Although Salley Vickers has apparently written several other novels, which have been quite widely acclaimed, I hadn’t heard of her. I probably wouldn’t have come across her novel ‘Grandmothers’ but for our local reading group: this was the assigned book for June 2021 and I finished reading just a few hours before the meeting.
It’s a fairly light-weight novel, which I liked very much. There’s not a whole lot of plot; instead, it’s a character-based book, featuring three different women who all play a grandmotherly role. Two of them are in fact grandmothers: Nan, who is small and determined, with a ten-year-old grandson called Billy, and Blanche, who is well-off and likes good clothes, but drinks rather too much. Blanche has two grandchildren, Kitty and Harry, but at the start of the book she had just been told by her son that she may not see them again.
Then there’s Minna, who lives in a shepherd’s hut. Although she’s never had children of her own, local children like her - and she’s particularly fond of ten-year-old Rose, who shares her love of good books. I don’t think it’s mentioned anywhere what age the women are; Blanche comes across as the youngest and Nan the oldest, but I suppose they are all in their seventies, or perhaps late sixties.
I liked these three women very much, in their quite different ways. Nan is somewhat obsessed with leaving all her things in order before she dies, and even having a coffin in place. She discusses options with Billy, who is quite practical and doesn’t see this as morbid at all. Nan often collects Billy from school and he loves being in her flat.
Blanche seems a bit feeble at first - she was widowed, and naturally grieved, but she turned to drink, and made the mistake of drinking too much before driving her grandchildren home. I had some sympathy for her son and his wife, although we never really get to know them. She doesn’t like her daughter-in-law at all, and doesn’t seem to feel much for her grandson. But her granddaughter Kitty is determined to stay in touch - and her trendy, young-looking grandmother is considered rather cool by Kitty’s close friend Faith.
Minna is my favourite of the older women, however. She’s not very confident, and sees other people as superior to her in a lot of ways, but she has a great deal of intuition, and she’s a good listener.
The novel follows these three women and their relationships with the much younger generation, all of which are very special to them, and to the children. It takes place over the course of about a year, in sections connected with school terms and breaks. The author has a good way with descriptions, and I enjoyed reading about various different locations that they travel to. There was just enough to set the scenes without lengthy prose to skim.
Inevitably these women meet eventually, in different places, and tentative friendships start to form. But that’s only later in the book, and doesn’t really affect the relationships with the children. I liked the conversations, and the pace of the book; I felt the bittersweet ending was a tad abrupt, and left rather a lot of questions unanswered, but it was sensitively done.
Of course there are other characters in the book - the children’s parents. I never did remember who was whom, as they’re all quite shadowy; perhaps that’s deliberate. One couple has been separated for a long time, one couple is together but fighting a lot, and possibly moving to Glasgow; one couple is more united. But I couldn’t recall their names when I read one of them, and have entirely forgotten them just a couple of hours after finishing the book.
All in all I thought this an encouraging read, although at the same time I found it poignant from a personal sense, having not been able to see my own grandchildren for nearly 18 months, due to the pandemic. I shall be looking out for other novels by this author.
Recommended if you like gentle character-based stories with some depth but not a great deal of plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment