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| Buried River Press 2015 |
When the renowned author, Frank
Carson, is found dead in a Californian swimming pool, in February 1950, it is
left to Quentin Castle, a junior partner in his father’s literary agency, to
break the news to Carson’s wife. Sympathetic to the plight of Carson’s now
impoverished widow, and enraptured by the effect Claire Carson has on him,
Quentin volunteers to bring Carson’s body back to England. However, once in
Hollywood, Quentin is faced with a world very different from the post war
austerity of 1950s Britain, and he is faced with series of choices which will
affect his life forever.
Initially, the book gets off to a
slow start. There is much to take in, both in terms of where the story is
leading and of the characters who flit into and out of the story. I found that
I had to concentrate on what was happening, and when, and why and to whom.
Having said that, the story does start to make sense and about two thirds of
the way into the story I became more involved with Quentin’s character and felt
more at ease in his company.
The story spans several years and
describes time and place accurately, I got a real sense of post war Britain and
of the literary world of which Quentin
is so much a part of and which the author describes well.
So overall, it’s a slow burner of a book and something
rather different for me. I’m glad I had the chance to give it a try.
Laura Kalpakian is the author of eleven novels and three
prize-winning collections of original short fiction. Her work has appeared
extensively in the UK and the USA. She has been awarded a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellowship, a residency at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, and her
2006 novel, American Cookery was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin
Literary Award. A native Californian, Laura was educated on both the east and
west coasts of the USA, and lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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