Scan barcode
luluallison's review
The intertwined lives of the three separate women in this book are handled with care and great authenticity. Fantastic characters beautifully written and a subtle coming together in the plot made this a really good read. I felt like I was alongside the characters and loved how they linked to each other.
arirang's review
3.0
She is going to kill her mother today.
The Sound Mirror by Heidi James opens with a chapter titled Tamara and an intriguing first page with the opening line above which is immediately qualified But she’s no monster. She’s not the villain. Then the narrative voice tells us of course we’re along for the ride , commenting on the “we” with:
It’s been a long time coming, and our fault, we should say. Funny that, speaking with one voice now, agreeing with each other. But yes our fault, and all the others, tangled up with poisons and infections and rottenness. Our mothers and mothers’ mothers containing us … for now she’s the sum of all us women, the total. She’s what’s left.
You imagine history trailing you, like clanging tin cans on a wedding car, but you’re wrong. History is a halter that leads; we are a beast of burden with a ring through the nose. You go where we lead. We are not whole, we are fragments, un-unified, unstable entities, colliding under the swirling universe. Overflowing with memories and feelings not our own; archives of those who came before. It’s almost romantic, imagining we’re individuals, cut off from the rest, making ourselves feel special. What we are is the story she is made of. Then of course there’s free will, if you believe in that, which she does. It’s a nice idea anyway. That we are free to choose our actions, and the consequences.
The mothers’ mother containing us explained as a reference to a girl being born with all of egg cells she will ever have, meaning that the entire female side of someone’s genetic inheritance was, at one point, developed inside their maternal grandmother.
The rest of the novel then alternates between three stories, told in alternating, brief chapters:
Tamara’s story – which itself switches between the present day journey to Kent to “kill her mother” (what this means becomes clear over time), and her life history (she was born in 1976)
Claire – born of Italian immigrant parents just before WW2. Her story opens with her evacuated from urban Kent to Wales during the height of the blitz, her father potentially subject to internment.
Ada – from a mixed Anglo-Indian heritage, and, who as the novel opens is emigrating, as a child, with her family from India to Kent in the UK (where only her grandfather has previously visited) after the fall of the Raj
The stories of Claire and Ada, at different ends of a social spectrum (although more due to the nature of their marriages than their birth), give an effective portrait of Britain in the 2nd half of the 20th century, a picture infused with class prejudice, sexism and often rather casual racism (the light-skinned Ada in particular is usually assumed by others to have been an emigrant from Britain to India, rather than vice versa, leading others to often make disparaging remarks about what is actually her heritage).
The story of Tamara herself is rattler less linear and fractured, but this seems deliberate as per the quotes above (we are not whole, we are fragments, un-unified, unstable entities) and the connection between the three stories, and to the narrators of the opening chapter, seems rather clear from outset, although the novel chooses to withhold confirmation.
The sound mirrors of the title are encountered by Tamara as a child on a Kent beach.
The following passages comes not from the novel but from a short-story that seems to have been the novel’s origin and which starts similarly to the novel, https://somesuchstories.co/story/sound-mirror
This links, I think, with the theme that we’re all echoes of our past, particularly our matriarchal lineage.
I am genuinely a fan of innovative narrative form over in-depth substance of a story. However here, I actually found the family story more compelling as a historical portrayal of the 20th century UK, whereas the device of the narrative chorus (of two) and the sound mirror was rather less effective, potentially even a distraction.
3.5 stars
The Sound Mirror by Heidi James opens with a chapter titled Tamara and an intriguing first page with the opening line above which is immediately qualified But she’s no monster. She’s not the villain. Then the narrative voice tells us of course we’re along for the ride , commenting on the “we” with:
It’s been a long time coming, and our fault, we should say. Funny that, speaking with one voice now, agreeing with each other. But yes our fault, and all the others, tangled up with poisons and infections and rottenness. Our mothers and mothers’ mothers containing us … for now she’s the sum of all us women, the total. She’s what’s left.
You imagine history trailing you, like clanging tin cans on a wedding car, but you’re wrong. History is a halter that leads; we are a beast of burden with a ring through the nose. You go where we lead. We are not whole, we are fragments, un-unified, unstable entities, colliding under the swirling universe. Overflowing with memories and feelings not our own; archives of those who came before. It’s almost romantic, imagining we’re individuals, cut off from the rest, making ourselves feel special. What we are is the story she is made of. Then of course there’s free will, if you believe in that, which she does. It’s a nice idea anyway. That we are free to choose our actions, and the consequences.
The mothers’ mother containing us explained as a reference to a girl being born with all of egg cells she will ever have, meaning that the entire female side of someone’s genetic inheritance was, at one point, developed inside their maternal grandmother.
The rest of the novel then alternates between three stories, told in alternating, brief chapters:
Tamara’s story – which itself switches between the present day journey to Kent to “kill her mother” (what this means becomes clear over time), and her life history (she was born in 1976)
Claire – born of Italian immigrant parents just before WW2. Her story opens with her evacuated from urban Kent to Wales during the height of the blitz, her father potentially subject to internment.
Ada – from a mixed Anglo-Indian heritage, and, who as the novel opens is emigrating, as a child, with her family from India to Kent in the UK (where only her grandfather has previously visited) after the fall of the Raj
The stories of Claire and Ada, at different ends of a social spectrum (although more due to the nature of their marriages than their birth), give an effective portrait of Britain in the 2nd half of the 20th century, a picture infused with class prejudice, sexism and often rather casual racism (the light-skinned Ada in particular is usually assumed by others to have been an emigrant from Britain to India, rather than vice versa, leading others to often make disparaging remarks about what is actually her heritage).
The story of Tamara herself is rattler less linear and fractured, but this seems deliberate as per the quotes above (we are not whole, we are fragments, un-unified, unstable entities) and the connection between the three stories, and to the narrators of the opening chapter, seems rather clear from outset, although the novel chooses to withhold confirmation.
The sound mirrors of the title are encountered by Tamara as a child on a Kent beach.
The following passages comes not from the novel but from a short-story that seems to have been the novel’s origin and which starts similarly to the novel, https://somesuchstories.co/story/sound-mirror
Years before and to come on a school trip to the Kent seaside, the man told us about these sound mirrors and how some people thought they were beautiful examples of architecture and how even though they still worked, they were never used, because something else came along, better technology or something and then the war ended, so there were no more German planes to listen out for. But they still stand there, these huge concrete disks, shaped like bowls, gathering and reflecting sounds, taking things in. Out in the middle of nowhere, facing the sea, still doing their job even if no one is listening anymore. There’s magic about them, standing there, you can hear what’s happening a long way away. We used to marvel at them, way back before I was born. Echoes still vibrating in the molecules. That’s us, turned in both directions, a listening device.
This links, I think, with the theme that we’re all echoes of our past, particularly our matriarchal lineage.
I am genuinely a fan of innovative narrative form over in-depth substance of a story. However here, I actually found the family story more compelling as a historical portrayal of the 20th century UK, whereas the device of the narrative chorus (of two) and the sound mirror was rather less effective, potentially even a distraction.
3.5 stars
More...