|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Book Reviews Title Lessons
For A Sunday Father Fiction-Net
Rating Buy It
From Amazon.co.uk - BUY
NOW! Cover
Story It's never too
late to grow up... This is the story of: SCOTT, who finds
his belongings outside in a bin bag one day and
realises he may have made a Big Mistake GAIL, who wishes
her husband were under guarantee so she could send
him back and get a refund NAT, who
discovers that growing up isn't all it's cracked up
to be ROSIE, who just
wants her Dad back - or if not, then at least some
new glitter nail polish. Four lives, one
story: love, loss and learning to be a
grown-up. We
Say I read Lessons
For A Sunday Father with very high hopes, for two
reasons. First, Calman's previous (and debut)
novel, Love
Is A Four Letter
Word, was
nothing short of stunning. Second, with this title
Calman has adopted the highly effective 'he
said/she said' approach used by Josie Lloyd and
Emlyn Rees in Come Together and Come Again. This
was always going to be an interesting piece of
work... Lessons For A
Sunday Father is told from the viewpoint of four
members of the same family: Scott and Gail and
their two children, Nat and Rosie. Each character
tells their side of the story whilst the family
falls apart as a result of Scott having a very
brief affair. A big reason for
the success of Love Is A Four Letter Word was due
to its strong emotional pull. With the subject
matter of this novel, there is plenty of scope for
Calman to use those same skills to good effect. It
almost works. Calman effectively tells the story of
nine-year old Rosie, who turns out to be a really
sweet character. Calman also does an effective job
in telling things from Scott's side and he
effectively becomes the lead character. Indeed, the
father and daughter relationship between Scott and
Rosie is a very central theme of the novel and the
basis for the book's title. Watching Scott discover
that he has a lovely child who he'd previously
pretty much taken for granted is a fascinating
experience. However, it has to be said that Gail
and Nat are much less interesting characters. Gail
is too weak and Nat is not much more than a moody,
annoying pain in the butt. The storyline
itself is a strong point. Calman leads us on a ride
where it's never really clear whether Scott and
Gail will make it back together or not. And she
successfully achieves the desired result of making
the reader care about the
outcome. It hasn't got the
emotional magnetism of Love Is A Four Letter Word
but Lessons For A Sunday Father is still a very
worthy second novel for Claire Calman. Let's see
more. Review by: Rob
Cook |
|||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||
