Ian Webber

This book does not have the narrative structure of a classic novel, but is rather a patchwork of partly interconnected biographical anecdotes. For this reader the themes and contexts were reasonably familiar. The absence of conventional enduring couple relationships was prevalent, with mothers and children having to survive singlehanded through various levels of material and emotional deprivation. Mostly they manage. Education is often a result of a fairly coercive parent or as a defiant response to feared powerlessness. Most of the female characters are capable of high achievement. Race and gender ideology are salient and explicit in early chapters, though less emphasised in middle sections. There is a balance between fatalism and ambition. The style is mostly down to earth and realist, with few extended flights into magical fantasy or romanticisation. That is so far, halfway through, let's see if it comes across differently by the end.