Canvey Island
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
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'Runcie has captured the truth about love ... he is the simple chronicler of English post-war life, using irony and understatement to lay bare the pathos of ordinary lives ... Beautifully done' - Sunday Telegraph
'A tender, intimate account of post-war England which left me both wistful and elated ... So engaging, so well-shaped and so unsparingly, generously truthful' - Jim Crace
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A moving family saga and wonderfully rich portrait of post-war Britain
It is 1953 in Canvey Island. Len and Violet are at a dance. Violet's husband George sits and watches them sway and glide across the dance floor, his mind far away, trapped by a war that ended nearly ten years ago. Meanwhile, at home, a storm rages and Len's wife Lily and his young son Martin fight for their lives in the raging black torrent. The night ends in a tragedy that will reverberate through their lives.
This poignant novel follows the family's fortunes from the austerity of the post-war years to Churchill's funeral, from Greenham Common to the onset of Thatcherism and beyond, eloquently capturing the very essence of a transforming England in the decades after the war. It is a triumph of understated emotion, a novel about growing up and growing old, about love, hope and reconciliation.
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'Runcie's third novel is a funny, epic, moving story of Thameside folk ... a beautifully observed, tragi-comic work' - What's On
'Runcie writes with an excellent feeling for time and place, and, above all, the intensity of ordinary lives' - Choice
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1953, a major flood devastated Britain's Canvey Island, killing dozens of residents. Runcie (The Discovery of Chocolate) uses this disaster as the starting point for his beautifully crafted novel, which examines the effects of guilt, love, lust and betrayal in the wake of tragedy. On the night of the flood, Lily skips the big dance on the mainland to stay home with her young son, Martin, telling her husband, Len, to go with her sister, Violet, and her husband. When the flood waters rise, Lily and Martin try to escape but Lily gets stuck, sends Martin for help yet drowns before rescuers arrive. Though Martin leaves the island to attend Cambridge, he cannot shake his guilt over his mother's death and resents his father and aunt, who take up together soon after the flood. Years later, when he's a parent himself, Martin returns to Canvey Island and is forced to confront everything he thought he had left behind. Told through multiple perspectives, Runcie's story eloquently weaves together a national tragedy and the fate of a single family with powerful results.
