The Reading Group Reads...
AFTER YOU'D GONE By Maggie O'Farrell
Maggie O'Farrell has a quote by Picasso beside her desk: 'If you know
exactly what you are going to do, what is the point of doing it?'This is a
sentiment Maggie very much agrees with, because she likes the way her ideas
mutate as they go along.
Her debut novel, After You'd Gone, was published to international acclaim, but more importantly than that, got the thumbs up from Swaffham Prior's reading group.
"Well, I had to read it again to find out what happened first time"was one comment, and "thinking man's Mills & Boon"another. The thing is, this was a very clever book indeed, half love-story and half mystery, but written in a seemingly completely random order, with bits from the future and bits from the past, often described by different narrators, juxtaposing one another throughout.
But even though, consequently, you have to read half the book before you have the faintest clue what was/will be going on, this didn't seem to matter: it was so well-written. And then when you do start to fathom things out, it becomes a "can't put down", a bit like doing a jig-saw puzzle (without the box cover!) . But not until the very end is all revealed (ish!), even, as someone very cleverly pointed out, just WHY the book was written as it was.
Next month's book is Ian Bank's The Business, 8pm, Kent House, and December's is Sarah Durant's The Other Side of You, when we'll also have our Christmas party. If you've not come before, give it a go!