A TOWN CALLED SOLACE by Mary Lawson, reviewed by Adèle Geras

 

"Although at first sight it’s a very simple story, its construction is enormously intricate and the words are put together with such finesse that you don’t realise what skill has gone into the plotting and how brilliantly each revelation is brought to your attention."

Adèle Geras has written many books for children and young adults and six novels for adults, the latest of which (under the pseudonym Hope Adams) is Dangerous Women, published by Michael Joseph. She lives in Cambridge. 

Every year when the Booker Prize shortlist is announced, I brace myself for a disappointment. Invariably, a novel I’ve loved is left out and I’m briefly annoyed with the judges. This year, I had a double disappointment. Kazuo Ishiguro’s radiant novel, Klara and the Sun wasn’t shortlisted. I reviewed it on this blog some months ago. The second disappointment was the omission of one of the best books I’ve read this year: A Town called Solace by the Canadian writer, Mary Lawson.

My theory about this omission is: Solace (for short) is a quiet book, about ordinary people in a distant place with very few whistles and bangs and bells about it. It’s a domestic novel about a few families in small town in Ontario. The fact that it’s as full of drama and tragedy and interest as the noisiest, most hyped book you can think of is something that I certainly didn’t hear from the media. I ought to add that the cover doesn’t do the novel any favours. I’m very fond of pictures of house or parts of houses on covers, but the subdued slice of grey here does the story a disservice. I have read Crow Lake, and counted myself a Lawson fan, but still, the first time I came across this novel was from my younger daughter, who loved it and said so on Twitter. I downloaded it at once.

Although at first sight it’s a very simple story, its construction is enormously intricate and the words are put together with such finesse that you don’t realise what skill has gone into the plotting and how brilliantly each revelation (and there are many) is brought to your attention. Secrets, conversations, arguments, relationships thread their way through the narrative going back and forth in time, and set off small explosions along the way.

I try very hard to say almost nothing about the plot of any book I review, but the action takes place in Solace in 1972. The story unfolds from the point of view of three narrators: Clara, (an eight year old girl who is bereft at the loss of her elder sister, who has run away from home), Liam (who has returned to Solace after his divorce), and Elizabeth Orchard, who owns the house next door to Clara and her family but who is now in hospital).

Around these three people, others move as well. We meet some of the people of the town, who are all important in the action. We meet Moses the cat, who belongs to Elizabeth but who is now being carefully tended by Clara while his owner is away. He’s a magnificent creation and to a great extent it’s he who binds the three strands of the story together.

Mary Lawson has been compared to Anne Tyler and Tyler has given a very warm endorsement to this novel. What is true about both writers is their attention to the generally overlooked details of people’s lives. They don’t ignore the grand themes, the real stuff of tragedy and drama, but they are aware of small details of every life: the houses people live in, the importance to them of place, and especially nature, and above all, the significance of the past and of memory in everyone’s existence.

I do urge you to read this book. It’s one that will stay with you and to which you will return. I am about to read another Lawson novel, which is called Road Ends. I’m looking forward to it enormously.


A Town Called Solace is published by Chatto and Windus.

Dangerous Women by Hope Adams (Adèle Geras)