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It is difficult to review this novel without giving its plot away. In the first part, set in 1970, we have a good picture of Tom, a quietly charismatic but somewhat unworldly left-wing academic; of a family living in a house with lots of admirers dropping in all the time, and of what his eleven/twelve year old daughter Sarah makes of it all (though her vocabulary seemed to me to belong to someone rather older). That part is told by Sarah in the first person. The relationships within that family - Tom, his second wife Rachel, Sarah the daughter of his first marriage, and her half-siblings Kate and Jack - are subtly described, both then and later.

In that year 1970 a young woman, Karen, works briefly for Tom, and becomes very important for Sarah. Then Karen suddenly leaves.

The rest of the book is a third person narrative of what happened to Sarah and Karen in the fourteen years that follow. In that time both women have developed into something damaged; both felt somehow as outsiders. For both, the events of 1970 had left painful memories.

In that time things have also happened to Tom - partly as the result of what had happened in 1970, and partly because his brand of Labour was regarded as old-fashioned by the younger generation who were adapting themselves to the exigencies of Thatcherism.

Given that I must not reveal the plot, this is a woefully inadequate review of a complex novel. I don't myself agree with one reviewer quoted on the back, who describes its language as `stunning': I found it in a few places a little obscure; but the ambivalence at the very end - back in the first person - is perfectly judged. I do recommend it.

In the heady days of the late 1960s, an eager young twentysomething insinuates herself into the home of a noted intellectual and the heart of his twelve year-old daughter. An unequal, slightly sinister and yet affectionate relationship develops between the two females before disillusionment and scandal intervene. Only when both reach adulthood during the equally emotive early years of Thatcherism do they attempt to reconcile their past with the future. This debut novel is a triumph; told with a rare understanding of the emotions and worldview of both protagonists, an effortless recreation of the atmosphere of the times, and an exquisite use of language. Highly recommended.