Brenda Parry

It was weird, but far from wonderful. While I loved the opening chapter--- the story of a young woman's life calmly passing in isolation from the world. The second chapter/part where she meets a man in a bar with a very different and disturbing life story seems to go on and on in the most confusing manner as the man struggles with his very identity and his lost love and life. Norris's writing is superb and some of the sentiments quite frightening---- I wonder how much of this is autobiographical. Most of it is set in rural Wiltshire and stories that have been reported locally and nationally come up. Norris has previously made no secret of the fact that he has been influenced by Hardy and Hardy frequently used real happenings in his novels. The ending---it could be, it might be, happy ever after--but even that's unclear. This is a very thought provoking book, but I would hesitate in calling it a novel for there is such an internal struggle going on in the protagonist's mind one can't help think the author is struggling.