughter and to protect her from harm.
The events which transpire for each character during their time in Amsterdam are often, on the surface, fairly mundane. But Park bathes the characters' thoughts, desires and actions in a light of value and importance which brings to the reader a sense of viewing ordinary life through special glass which has the ability to enlighten, enrich and bring a depth of meaning to the same. Each character will be lifted from their well-trodden path in life and placed on a new one because of their time in Amsterdam.
For me, the characters' stories illustrate beautifully the fact that some situations in life, which seem to be obviously controllable, can not be controlled, manipulated or worked out - there is always an unknown quantity. The characters' attempts to solve their predicaments lead them to the realisation that the steps they have taken to carve a safe path through life do not always produce the outcome they intended or predicted. Perhaps in our blinkered attempts to 'make good' our lives or the lives of others, we sometimes miss the opportunities, pitfalls and possibilities that are staring us in the face?
Moments of clarity are often reached by the characters when they are looking at a painting or hearing music or viewing beautiful architecture. A collection of colour or sound or materials, put together by the artist in a particular pattern or order which has the inexplicable ability to engender a feeling of peace, connection or purpose.
To me, David Park is an artist - a potter at his wheel, moulding something beautiful from grey, shapeless clay; accounts of seemingly insignificant lives and events formed into an insightful, beautiful and thought-provoking book.

This beautifully written and compelling novel follows Alan, unwilling weekend guardian of his teenage monosyllabic son; Karen reluctant hen dragged to her daughter's hen night; and Marion, on a weekend break with her husband whose needs she no longer believes she can meet. Set against the background of a weekend trip to Amsterdam their stories skilfully unfurl to show that their loved ones are not completely who they imagined them to be. As two of the stories intersect you turn the page not knowing where you want the story to go or to end. David Park has been Northern Ireland's best novelist for the last twenty years and produced most of the meaningful fiction written about the troubles. In this novel, however, he has left that subject matter behind and the characters are dealing with a more universal issue - how to love someone who may not love you in return. Accessible and incredibly moving this is the best David Park yet (and that is saying something). So far, it is the novel of the year

I had never heard of this guy, I was just looking for books on Amsterdam. Most reviewers and profiles cast Park as a 'regional' novelist, maybe simply because there aren't that many world-class novelists from Northern Ireland. It's also true that he has a great talent for portraying middle-aged provincial life with empathy. But I thought this was a genuinely great book that transcends its regional setting and tells us a lot about human beings' hopes and fears and projections. It reminded me, funnily, of the great women novelists of the nineteenth century - Maria Edgeworth, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell. Someone should make a film version.