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A review by margaret21
Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
3.0
A book by Jane Gardam is always a treat: 'Old Filth' had me in thrall a while back, so I was eager to get stuck into Faith Fox. And at first I was hooked. The various voices in the novel: worthy women from the Surrey stockbroker belt, a disparate group existing in eccentric poverty on the North York Moors, a lone 11 year old, an elderly and somewhat cantankerous couple, a widowed doctor all rang true as I read the tale from each of their very different points of view. We never meet the woman whose past underpins the entire story. Holly Fox dies in childbirth on line one of the book, leaving a baby daughter. What is to happen to her provides the book with its plot line.
Finally though, I was disappointed. Not by the writing - never that. But the plot seems to depend on ever more unbelievable vignettes, as the characters in some cases become caricatures of themselves. Coincidence and happenstance occur on every page, and the ending, when it comes, leaves me feeling that nothing, nothing at all has been resolved for ... oh more than three or four days maybe. Which is not an unrealistic outcome with this motley crew of characters.
Somewhere under all this excess is a fine novel struggling to get out. For me, this was a good, but ultimately disappointing read.
Finally though, I was disappointed. Not by the writing - never that. But the plot seems to depend on ever more unbelievable vignettes, as the characters in some cases become caricatures of themselves. Coincidence and happenstance occur on every page, and the ending, when it comes, leaves me feeling that nothing, nothing at all has been resolved for ... oh more than three or four days maybe. Which is not an unrealistic outcome with this motley crew of characters.
Somewhere under all this excess is a fine novel struggling to get out. For me, this was a good, but ultimately disappointing read.