The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, by Marianne Cronin.

 

   

       Lenni Eklund is seventeen years old and has a terminal disease.  She is a patient until her eventual death in a Glasgow hospital, and she’s not particularly happy about spending the remainder of her life there, or the lack of answers to the Big Questions, as in ‘Why am I dying?’, a question she poses to the resident hospital chaplain, Father Arthur.  He doesn’t have a Godly answer, but she likes the way his name rhymes with his occupation:  he, in turn, is flummoxed by Lenni:  ‘Because you are’ is not satisfactory, he knows this, but apart from sharing his sandwiches with her and eventually, his steadfast friendship in the too short time till his retirement, he can think of nothing else.

            Until Lenni joins an Art class for people with long-term conditions and meets Margot, a tiny eighty-three year old Scottish lady with loads of artistic talent and a fascinating life story to tell – and who better to tell it to than Lenni, starved for life experiences that she will never enjoy or endure, but the ideal repository for all secrets and confidences – not because she will die soon and take the secrets to the grave, but because she is the best listener imaginable, remembering every detail, and frequently bringing her own  hilarious take on Margot’s life experiences, good and bad.  A great friendship is born and nurtured, and between them they produce a painting for each year of their lives, which add up to One Hundred Years, a whole century!  And for each painting they tell each other the story behind the painting and, tragic as some of the stories are,  they are made luminous and unforgettable by the deep and enduring affection Lenni and Margot have for each other, and their perfect understanding of what they have together.

            This lovely story was always going to end in tears – how could it not, with the certain death of at least one of the unforgettable protagonists, but there’s no bathos or syrupy background violin music as Lenni eventually departs for pastures new;  thanks to Margot, Father Arthur and various other new-found friends from the Art class she has packed a century of life into her seventeen years.  She has lived.

            It’s hard to believe that this singular book is Marianne Cronin’s debut novel;  her writing is wonderfully assured – who would have thought that the story of a terminally-ill teenager could be so enormously entertaining and funny, but it is a tribute to Ms Cronin’s writing talent and the strength of her characterisations that Lenni and Margot will stay with us for many years to come.  SIX STARS.  

 

The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn.

   

         Best-selling American author Kate Quinn tries her hand here at a very British story:  the Bletchley Park code-breakers of the Second World War, that  dedicated band of talented and special people who saved countless lives with their skill at cracking ciphers and codes and by so doing, shortened the race to victory by at least two years.

            Ms Quinn stumbles occasionally over everyday idiom – the British drive Motor cars, not automobiles; regardless, she still recreates very skilfully the everyday stress and fear that all had to endure daily, especially when the bombing started:  there is no respite from the terrible and ruinous tragedies suffered by Ms Quinn's excellent characters, all based on real people.

            At the war’s beginning, three young women are recruited to work at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire.  They all have different reasons for working there:  Osla is a wealthy Canadian debutante who, thanks to her finishing school education, has an excellent command of the German language;  Mab (short for Mabel, but she doesn’t want anyone to know that; she wants to forget her East End origins) is nearly six feet tall and has nimble fingers.  She will be an excellent operator of the huge Bombe machines that spit out unintelligible data to be broken down by Enigma machines, used by the brilliant code-breakers, one of whom is a girl they recruited themselves – their overbearing landlady’s daughter, mousy, bullied Beth.  Beth has never been encouraged to believe that she will have any other kind of life except as her mother’s ‘little helper’.  Bletchley Park is her salvation, not least because of her genius for unravelling codes that she sees as rose petals, intricately layered until they are peeled back the right way.

            A further complication arises in Osla’s life:  she is in love with Philip, Prince of Greece, but is informed by MI5 that because of his German connections (his beloved sisters are married to German nobility) and the oath of secrecy she has signed, she must cease contact.  Which she does, and it breaks her heart, especially when his engagement to Princess Elizabeth is eventually announced.  Mab meets the love of her life, only to lose him again in a bombing raid, and Beth is horribly betrayed by a traitor and incarcerated in an asylum.  Ms Quinn ramps up the pace to heart-stopping suspense here, dragging us by the nose through Mab’s tragedy and Beth’s efforts to escape her fate.  The three friends must depend entirely on each other to survive.

            Ms Quinn’s exhaustively researched novel  expertly recreates the life and times of those heroes who stopped the German War Machine without leaving Bletchley Park.  It is a fitting tribute to their dedication.  FOUR STARS.         

 

Ash Mountain, by Helen Fitzgerald.

  

          The tragic and terrible toll of the recent Australian Bush fires on the environment and population has never been more graphically depicted than in Helen Fitzgerald’s ‘Ash Mountain’, a deceptively slim volume telling a giant story that resonates unforgettably with all its readers.

            The small inland town of Ash Mountain isn’t far from Melbourne, but Fran thought she had escaped it and its painful memories forever – until her beloved dad suffers a serious stoke and requires her return.  Her 16 year-old daughter Vonnie, whose father was Fran’s best friend (and everyone knows that sex with besties seldom works out) comes too – not because she wants to, but because she’s going through a rebellious stage, and she likes to ruffle as many town feathers as she can, starting with Australia Day.  Ha!  Everyone knows it’s really Invasion Day.  (Vonnie’s dad has aboriginal blood).

            Fran has a much older son, Dante, product of Fran’s first sexual encounter at the age of 15;  he is currently residing as a Happy Hippy in Ash Mountain.  Raised by Fran’s dad, Dante is thrilled that his mum and little sister are having a stint in the old home town, even though the eventual outcome will be very sad, because Gramps is not expected to hang on for much longer.  Still, it’s great that everyone is back together again, even if it’s not permanent – why would it?  Fran is not surprised to see that nothing has changed – the Catholic church and its boarding school still holds sway;  each mass on Sunday is well-attended, thanks to the popularity of Father Frank (quickly imported to replace that Paedo Father Alfonso – what a scandal, say nothing and it’ll go away!);  her ex-schoolmates are still living in the same houses, still as vicious and catty as ever, even though they are now ‘respectable’ married women.  Yep, nothing has changed.  Fran doesn’t want her beloved dad to die, but the quicker he declines, the quicker she can leave, for the longer she stays, the more distressing secrets begin to reveal themselves, secrets she is not interested in and of which she is afraid.

On the plus side, there’s a whiff of romance in the air:  another neighbouring returnee, a widower with three daughters, has changed from being a teenage dickhead into a lovely man she would like to know better – until the bush fire starts.

Ms Fitzgerald’s stark, terrible prose flings us all into the fire:  there’s no escape for many of the town’s inhabitants who make the wrong decisions, gambling on outrunning the flames in their cars, or staying behind like Father Frank – not to help, but to try to destroy incriminating evidence.  (That was a spoiler, wasn’t it!).  But throughout the terrible suspense of who survives – and how – runs a priceless and necessary vein of humour to relieve the horror:  Fran is a champion at upsetting Father Frank;  she even steals a dollar from the collection plate and tells him in Confession – take that, you old hypocrite!  This is a stand-out book.  SIX STARS.