Flyleaf

by Finuala Dowling

Book by Dowling, Finuala

Genres: Fiction

253 pages, Paperback

Published May 30, 2007

Reviews

[Amanda Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Violet is a failed academic approaching middle age. Her husband, Frank, is an actor with a narcissistic personality to rival that of Tom Cruise. Violet followed her heart and the childlike Frank out of Cape Town and into the ‘perfect’ country life.



All goes well until Frank announces that he has fallen in love with the exotic, eccentric Isabella. She is also pregnant. He suggests that the 3 of them make a life together.



Violet decides to leave. She takes refuge with a childhood friend, man magnet, Marina, and her son, Leo. Violet battles financially but her love for words and grammar sustains and delights her. She creates a new life with a motley assortment of students, an out of work actor, Tebogo, Ralph a serial seducer and her colleague Liam.



Violet breaks free of her past and reinvents herself, dignity intact.



If you like stories of betrayal and loss and redemption, you will enjoy Flyleaf. If you like these tales and enjoy exploring the nuances of the English language, you will love Flyleaf.



A must for fans of Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book. The images are evocative of life in Cape Town, certainly for anyone who's ever lived here. The story is lyrical and well-written. Violet, the main character, is a teacher that is paid by the hour. She's just separated from her husband, who got another woman pregnant, and this is her story. The book is littered with half-formed characters that you'd love to learn more about. If only Violet would just ask the right questions, then maybe you'd know. But she doesn't, and the characters remain enigmatic, as the rare glimpses and snippets of their lives that Violet sees are all that you are given. Written with the pacing of life in Cape Town [by which I mean it is slow], the writing clearly communicates the feeling of drifting on the ocean that has recently enveloped Violet's life. More enjoyably, Violet is an English teacher and the book is littered with observations, witticisms and simple lessons on the English language and how it's used.

[Tiah]

Like drinking a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc. The author is clearly a player of words, and consequently, so is her main character. English majors and lovers of language may take great delight in these playful prose. However, I will readily admit this is the type of book that would make my engineering husband cringe. That said, I highly enjoyed it.

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a "big" book. It's intimate, and still, and hopeful. And beautiful, too. Not stellar or shattering, but the experience of it is still so utterly felt. Do yourselves a favour and read the author's poetry - it's the reason I knew the name to pick up the novel. Her volume called "I Flying" is absolutely friggin wonderful.

[Kathy]

An excellent book written by a talented local author. As her other book, What a Poet Needs, Finuala Dowling sets her stories in Kalk Bay, Cape Town. Her ability to convey characters is what makes these books good to read. The stories are simple and realistic; her characters are not necessarily ordinary but easy to relate to and to find one's own life somewhere in their lives.

[Annie Holmes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laughed out loud reading it on the plane. I love her mind and the word play.

[fringedecon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gently inspiring. This story left me with a sense of warmth and easiness for whatever the future may hold.

[Hjwoodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the setting and how the neighbourhood becomes real with descriptions of the sea and the kelp.

[Azu Rikka]

DNF page 147
I have read five of the author's other works and liked them much more, so didn't want to waste my time with classroom chatter...

[Lauren Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flyleaf is a tired sigh of rambling detail. Part of its weariness is perhaps the result of the fact that I've read this story before, in Dancing Naked at the Edge of the Dawn by Kris Radish. In both novels, a university-educated woman who has unwisely married too young leaves her unfaithful husband and goes to stay with her best friend, giving her a chance to ‘find herself’ and decide what she wants out of life. The best friend is a beautiful, free-spirited, self-confident hippy, in stark contrast to our dull, meticulous protagonist and her insecurities. Yawn.

Read the full review on my blog Violin in a Void