http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00RDSISQ0/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img
Three Seasons: Three Stories of England in the
Eighties
By Mike Robbins
These three
uniquely different series of novellas are set in England in the 1980s. Each
story is deeply captivating, subtle and intriguing with a sophisticated effort
to understand in an atmospheric sense what it was like to live in a country
that was on the brink of change.
Spring is the first story that I found to be deeply touching as it follows the
life of 60 year old trawler man called Skip, who had spent 45 years at sea and
40 years as a drinker. He wouldn’t normally risk a drop of alcohol between breakwaters
until now as he tries to revive his business with his newly invented long-lining
system. However, his one last chance to
change his fate has the most devastating consequences which all lead to an
unexpected series of events that will change and shape the rest of his life.
This is rather a bleak tale of the realities facing many fishermen in a time
where the government decommissioned many fishing vessels and the sense of place
and time is exceptionally well characterised.
Summer is the second story and follows the conflicts and a number of ambiguous
flashbacks between an impetuous estate agent called Terry and a guy called Roy,
who is the meeker of the two who teaches and is an amateur gliding instructor.
Terry remembers Roy as a boring and a very serious right-wing Labour supporter
at university who opposed most of Terry’s political views. Their long grudge
against one leads to some intriguing and unpredictable consequences.
Autumn is the third and final story and once again the author uses a number of
ambiguous flashbacks of an aging college master called, Paul Makepeace where a
series of present events take him back on an unforgettable journey in to his
childhood that have undoubtedly shaped his future.
Although
these three stories are in no way connected to one another, I felt deeply
connected to the well-developed characters’ in each story and couldn’t help but
think that the underlying moral of each story was that each character managed
to find their grounding, despite a number of evolutionary and cultural changes
that were taking place around them in the 1980s.
My Ranking: 5 Stars
http://walkerputsche.wordpress.com/
http://catherineroseputsche.webs.com/
http://t.co/G0ExZgmlwc
https://twitter.com/Putsche73
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6867405.Catherine_Rose_Putsche
Amazon.com/UK
No comments:
Post a Comment