Ms. Atkinson’s prose style froths with the fizz of the 1920s

I am an avid reader and have been so since I was nine years old. Indeed, I read so much and talked so much about books that my stepfather once remarked I should be a novelist!

Fast forward fifty years and I have actually managed to become an author. But I read books a little differently now, casting my writer’s eye over plot and prose style and character more critically than when I was a girl.

So, it was with great trepidation that I opened this volume, because I wasn’t really in the mood to hear something about the 1920s (I listened to the audio recording), I had never heard of this author before, and so had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that SHRINES OF GAIETY  had received a great deal of praise. 

However, it was not long before I realized what a wonderful writer Kate Atkinson is. Coming off a ill-paced novel with a wooden narrative style, I felt completely safe with Ms. Atkinson, sure that she would make no such slip-ups to ruin my enjoyment (she didn’t.) As I listened to more and more of this novel I became fascinated both by her descriptions of the crazy gaiety of the 1920s, and well as the seamier underbelly of London. Ms. Atkinson’s prose style frothed with the fizz of the 1920s, and also was supple enough to compass, in painful detail, what it was like to be a teenaged girl wandering the streets of London, prey to hunger, thirst and the gropes of any man who happened by. Her descriptions of the Thames were magnificent, so lifelike that the river almost became a character in its own right.

I would describe Ms. Atkinson as a bold writer. She rarely tells you what to think (always a sign of great confidence in an author.) She cuts scenes before they come to a natural end. And she is not above letting two main characters just hang, at the end of the novel, with no decision made about their futures! I loved the fact that I had no idea what was going to happen, and the endings were not something I would have guessed.

Some readers complained that there was no protagonist in this novel, but that didn’t bother me in the least. I loved all the strong female characters as well as the unpredictable men they spent time with. If you love the 1920s, and want to read a vivid recreation of the parties and scandals in shining prose that doesn’t sound like something off the back of a cereal box, then this is the novel for you! Five stars. 

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