Regatta (by Libby Purves)

(Amazon UK link)

'Regatta', by Libby Purves, is the story of Anansi, an eleven-year-old girl, but it's not a story for children. Anansi has come from London, where she lives with her neglectful drug-using mother and small half-sister. Her father was of African origin, but she hasn't seen anything of him since she was tiny. She has a lame foot, which she knows was caused by an angry man when she was little, and has recently been excluded from school after getting into a fight.

Social services have got involved, and Anansi is sent on a holiday to a seaside town to give her mother a break. She's sent to live with Sheila, who's caring and highly organised, and who generally takes younger children from social services as guests during the summer months.

Sheila's husband Simon is a rather dour writer, who happens to have a somewhat shocking secret. They have two teenage sons who spend their terms at boarding school, and don't much like having other children in the house. The younger son Douai, who is only a year older than Anansi, particularly resents having a girl thrust on the household, and being expected to look after her.

Anansi is very intelligent, and street-wise beyond her years. She finds it hard to comprehend the upper-middle class activities like tennis and sailing, which she's expected to take part in. She's used to verbal abuse from people she meets - both for her race and because of her limp - and is confused by people smiling at her, and being generally nice. She better understands the aggression of Sheila's sons; she rather resented her half-sister, and sees herself as a cuckoo in the nest. However after some particularly unpleasant teasing by Douai, she responds in anger by revealing something she knows - something which throws the whole community into an uproar, and causes a lot of people to take serious looks at themselves and their attitudes.

Libby Purves is an experienced sailor, and this is clear from the background to this book. All the children in the town learn to sail at a young age, and take part in regattas. Anansi is initially terrified of the river estuary where everyone sails, and her first experience - being taken out in a boat by a resentful Douai - is a disaster. But she's a tough child, and when a later opportunity arises to learn from a gentler teacher, she takes it up willingly.

As with all this author's books, there are many issues touched upon in passing, making it not just an enjoyable story, but a thought-provoking read. Questions about class divide are gently explored, including the naïveté of the upper middle classes, who make up the majority of the town where Anansi is sent. Some of them see Sheila as a bossy do-gooder, and rather despise the children she looks after, despite being friendly on the surface.

There's also the issue of bullying, both physical and emotional. But it's not shown as something clear-cut; the disadvantages of responding in anger are also demonstrated. Anansi drops her metaphorical bombshell, without realising what the consequences might be for those around her. Later on she chats to a gentle elderly man who tells her about the horrors of war, and of the damaged that can be done by real bombs.

The problem of children with neglectful parents is inevitably at the heart of this book, with social workers quite in the dark about what's best for them. Contrasting viewpoints are given: from Sheila, who simply wants to mother children and help them have fun, to a social worker who thinks it makes life more difficult when an impoverished inner-city child is shown a completely different world for a few weeks. The drug issue is barely touched upon, however; it's enough to see the damage caused to Anansi by her mother's habit, and which leads to a bigger crisis part-way through the book.

I found the character of Anansi quite delightful. She has a lot of courage, and her own set of strong principles. I found myself wondering about the unanswerable question: is personality inborn, or developed in childhood? I see in Anansi a reflection of a few people I know from all walks of life - stubborn determination which makes her fight, despite everything, to overcome all odds. She also has a deep longing for love, mostly repressed, but coming to the fore in a heroic deed which forms the climax of the book.

I found Sheila tiring but realistic. She's a little larger than life, but perhaps not atypical of a cheerful, outgoing woman who has so much love to give that she takes in other children whose parents cannot care for them properly. There's a very moving section part-way through the book where Sheila has to consider whether it would be better for her son Douai if Anansi were sent away; as a mother myself I could feel her pain at trying to meet the needs of the two hurting children.

Other main characters are sympathetically drawn, with the more minor ones being a bit caricatured - not a bad thing as it helped me to remember who was who. I did find the number of families a little confusing and sometimes forgot which children belonged to each - but this may have been deliberate. There is an overriding sense of a community, of people dropping in on each other, eating meals at different homes every night, with parents not entirely sure which children would be eating supper with them each evening. This 'large family' feeling makes Anansi's revelation all the more disastrous when it happens, potentially rocking the entire foundation of everyone's lives, not just the few who are directly involved in what she reveals. This in itself provides quite a contrast to her previous lifestyle.

I very much enjoyed reading this book, although I found it rather overwhelming in places with so many people, and the fast-paced action. While I was eager to know what was going to happen, I found I had to put it down every couple of chapters to take a break, and for my mind to catch up with what I'd been reading!

I do admit to skimming a few paragraphs of sailing technicalities here and there. I'm sure they were realistic, but I know almost nothing about sailing and was more interested in the people. However there wasn't so much that it bored me. Towards the end of the book I was almost on the edge of my seat with the excitement of a dramatic rescue involving various boats, and my lack of nautical knowledge was no handicap in understanding.

The ending of the book is moving and gives hope for the future, although perhaps it could be considered a little unrealistic. While it was encouraging, it did leave me feeling a bit as if the author had skated neatly round the difficult problem of unwanted children. Once I'd finished, I found myself feeling exhilarated, and - surprisingly - quite tired, as if I'd taken part in the rescue myself. It's a satisfying book, not over-long (it's only just over 300 pages) but with a depth of emotion, and with thought-provoking issues that often require a much longer novel for full exploration.

None of the above really does justice to the book, which is an extremely well-written novel bringing together unlikely characters in believable ways. The 'issues' are there in the background, but they don't become intrusive; I found myself thinking about them as a result of reading the book rather than being drawn into them too strongly at the time. Libby Purves' style is brisk, decisive, mildly humorous at times.

It's not my favourite of her books, but all in all, I'd recommend it to anyone wanting a light read with a little more meat than the average short novel.