Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
Michael Frayn
Faber and Faber 2003
Fifty years on, Stephen Wheatley returns to the quiet suburban cul-de-sac where he grew up, and recounts the momentous events of a few weeks in a wartime summer. It’s difficult to write too much about what actually happens without spoiling the novel’s ending, but the plot develops from a conviction that a friend’s mother is a German spy. Frayn recreates the boy’s perspective, his misunderstandings and anxieties, and the complexities of childhood friendships, very effectively. Best of all for me though is his creation of place, and in particular of the sights, scents, and sounds of a summer where all is not, quite, as it seems. This is a very good novel indeed, always involving, and utterly convincing in its depiction of childhood.
13th January 2009
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