Islands by Gwen GB.


                   Islands by Gwen GB.

"How could a child, let alone several children, have gone missing without anybody noticing, without somebody querying where they'd gone?"

Islands is a powerful and personal story based around the tragedy of miscarriages and the horrors of physical and sexual abuse. It is Gwen's debut novel and worth a read.
The timeline covers Katherine's late teenage years in 1976 into the 1980s and to her maturity in 2008. In the background we are reminded of actual historical events such as the Shannon Matthews case, Haut de la Garenne, Elisabeth and Josef Fritzl and the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 flight.

Footloose and fancy-free, that's how Katherine was as she took her final exams, inseparable from her friend Anne. Both are relishing the prospect of leaving school with boys on their minds, obsessed with Darren Le Brocq and Mark Vibert. Katherine's mother, Marie indicates her displeasure in her daughter's relationship with Anne creating tension which soon escalates. The Sands nightclub should have been the highlight of the summer, a "culmination of a thousand teenage dreams" with growing physical and sexual awareness. It turned out to be a nightmare not for Katherine and Darren but for Mark and Anne. Whilst Katherine daydreams about Darren she has disturbing thoughts over Anne and what happened between her and Mark.

The girls' relationship becomes strained, a bond that is damaged beyond repair. Soon she confronts Darren over Mark's alleged "rape" and Anne sees this as a betrayal. Mark taunts Anne in front of his friends and Anne resorts to suicide. Katherine blames herself but is this the full story?

Katherine fell in love and married John but their problems begin with pregnancy and miscarriages, hope followed by despair on each occasion. Katherine throws herself into her work, her sanctuary as she calls it and moves to London away from her mother and sister Margaret and her family. John tries to settle but finds it difficult and soon returns to Jersey so this puts further strain on their marriage and they become estranged.
Whilst Katherine's life fell apart we are told about the abuse at Haut de la Garenne in St Martin's. The islanders are shocked by this. Jersey has to face up to its hidden past simultaneously as Katherine Gaudin has to face up to hers and this means returning to Jersey, her estranged husband and finally facing her demons-a failed mother, a failed baby-making device.
"We are each of us islands, everyone an individual, full of secrets and experiences no other can see or understand!"

REVIEW it by Carol Naylor.
Copyright 2018.Permission must be obtained from the author before any of this article review is reproduced.

Publisher: Chalky Dog Publishing. ISBN: 978-0-9955165-0-2

Comments

  1. FLORES25 June 2021 at 03:49

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Stranger From Lagos by Cyprian Ekwensi

Image
  image courtesy of Google images   Ekwensi was born in Nigeria in 1921. He wrote about the country and people of Nigeria-city life and life in the rural areas. Loko Towns and Other Stories was published in 1966. A Stranger From Lagos was one of the nine stories in that collection.   The writer explores the place of women in society. Lilian is trapped by social conventions. Her fiance treats her like a possession as if he owns her. It is written in third person to allow the writer's thoughts to merge with Lilian's. The protagonist is unable to speak to the stranger in public although it is obvious that there is a strong physical attraction between the two. If Lilian asserts herself she will go against social conventions (for females) and her reputation will be damaged through rife and unhealthy gossip. She will therefore be stigmatised as a loose woman. The story explores her inner conflicts in accepting these "conventions" or flaunting them as well a
Read more

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.

Image
                Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. Book Review. "Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on." These apparently disparate case histories cover 1970, 1994 and 1979 involving girls who had either been murdered or had simply vanished into thin air. Private Investigator, Jackson Brodie, beautifully drawn but flawed through and through had spent 12 years in the Cambridgeshire Constabulary and before that the military police. Forty-five years of age and working on irksome or dull cases like Binky Rain and her missing cats when he becomes inundated with requests to solve three case histories of people who have been seriously damaged by crimes committed against their loved ones. "He was used to being a voyeur, the outsider looking in, and nothing, but nothing that anyone did surprised him anymore." There i
Read more

A Stranger From Lagos by Cyprian Ekwensi Final Part

Image
                                                                    courtesy of Google images Lilian uses her sexuality to liberate as well as attract the opposite sex. Ekwensi uses "wiggled." Lilian had just had her hair done and was wearing very large, loop earrings. This had been done for her lover's benefit. She was conscious of all the eyes watching the two of them. The writer uses the simile: she felt like something projected on a 3D screen for all Onitsha to view. We are told very little about the stranger other than that he was tall and good-looking. We are told he didn't feel embarrassed by all of the attention. He would ruin her reputation and he was well aware of this: he would scandalize her and then she would be left to the gossips. You get the sense that this has probably happened before. The dialogue here is disjointed. Mystery surrounds him but his desire to see Lilian is compelling: "I have wanted to see you" and he refers to his
Read more