Three Things About Elsie by Joanna Cannon

review by Maryom


84 year old Florence Claybourne has fallen, and is lying on the floor of her sheltered accommodation flat until someone comes to rescue her. While she waits, she checks out the rubbish accumulated under the sofa, imagines who her rescuer will be and how they'll react, and reminisces about her lifelong friendship with Elsie. There are three special things about Elsie. The first two are simple - that she's Florence's best friend, and that she always knows the right things to say to make Florence feel better - the third is harder to explain. As Florence's mind drifts back over the years we begin to see the important part Elsie has played in her life, but Florence's memories are troubled by a new arrival at the Cherry Tree sheltered housing. He's calling himself Gabriel Price, but Florence believes he's someone she once knew long ago, under a different name. Is her memory playing up, or has Ronnie Butler come back (possibly from the dead) to in some way get his revenge?

Taken at its simplest, Three Things About Elsie is a gentle mystery story revolving around incidents from the characters' youth. Who is the mysterious Gabriel/Ronnie? What happened back in the 50s to make Florence so afraid of him? Of course, if Florence's memory were clearer, we'd know the answers in a second. As it is, the reader has to follow her meanderings and side-tracking as the puzzle pieces gradually slot together one by one.

More importantly, it's a sympathetic look at a section of society that's easily written off as boring and irrelevant - the elderly. In Greenbank, the care home to which Cherry Tree's residents are sent as they become less self-reliant, the photos on the walls remind the staff of WHO their patients once were. Now they may be senile, bedridden, barely distinguishable from each other, but once they too were young, had hopes and dreams, fell in love, raised families, enjoyed dancing or cricket or reading - basically were individuals. Through Florence's eyes we see what it's like to be dismissed as a forgetful old woman, while she still feels like her younger self.

And the 'third thing' about Elsie? Well, that's something to make your own mind up about.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Harper Collins (The Borough Press)
Genre - Adult fiction

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Joanna Cannon

 by Maryom

Joanna Cannon has scored a massive hit with her debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - hitting the bestsellers' lists, being translated into innumerable foreign languages, and, as if it matters, one of my favourite books of this year. Coincidentally, she lives quite near me, so I've seen her at book events before but I couldn't NOT see her again, when we were both in the same place.

Cannon isn't one of those writers who always knew that was their calling in life. She left school at 15, going back into education later to retrain as a doctor, but the one thing med-school didn't prepare her for was the emotional impact of the job, and to help her deal with it, she started writing a blog - not discussing any of her patients but talking about her own emotional response to the people she saw. From this she moved on to work on her novel, getting up at 3 in the morning to write (!), then trying to pull in another hour or so during her lunch break.

At this point she was working as a psychiatrist, and it was a profession that taught her to look beyond the label we might put on people - such as alcoholic, or OCD - and see the real person behind. To this she added the misguided public condemnation of Chris Jeffries over the murder of Joanna Yeates - again a case of judging someone on appearance. She believes that generally we should think more kindly of people, be ready to give then the benefit of the doubt and not jump to assumptions. All these thoughts came together for The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, in which, when something odd happens in the quiet suburban atmosphere of The Avenue, the accusing finger of popular opinion has a ready scapegoat to point at.

Interviewer Carrie Plitt was curious why The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is set in the long heatwave of 1976. Mainly due to nostalgia, admitted Cannon, - for the bay City Rollers and Angel Delight, and a time when children were allowed to play freely in the streets - but also from wanting something to bring the residents of The Avenue together - and nothing does that to British people like the weather!

And, possibly that question that authors dread the most, what about her next book? Without going into too much detail we were given some clues - it will be narrated by an elderly woman, and be about growing old, acts of kindness and the legacy one might leave. I can't wait to read it!

The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

review by Maryom


In the summer of 1976, while England suffers under an unnatural heatwave, Mrs Creasy goes missing from her home, Number 8, The Avenue.  Did she just wander off of her own accord? was she abducted? murdered, even? or had she stumbled on the secrets her friends and neighbours keep so carefully hidden? The residents of The Avenue can only agree on two things - the heat makes people do funny things, and the weird guy at number 11 is probably involved somehow... As the rumours spread, ten year old Grace overhears the adults gossiping, picks up on the fear in their voices without really understanding, listens to the vicar talk about goats and sheep, and becomes convinced that if she and her best friend Tilly can only find God, Mrs Creasy is bound to return.

 After a longer than expected Christmas break, this is my first review of the New Year - and what a stunning book to start with! I'm fully expecting this is going to be up there in eleven months among my picks of 2016.

A story of 'Us' and 'Them', The Trouble With Goats and Sheep is an adult story told mainly from a child's perspective, and it was Grace's 'voice' that hooked and held me. The style feels simple and natural, with Grace displaying that curious mix of naivety and insight that children sometimes seem to have. Listening in to the world of adults, Grace hears, often repeats, but doesn't always understand what she's heard, leading to a lot of deadpan-delivery humour. On the other hand, at times her observations can be sharp and cutting, seeing through the evasions that children are fobbed of with and going straight for the truth.
Her child's-eye view of the world is charming, and beautifully captured - but what's happening in that world is unsettling to say the least! For at the heart of this story is a long-hidden secret brought bubbling back to the surface by the disappearance of Mrs Creasy. As summer progresses, and Mrs Creasy shows no signs of returning, the heat and tension rise, and the reader begins to see that behind the respectable lace-curtains something rather nasty has been going on - for this small community has banded together to victimise and ostracise the one person in their street who doesn't quite fit in. Although not necessarily close friends, the residents of The Avenue all get along, share the same set of values and general outlook - except for Walter Bishop at number 11. He's something of a square peg in a round hole, the weird goat among a herd of docile sheep, and a convenient person to blame whenever anything untoward occurs. The author shows how a stray comment can become believed in without a scrap of evidence, how people band together to protect their own but how that soon turns to bullying and intimidation. For a debut novel, this is something rather special, and I'm longing to read whatever Jo Cannon comes up with next!

 I'm not sure if the author personally remembers that long hot summer of 1976 (it's not really polite to ask, is it?) but I can, and can vouch for many of the little details; the half-forgotten food and tv programmes and presenters of the time, the fanatical saving of every drop of water, the parched cracked gardens, the suspiciously green one, often surreptitiously watered after dark, sparking gossip and back-biting among the neighbours but mainly I remember the long glorious sunny days. For me, every summer since then has proved to be rather a disappointment!



If I've enticed you into reading, you don't need to just take my word - there's a free sampler available from the publishers here


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Harper Collins (The Borough Press)
Genre - Adult fiction