Here's the April read...chosen by Helen. Don't forget to post your coments by using the "comment button" just below and to the right of this picture. Happy reading!
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A Special Meeting - May '09
Relay for Life Sept '08
September 2008
Book Group Belles Xmas07
Must Reads List
- 'To the Edge of the Sky' by Anhua Gao
- 'One Day' by David Nicholls
3 comments:
Hi Everybody! Happy Easter!!
I loved this book! The fact that it's set in Cornwall and centres around an artist made it even more compelling for me. I couldn't put it down.
It portrays the dynamics of a family headed by a bipolar mum who is also a talented, obsessive artist. The relationships between parents and siblings are so intricate and fragile, it is totally realistic!
The only frustrating thing for me is the ending came too soon! There were too many loose ends - what about the demon baby? What about Garfield's affair? What about Lizzie's baby? Did the six family stones get explained to the surviving family members (I guess not as only Petroc and Rachel knew about them and they were both dead!)? Why did Rachel throw the stones at the paintings and have a screaming fit which led to her heart attack?
So many more questions! The book doesn't lend itself to a sequel either. I think Patrick Gale ends it with Petroc being in his 'happy place' before the accident so we can see how life can change in an instant.
Could the final message be 'Be happy and live every day like it's your last'?
Finally, the book interested me in Quakerism so goodness knows where that will lead me! Thanks for the suggestion Helen x
SYNOPSIS FROM 'WATERSTONE'S' WEBSITE.
The new novel from the bestselling Patrick Gale. Renowned Canadian artist Rachel Kelly -- now of Penzance -- has buried her past and married a gentle and loving Cornish man. Her life has been a sacrifice to both her extraordinary art and her debilitating manic depression. When troubled artist Rachel Kelly dies painting obsessively in her attic studio in Penzance, her saintly husband and adult children have more than the usual mess to clear up. She leaves behind an extraordinary and acclaimed body of work -- but she also leaves a legacy of secrets and emotional damage it will take months to unravel. A wondrous, monstrous creature, she exerts a power that outlives her. To her children she is both curse and blessing, though they all in one way or another reap her whirlwind, inheriting her waywardness, her power of loving -- and her demons. Only their father's Quaker gifts of stillness and resilience give them any chance of withstanding her destructive influence and the suspicion that they came a poor second to the creation of her art. The reader becomes a detective, piecing together the clues of a life -- as artist, lover, mother, wife and patient -- which takes them from contemporary Penzance to 1960s Toronto to St Ives in the 1970s. What emerges is a story of enduring love, and of a family which weathers tragedy, mental illness and the intolerable strain of living with genius. Patrick Gale's latest novel shines with intelligence, humour and tenderness.
This is a really absorbing read. At the heart of it is Rachel, mum, painter, wife, assumer of a new identity, victim but also great artist. With this mental illness comes suffering and loss for this woman and her family, but with the highs comes great creativity and liberation.
What a lovely backdrop, Cornwall - to which the family gravitates. The sadnesses become part of a process of death and new life through nature and art. Lovely, and sensitive to its subject matter.
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