The Book: Tina Hopgood is a woman of a certain age whose children are now grown, although still living nearby. She has recently lost one of her best friends and feels bereft. She also feels trapped in the life that she chose for herself when she found herself pregnant as a young woman and married the father of her child, a farmer in the south of England. For various reasons Tina has always had an interest in Tollund Man, a man preserved in peat centuries ago. She and her friend had always intended to travel to Denmark to see Tollund Man and now that her friend is gone she writes for information to the museum where Tollund Man is kept. One of the curators, Anders Larsen, responds to her and thus begins a relationship by letter. Larsen has recently lost his wife so they are brought together by grief and frustration over the circumstances of their lives. This is an epistolary novel, the story told only through the letters written by Tina and Anders.
The Author: Anne Youngson
Genre: Literary Fiction
Length: 389 pp (ebook ipad mini)
One good thing: Although the letters are only between Tina and Anders, each describes their family members and their relationships with each of them in great detail over the course of the novel and the family members end up being fully formed characters even though only seen through the viewpoint of one person.
One not-so-great thing: This is an epistolary novel written in the style of letters that people wish they could write but that very few people actually can write (or if they can, it is unlikely that the other party would choose to respond with letters like this). They are long, full of narrative information and highly literate (despite Tina claiming that she just jots things down as she thinks them and despite Anders claiming that he doesn't speak English perfectly). This probably isn't a problem for most people but I did find it distracting. I admit this is probably because I read The Correspondent a few weeks ago and that is a gem of an epistolary novel. So I don't recommend that you read this shortly after you read The Correspondent.
Four Doorways*: Story; Characters; Setting; Language.
The people who would most enjoy this novel are probably people who want well developed characters trying to break out of the ruts of their lives and perhaps people who are interested in esoteric information about pre-historic man. There isn't really a well developed sense of place either in England or Denmark, but there is so much information about pre-history near the beginning of the novel that a reader may end up feeling a need to go see the places described. The writing is done well but see my note above under "One not-so-great thing". There is a plot but this is not a page turner.
"It seems to me that all works of fiction and narrative nonfiction are broadly made up of four experiential elements: story, character, setting, and language. I call these “doorways,” because when we open a book, read the first few pages, and choose to go on, we enter the world of that book. And I’ve come to believe we can help readers better choose their next book by looking at the proportion of these four elements." Nancy Pearl on the Four Doorways.
