Just Finished Reading: If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor (FP: 2002)

In an ordinary street, in an ordinary town in the North of England ordinary things are happening. Children play their games in groups and alone, students have a last BBQ before they go their separate ways, an old couple still very much in love get dressed in their finest for a day out together, couples fight and make love, or fight then make love, others watch the world go by in all its mundane ordinary way. One student packs up his dissertation topic still obsessed with his thesis whilst at the same time obsessing about the girl across the street who kissed him drunkenly at a party and then appeared to forget about him. One man thinks about his badly burnt hands and the accident that left him crippled and his children without a mother to bring them up. But something is about to happen that will define that day, that summer, that street. Something horrible, something tragic and something one girl in particular cannot let go of.

Years later, when memory should have faded, she still thinks about that afternoon. About why it happened, why no one stopped it and what it all means. At a loss to explain her feelings even to herself she can do little more than get on with her life – except that is for two complications. Firstly she has just confirmed that she’s pregnant and wonders what to tell her Mother who won’t understand how it could happen to such a careful and dutiful daughter. Then there’s Michael, the twin brother of the boy who obsessed about her years ago. Michael who she finds she can talk to about her impending motherhood and her feelings about that day when everything stopped for a moment. Michael who looks like a boy she can barely remember who told his twin that he had fallen in love.

Lately I’ve been thinking of reading more mainstream books – basically things that don’t easily fit into any of categories over on the right. So not SF, or Crime of Historical. Something like this one. I’d heard of it before and picked up a cheap copy to try it out. After reading it I can see what it won awards. Despite the fact that very little actually happens on the day in question (apart from the ‘incident’ that I’m avoiding being specific about) the book has a haunting quality that’s really rather special. The glimpses into people’s lives – not too dissimilar from what is exactly going on around you – and me – right now is fascinating. I could relate to so much that I’d seen, experienced or heard about that it seemed real. The use of multiple simultaneous viewpoints took a little getting used to (as did the lack of names until the second part of the book) but it really worked and gave the whole thing a weird surreal yet real feeling to things – it’s hard to explain in words to be honest. This was a very different kind of book than I’m used to reading and I found it hard to put down. Strangely gripping this was a rich, multi-layered evocative book that will hang around in your head long after you turn the last page. Highly recommended.