The Sun Road
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Amazon Review
This is an outstanding book by a new writer, a novel that straddles literary and popular fiction. It is the tale of two households whose children play constantly together before one of the mothers moves away in a bid to establish her own independence. Families offer a rich field for stories of love, dependence and betrayal and this novel investigates the secrets that both bind and divide the generations. MacDonald's narrative moves confidently between past and present, lingering with a loving touch on domestic scenes. She is adept at describing children's preoccupations, their funniness and vulnerability, and uses the two family backgrounds to contrast the effect of apparent disorder and tidiness, overflowing abundance and sober carefulness. Moving outside she uses the snow, gardens, parks, the seaside - all the places that make up the boundaries of a child's world - as backdrops for her set pieces. Her title comes from a beautiful metaphor used in a scene in which one set of parents take their daughter and her friend from across the road on holiday together. Sand, ice creams, slot machines and an unusually relaxed attitude on the part of her mother and father lead the little girl to see the silver sun on the sea as a happy road leading to the time ahead, a road that can lead anywhere, bright but illusionary. It is difficult in such a book for an author to avoid nostalgia and sentimentality but Hannah MacDonald manages to do so. Her women characters are solid, believable people, their spats and irritability authentic, and she movingly shows how grief and mourning surpass any attempt to analyse them. (Kirkus UK)
Quietly moving debut about a mother and daughter whose long-hidden secrets threaten those they love. In gratifyingly unself-conscious prose, British newcomer Macdonald (editorial director at Random House UK) begins her story as two small boys and their father go swimming at a public pool: As they leave, a gas leak causes a huge fire in which all three perish. Their mother, Lizzie, presumably visiting her own mother in another town, is actually with Roger Standing, her lover. Lizzie is also pregnant with Roger's child, Beth, and after the tragedy she and Roger marry and move to London. Lizzie is determined that Beth not know the story, but, unable to hide her grief and guilt, she takes out her resentment on Beth, who consequently feels less close to Lizzie than to Roger-and is also drawn to a family on the same street, Jacob and Ruth Fredericks and their three sons. Dan, the middle one, is the same age as Beth, and the two are close friends, though Beth likes all the Fredericks, whose home seems warmer and calmer than her own. When Ruth suddenly leaves Jacob, though, and moves to Shropshire with her sons, Beth and Dan lose touch. Some years later, Beth, having become a TV editor, sees Dan again at his father's 55th birthday party. Dan, now an artist, wants to date her, but she's reluctant: she also has a secret in her past. A modest tale, resonant with insight and empathy. (Kirkus Reviews)
Amazon Review
This is an outstanding book by a new writer, a novel that straddles literary and popular fiction. It is the tale of two households whose children play constantly together before one of the mothers moves away in a bid to establish her own independence. Families offer a rich field for stories of love, dependence and betrayal and this novel investigates the secrets that both bind and divide the generations. MacDonald's narrative moves confidently between past and present, lingering with a loving touch on domestic scenes. She is adept at describing children's preoccupations, their funniness and vulnerability, and uses the two family backgrounds to contrast the effect of apparent disorder and tidiness, overflowing abundance and sober carefulness. Moving outside she uses the snow, gardens, parks, the seaside - all the places that make up the boundaries of a child's world - as backdrops for her set pieces. Her title comes from a beautiful metaphor used in a scene in which one set of parents take their daughter and her friend from across the road on holiday together. Sand, ice creams, slot machines and an unusually relaxed attitude on the part of her mother and father lead the little girl to see the silver sun on the sea as a happy road leading to the time ahead, a road that can lead anywhere, bright but illusionary. It is difficult in such a book for an author to avoid nostalgia and sentimentality but Hannah MacDonald manages to do so. Her women characters are solid, believable people, their spats and irritability authentic, and she movingly shows how grief and mourning surpass any attempt to analyse them. (Kirkus UK)
Quietly moving debut about a mother and daughter whose long-hidden secrets threaten those they love. In gratifyingly unself-conscious prose, British newcomer Macdonald (editorial director at Random House UK) begins her story as two small boys and their father go swimming at a public pool: As they leave, a gas leak causes a huge fire in which all three perish. Their mother, Lizzie, presumably visiting her own mother in another town, is actually with Roger Standing, her lover. Lizzie is also pregnant with Roger's child, Beth, and after the tragedy she and Roger marry and move to London. Lizzie is determined that Beth not know the story, but, unable to hide her grief and guilt, she takes out her resentment on Beth, who consequently feels less close to Lizzie than to Roger-and is also drawn to a family on the same street, Jacob and Ruth Fredericks and their three sons. Dan, the middle one, is the same age as Beth, and the two are close friends, though Beth likes all the Fredericks, whose home seems warmer and calmer than her own. When Ruth suddenly leaves Jacob, though, and moves to Shropshire with her sons, Beth and Dan lose touch. Some years later, Beth, having become a TV editor, sees Dan again at his father's 55th birthday party. Dan, now an artist, wants to date her, but she's reluctant: she also has a secret in her past. A modest tale, resonant with insight and empathy. (Kirkus Reviews)
