Short stories with cats set in mainly in TOKYO
Novel set in the LAKE DISTRICT
3rd October 2023
All The Little Bird-hearts by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow, novel set in the Lake District.
Long listed for the Booker Prize 2023 (not, sadly, short listed).
This novel is set in the Lake District, but with a Sicilian – or South Italian – slant. Sunny is the character at the heart, living with her 16 year old daughter Dolly, and Vita and her husband Rols move into the adjoining property and soon a connection between the two households is formed.
Sunny’s story is told through a lens of neurodivergence, a very realistic rendering given the author herself is on the autism spectrum. We learn of Sunny’s careful management of food (which essentially has to be white) and her laboured reading of gestures and expressions on other people’s faces, so that she can inform her responses and make connections. She emulates Vita’s upper crust vowels (perhaps this aspect is a little on the repetitive side) to experience how they sound as she rolls the words around in her own mouth. She turns to a 1950s guide of etiquette, to wit “Etiquette for Ladies” by Edith Ogilvy, so that she has a chance of some social integration. Sunny is a woman “..without a social language …” and carefully builds an array of crutches and resources on which she can rely.
She references Sicilian mores and superstitions that she has gleaned from a book of Sicilian folk tales, which has accompanied her for much of her life (and these utterances irritated her erstwhile husband no end): how to fend off the malocchio (evil eye) or the power of fish when pregnant …
She bathes in the proximity of her new found friend and enjoys a Friday night meal with Vita and Rols, where they dine off Harrods delicacies brought up from London by Rols. Vita is a flamboyant dresser and extrovert, but gradually an unease settles over the reader as Sunny becomes more enmeshed in the couple’s life. Sunny’s daughter, Dolly, basks in the affection and attention she garners from Vita and she begins to turn a critical eye on her mother and her behaviour.
This is a hugely textured novel where the senses are pivotal for the main character and to some extent for the reader. The soil on the farm where she works (which belongs to her ex-husband’s family), passes through her hands enabling tactile appreciation, and the odours that surround her in daily life aid her understanding of her world. Her uncertain hovering on the sidelines can be poignant and perplexing, but she has a stoicism that serves her well.
When I picked up this novel I was not sure if I would enjoy it but Sunny’s open-hearted nature is beguiling and heart wrenching. This is a beautifully written novel.
Tina for the Tripfiction Team
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