Richly textured

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The Narrow Land is set in Cape Cod during the 1950s. In the first section meet Michael in a heart-breaking scene where he is being sent away by his adoptive family to spend the summer by the sea. He is only referred to as 'the boy' - we don't even learn his name until roughly a third of the way through the novel. This highlights his displacement - he was orphaned during the war and rescued from unimaginable horrors by a charity devoted to saving these children and turning them into wholesome Americans. He doesn't remember his early years and is clearly severely traumatised which frequently manifests in unpleasant behaviour such as lying and stealing.

The family he is spending the summer with are the Kaplans. Mrs Kaplan, the matriarch is a key figure in the charitable institution that helped Michael. Her daughter is severely ill and son was killed in the war leaving his young son Richie with his own troubles as he struggles to deal with his grief.

Over the summer, the two boys befriend Mr and Mrs Aitch - two artists also spending the summer away from the city. They are fictionalised versions of the real-life artist Edward Hopper and his wife Josephine Nivision. She is deeply frustrated and blames her lack of success on the discrimination against female artists. Fiercely protective of her husband's privacy she hates to share him and is prone to violent and jealous rages. He meanwhile has lost his inspiration and is struggling to produce anything new.

Two elements of this setup would normally make me pass it by. Not only is it set in America, but in that part of America where the idle rich while away their summers. And then there is the fictionalisation of real famous people about whom I know nothing. But I've read Christine Dwyer Hickey before and I knew I was in a safe pair of hands. It's testament to the quality of the writing that these minor prejudices of mine mattered not one jot - I was swept away by the story-telling.

As befits book where two main characters are artists it's richly textured and very descriptive. The scenes are built up slowly layer by layer like brush strokes on canvas. The post war setting is beautifully evoked with the peaceful calm of Cape Cod juxtaposed against the horrors of the past and the future as another generation of men sets off to fight another war. All the characters are fully three-dimensional with all the attendant foibles and flaws of real people. No-one is totally good - or totally bad to that matter. It's slow and nuanced and I loved it.