Customer Reviews

Faraway

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Faraway is a biography about Tom and Diana Hepworth who after WWII decided to trade the UK for a paradise in the sun, i.e. Pigeon Island in a remote province of the Solomon Islands. This story is mainly based on the diaries of Tom Hepworth and written by Lucy Irvine, who spend a year in the island for research and had an earlier island living experience as written down in Castaway. The story learns that living in a tropical paradise is actually very hard labour to keep it up. Besides practical and distance related problems, troubles with the locals and local traditions are continues problems to be dealt with. In case of the Hepworths, a stiff upper lip, working hard and unquestioned love for each other and sticking to all that is what keeps the dream going, but at a price. As this way of life was dream of choice for Tom and especially Diana, it wasn't for their children. The way the daughter's mental condition is being dealt with, as in: it'll be alright as long as we put our minds to it, is a bit of a metaphor for the story as a whole.

As commissioned by Diana Hepworth, the book was meant as a realization of a never fulfilled ambition of Tom Hepworth to write a book about the life and times of their dream. The Hepworth story is alternated by Irvine's own account of living on Pigeon Island together with her sons. This enlivens the book with an extra storyline, plus it allows Irvine to take a more personal (and needed) look at the Hepworth story. Because of this, despite everyone having their problems, you can't help having a lot of respect for all involved, especially Diana. Although the book focuses a lot on family relations and emotions, it's a very well written book that ought to be ranked high in Pacific literature.

Lucy Irvine is enlisted by the strong-willed Diana Hepworth, who has been living on Pigeon Island for the past 40 years, to live for one year on Pigeon Island and write her story.
Lucy, not one to be pushed around herself, takes her three sons to the island and records Diane and Tom's story of sailing around the world for ten years and then settling on Pigeon island to raise a family in paradise.
The book is a combination of Lucy's year on Pigeon Island with the Hepworth's experiences there. She pulls no punches, presenting the bad with the good. Photos are included of the family, the local islanders and Lucy and her sons. It's a fascinating story and very compelling reading. Her dreamy descriptions of the warm water and sun made me long for the sea. I was under the book's spell until I could finish it.

Having had the experience of 3 weeks on Pigeon Island in 1996, I read the book with fascination. It certainly brought memories back. I wish I could have added my stories for background information. I found the book very real and very sympathetic to the individual personalities. I can also vouch for "Lucy getting it right". Well done.

Another gripping real life adventure by Lucy Irvine.She really manages to be empathetic with a wide range of cultures as well as remaining unusually self-aware. The interweaving of her current experience on a remote island with the life histories of the English couple who settled there and the local inhabitants is really fascinating.

a good read by lucy irving, world traveler ,and feisty writer, that has had a few ups and downs, but never loosing her perspective, on her family and writing

Lucy Irvine is a deeply underestimated author,perhaps because of her exotic and unsettled life. Her examination of the culture of Pigeon Island is extraordinarily sensitive. She is unsparing and intense in her search for the truth that underlies the Hepworth's relationship with the inhabitants of this Pacific corner and, by extension, all cultures with an unknown counterpart. Lens-like,she misses nothing that is humane or fragile or beautiful. This was my favorite book for a very long time. For a while,Irvine was living in a remote corner of Scotland and now appears to be living in the Balkans.Whatever comes from her pen next is sure to be remarkable.