(5/03) This is a near perfect piece of fiction, not ‘great’ fiction, but 10/10 for the pace and plot, historical detail and characterisation. I can’t explain why it only warrants 8 *’s maybe the lack of depth, some unlikely events, and the rude bits which are not necessarily acceptable to a wide audience?

Anyway to summarise without giving too much away. Gloria is a fading but still feisty old lady in a nursing home recovering/retelling parts of her wartime experience in Bristol. She and her older sister Marje are practically orphaned* and work in a munitions factory, and live – you imagine – a typical civilian urban war; lack of food, a continual proximity to death and mutilation, a mixture of feelings of boredom, weariness, terror and adventure. Gloria has a GI boyfriend, but she doesn’t get her man in the end – no real surprise from quite early on. But, the strength of the plot is the gradual building up of hers and her children’s back story (how many, who were the fathers?), and mixing the mundane and the crass – it was her sister wot had the brains – with the outrageous and tragic.

*mother dead and father lost somewhere in Asia

Picked up at today's Ipswich meeting. I was attracted by Bookgroupman's review of this, and I've just returned from Bristol, so coincidence played a part too.

Gloria is a wonderfully-realised character - complete in her brashness, vulgarity, bad jokes, wandering mind and survival instinct. Her war see-saws between the day to day getting-by in Bristol and the excitement of a GI boyfriend, until tragedy hits her when she least expects it; and her life in a retirement home is not without its excitement, either.

At times I was appalled by the coarseness of Gloria's life during and after the war, however the book gets to the heart of a complex character and one who isn't written about or depicted in drama much.

Overall a very satisfying read.

RELEASE NOTES:

One for the Caffe Nero bookshelf.
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Picked up at Ipswich meet.

I loved being swept up into Gloria's wartime and modern day world. She was rude,crude,amusing and tragic.

Expect vivid descriptions of some of her exploits,this paragraph preceded a real shocker!

"When I've got them out I put them in the jar with his, and they sit there in the Steradent like two pink crabs that's huddled together and has fallen in underwater love."

RELEASE NOTES:

Given to TurquoiseFloyd.

Passed on by Scatz today - thanks!

To be released on holiday in Wales

RELEASE NOTES:

very rough date'' time and place