A review by thingslucyreads
The Long Call by Ann Cleeves

mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

In terms of diversity: the main character is gay and one of the important side characters has Down’s Syndrome, as does a minor side character, and a background character has a different, unnamed disability, but everyone is white except for the cashier at a convenience store, who is South Asian. He’s the only character in the whole book to have his race described.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape

Moderate: Ableism

Minor: Homophobia

Some of the characters (most often the parents of disabled characters) say or think things that come off as ableist even though they come from places of concern and love. The ableism is not directly experienced by characters on page, no slurs are used in direct conversation, and the book and plot itself did not seem ableist to me. The homophobia is incredibly mild, and the extent to which Matthew being married to a man is a non-issue, especially to himself, especially in regards to his upbringing, was nothing short of laughable to me, a fellow gay person. It’s not bad, the rep is great, it’s just incredibly obvious where the gaps in Ann Cleeves’ experience in this matter lie. (We learn about Matthew’s early life but at no point does it specify when or how he realised he was gay. He just…fell in love with a man and it was nothing, apparently, even though he’d been raised in an evangelical cult that regarded sodomy as one of the most unforgivable sins. This man definitely should have had some shit to work through about this but somehow he didn’t.)