Customer Reviews

Loss Adjustor

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This book abounds with examples of loss and mourning. It is perfectly paced and beautifully structured and -written about the idyllic youth of 3 children who live in adjoining houses. Caro lives in the middle house with her taciturn parents. She often eats and spends the night next door on either side with Cormac's and Estelle's warmer and noisier families. The three spend their childhood and youth exploring the wilderness around their isolated hamlet, until puberty begins to cause frictions.

Then, at age 15, fate strikes suddenly and repeatedly. Caro's father dies of a heart attack; his desperate border collie Spike senses more trouble and runs under a passing car; then Estelle meets with violent death and her family moves away almost instantaneously; soon after, musical prodigy Cormac waves goodbye to Caro to fulfill his dream. Caro, the I-person in the novel, stays behind, traumatised, filled with loss.
According to specialists, three months of mourning is normal, quite OK. After that it should be clear to the mourner that life without the deceased is meaningful and possible. If it is not over after three months, treatment is opportune, necessary.

Caro is 35 when she writes about the break up of the trio and her struggle to live a life without them. Professionally, she has done well. She is a brilliant claims adjustor with a major insurance company, but even to her closest associates she remains an enigma. A chance meeting with pensioner Tom in Estelle's cemetery marks the beginning of a new phase in Caro's life.

This is a book full of spirituality, esp. regarding Estelle. It is perhaps a woman's book, but male readers are advised to read Tom's account of passing the sins of fathers onto the children. Rich, engrossing novel. Will buy her debut novel and hope Aifric Campbell will write many more great books like this.

A catching story; some questions remain unanswered. You really feel for the main character. How can one go back and fix problems from the past? It is impossible to go back.