powerful insights
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What an interesting read. Initially I didn't want to read much beyond the beginning when I knew that something awful was going to happen. But I did and it does. And then it's just a downward slide to an almost inevitable end.
But the book is compelling; Helen Walsh writes with real insight into lives and I suspect not all of this is fiction. The book made me cry at the end; but I could never say I am sorry I read it. I think it's a wonderful book, well written and incredibly real.
Wish I could find an e-mail address for her to tell her how much I liked her writing.
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Completely drawn in
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I'm not into chick lit, and I'm glad this is so much more.
I'm not ashamed to say the story drew me in so deeply that I wept at the end. This book taps into extremely deep and powerful emotions and you can't help but feel incredibly strongly for the Fitzgeralds.
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Better than Brass!
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Wow! I have just finished reading Once upon a time in England and it has
hit me as powerfully as my all time favourites did twenty years ago.
This novel is an emotional rollercoaster with a finale that had me
using every ounce of self control not to burst into tears.
This is undoubtedly the best novel I have read in years.
If you only read one novel this year, make it this one.
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An excellent antidote to 70s and 80s nostalgia
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Once Upon a Time in England - where to start? The initial ingredients are: the 1970s, the north of England, and a mixed marriage. You know something bad is going to happen.
Robbie is a carrot headed man of Irish heritage, living in Warrington. He sings with showbands and goes down a storm. Susheela is a Malay Indian from Kuala Lumpur who came to England to train as a nurse and find a husband. She found Robbie. Helen Walsh visits the family at three significant times - 1975, 1981 and 1989. In the first installment, Robbie and Susheela are in love; they have a young son Vincent and Susheela is expecting a second. But there are already tensions. The couple already seem to be divided on the question of exotic spice - whether in food (Susheela would like some, Robbie wouldn't) or in life in general. Robbie finds himself ostracized for his mixed marriage and he seems to find escape in his singing. Meanwhile, Susheela is threatened, and before long is raped in her own home by a gang of skinheads as part of a racial assault. Susheela tries to play it down - she decides to tell neither the police nor Robbie what really happened, but in truth she has lost her confidence for ever. By way of escape, she aims to integrate herself into white suburbia, surrounding herself with symbols of bland safety. And from this unpromising start, the family's lives start to unravel over the course of the next fourteen years.
The success of the novel is the enormity of what it takes on. It addresses a whole heap of social issues - race, mixed marriage, rape, homosexuality, queer bashing, drugs, social class, adultery, ambition, and the list goes on. Yet the skill is that it never feels as though it is ticking issues off on a list. Susheela is not a token Asian; Vincent is not a token gay; Ellen is not a token teenage rebel. Nobody is there to play a part, rather the story unravels around people who are, simply, themselves. That results in a work that is very engaging, very credible and very intense. The depth of the problems and issues makes for a very rich experience.
It's also striking that Helen Walsh avoided the trap of creating one-dimensional victims. To a great extent, the characters do not help themselves. There is the feeling that, for example, Vincent is not bullied because he is black, but because he is weak. There is wrong choice after wrong choice. Moving to Thelwall; not reporting the rape; choosing the wrong school bag; buying the wrong car; going to the wrong school; ... It is a catalogue of distasters, some of which might even be funny if they were not so tragic. This is lightened by the occasional glimmer of hope - Ellie's scholarship to the private school; Vincent's writing prize; Robbie's affair; Susheela's friendship with (horrors) Robbie's boss's wife. But each hope proves to be a false dawn.
The ending, when it comes, is both noble and squalid. It shocks to the core.
The novel is not without fault. There are a couple of glaring anachronisms. And more worryingly, the first thirty or forty pages felt like wading through a thick fog of alliteration and flowery language that obscured all meaning. Perhaps this died back after the opening chapters or perhaps the rape had an immediacy that broke through the over-writing. But once the first tension has been built, and seen through to a horrific denouement, there is nothing more to distract - just pure, raw, deep emotion.
Once Upon a Time in England is a valuable testament to the times and places it describes. 1970s and 1980s England was a hard place to grow up. Young people had to make conscious decisions about whether to take a path of racism and bigotry, or whether to take a more liberal view. Many felt enormous social pressure to swing to the right. This is an unsentimental depiction of the effect that such decisions, such pressure had on fellow man.
Once Upon a Time in England is an excellent antidote to 70s and 80s nostalgia. They were not glory days, they were hard times.
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Not the sort of book i would normally read but i,m glad i did.
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I am a voracious reader yet this type of book (contemporary urban fiction I suppose) is not the sort of thing I would normally read. I usually read sci-fi , fantasy , horror thrillers or non- fiction yet for some reason I wanted to read this book and whatever sixth sense made me want to do that was especially well attuned that day For Once Upon A Time In England is a stunning memorable book.
I assume it's fair to call Once Upon A Time In England a modern kitchen sink drama though it is also fair to say it covers more universal theme's like how bigotry and racial intolerance tear families and communities apart and breed more intolerance. The story starts in the 1970,s where flame haired Robbie Fitzgerald is married to his Malaysian born wife Susheela .They have a baby son Vincent and a daughter Millie and live on a working class estate in Warrington where people ordering Chinese take aways are viewed with suspicion so this family are ideal targets for the local extremists. The story moves into the 1980,s and the family have moved into a more affluent part of town yet they are still treated with wariness and more subtle and sly forms of racism as high unemployment and the menacing rise of the BNP cast a vindictive shadow over the family.
What makes this book so terrific is that Helen Walsh has not only got a pragmatic handle on these characters but also of the times they set in . The music , fashion socio-politics (It helps that Helen Walsh has led a fairly colourful life herself) are all spot on and there are helpful doses of earthy humour. The ending is tragic and moving yet importantly retains an edge of hope as Vincent claws his life back for himself. It's very rare for a book to leave me with a lump in my throat but this book did.
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