Lead Review

• Book: If Only I Could Tell You
• Location: London
• Author: Hannah Beckerman

Review Author: tripfiction

#IfOnly

“Forgiveness is a decision…” Grandmother Audrey is in the later stages of cancer, but although her daughters Jess and Lily know about her disease, they are unaware of the full picture and the short amount of time that she actually has before her. She has kept the recent and very worrying results to herself.

Way back, when the daughters were 10 and 15 respectively. an incident occurred in their lives that set Jess on the path of hate towards her older sister; she witnessed something that disturbed her to the core.

Now, as life is ebbing away, Audrey is determined to take part in an amateur concert at The Albert Hall and flex her vocal chords. Things might have been so different for her if she had not ‘had’ to get married. She also wants to see an end to the festering silence that has reigned between the two sisters, Jess simply unable and unwilling to drop her grudge which now affects three generations of women, right down to the granddaughters Mia and Phoebe. Audrey sets about bringing the factions together in the only way she knows.

This is a family riven by trauma. There has been huge loss that still ripples into everyday life, and the loss of the sisterly relationship that could have been so different.

The author explores family strife and regret and looks at the nature of inclusion and exclusion. Three generations of women have indeed been struggling….

The narrative starkly demonstrates how secrets in the family are terribly divisive and alienating, even when things are hidden with the best of intentions; each woman responds to the family rift in different, often unconscious ways. They are clearly an unhappy bunch and the author does a sound job of putting dysfunctional dynamics on the page. There are times when the narrative is quite moving and well crafted and the author certainly tackles some emotive themes. In fact, there are quite a few life changing events and revelations (perhaps a shade too many) included in the narrative.

Ultimately I wanted to bang the characters’ heads together and send the three older women off for therapy. That is not a bad thing, it demonstrates how keenly the author can put foibles and misguided and entrenched behaviour on the page. The granddaughters, however, seemed more savvy when it came to right relating. I wasn’t overly keen on the varying timelines (sometimes not altogether clear) but they were important to offer insights into the backstory. This will undoubtedly be a popular read in 2019.

In TripFiction terms London makes a good backdrop.

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