Publishers Weekly
Anna, a graphic designer, may have a streak of gray in her hair, but she's still young and inchoate. Lewis, a dodgy loner, is on a late, misguided, oedipally fueled quest to avenge his twin brother's death following a car accident 20 years earlier. In alternating scenes-sometimes whole chapters, sometimes just a few paragraphs-Anna and Lewis meet, and, uneasily, inflame each other at a British seaside B&B. The place is owned by Anna's mother, Rita, who at 76 is vivacious but in shaky health; Anna has been summoned there by Rita's quasi- companion, retired actor Vernon Savoy, to look in on her. Anna, partially deaf (perhaps psychologically) since childhood, seems so vulnerable, and Lewis (who is tracking down the death car's driver), so blankly menacing, that as they come together murder seems as likely as romance. Vernon, meanwhile, has little patience for Anna's ambivalence toward Rita. The Welsh-born Azzopardi, whose Hiding Place was a Man Booker finalist, does certain kinds of interiority exquisitely, as when writing about Anna's obsession with Rita's tourmaline ring. But her extreme stream-of-consciousness style forces readers to fill in narrative gaps, offers few clues to Anna's feeling for Lewis and makes secondary characters (Anna's charming maybe-suitor Brendan; Lewis's thuggish-yet-sweet sometime-stepfather Manny) confuse more than thicken the plot. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
Two kindred spirits, each on a lonely and difficult journey to come to terms with a haunting past, find each other along the misty coast of Norfolk, England. The tortured and antisocial Lewis has been plagued by the death of his epileptic twin brother, Wayne, for 20 years. Driven by his need to avenge Wayne's death, he searches for Carl, the childhood acquaintance and hooligan-in-training who led Lewis and Wayne on a joyride that ended in the watery crash that took Wayne's life. Lewis's search leads him to the coast, where he meets Anna, a woman weary from failed relationships, secret fears, and her well-meaning but overbearing mother. With Lewis and Anna, there is instant intimacy, an unaccountable knowing that they are meant to be. But not yet, because Lewis has a mission he must complete. With her latest, the award-winning author of The Hiding Placehas given us a fine novel that is honest, charmingly written, and redemptive. Recommended for larger public libraries.
—Kevin Greczek
Kirkus Reviews
After two starkly different novels (The Hiding Place, 2001 and Remember Me, 2004), Azzopardi moves in yet a third direction: a romance, springing to life on the English coast, between two damaged souls struggling to get beyond tragic losses suffered in their childhoods. For years, Lewis, now in his mid-30s, has been driving himself mad with survivor's guilt over the death of his twin brother, Wayne, in a car accident when they were 15. He comes to the Norfolk coast looking for Carl, Wayne's friend, who was driving the car but has never shown remorse. Lewis rents a room from Rita, a lively septuagenarian whose daughter Anna happens to be visiting to help Rita after a fall. Anna and Lewis immediately recognize and are drawn to each other's despair, although their anguish differs in degree. Anna, lonely and neurotically withdrawn, suffering from partial hearing loss that dates back to her father's death when she was seven, disapproves of Rita's boisterous lifestyle and boyfriend, a retired actor/ventriloquist nicknamed Cabbage, but her scenes with her mother can be touchingly funny. Lewis has drawn closer to real insanity, with a scary tendency to black out and break things. Through coincidences that feel a bit too carefully staged, Lewis learns that Carl might be in nearby Winterton and takes off. Just as Lewis is dragging Carl into the ocean, possibly to drown him, Anna shows up. No one is hurt, but Rita tells Lewis he must go away until he gets his life on track. Meanwhile, Rita and Cabbage marry, much to the dismay of Anna. With help from Carl's father, Lewis finally accepts the reality of his past and is ready to build a life with Anna, who has been facing down her own fears. Azzopardikeeps the lovers apart for too much of the novel. Their memories and even their interactions tend to be elliptical, but the novel's odd logic nevertheless draws the reader in. Darkly charming. Agent: Derek Johns/AP Watt
AUG/SEP 07 - AudioFile
From vivacity to dourness, the tone of Michael Page's presentation must change within individual paragraphs as he narrates this story of entangled families and unlikely romance. When Lewis happens upon an English bed-and-breakfast run by the exuberant Rita, he meets her visiting daughter, Anna—whose soul is just as tangled as his. He is trying to come to terms with the death of his twin brother years before in a car accident caused by a local punk. Page moves deftly from Rita's bombastic beau, a former vaudevillian, to gruff Manny, a supportive figure in Lewis's life. Azzopardi's surreal story travels through time, and Page's telling makes the transitions clear. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
