The Wonder

by Diana Evans

From the acclaimed author of 26a comes a dazzling new novel about the fight to achieve one’s dream, and an unsolved disappearance at the heart of a family.

As a child Lucas assumed that all children who’d lost their parents lived on water. Now a restless young man, and still sharing the West London narrowboat with his sister Denise, he secretly investigates the contents of an old wardrobe, in which he finds relics from the Midnight Ballet, an influential black dance company of the 1960s founded by his Jamaican father, the charismatic Antoney Matheus.

In his search to unravel the legacy of the Midnight Ballet, Lucas hears of hot-house rehearsals in an abandoned Notting Hill church, of artistic battles and personal betrayals, and a whirlwind European tour. Most importantly, Lucas learns about his parents’ passionate and tumultuous relationship and of the events that led to his father’s final disappearance.

Vividly conjuring the world of 1950s Kingston, Jamaica, the Blues parties and early carnivals of Ladbroke Grove, the flower stalls and vinyl riflers of modern-day Portobello Road, and the famous leap and fall of Russian dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Diana Evans creates a haunting and visceral family mystery about absence and inheritance, the battle between love and creativity, and what drives a young man to take flight…

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 8, 2009

About the author

Diana Evans was born and brought up in London. Her bestselling debut novel, 26a, won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers and the British Book Awards deciBel Writer of the Year prize. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, the Guardian First Book, the Commonwealth Best First Book and the Times/Southbank Show Breakthrough awards, and nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Her second novel, The Wonder, was also published to critical acclaim, described by The Times as ‘the most dazzling depiction of the world of dance since Ballet Shoes‘. Evans was nominated for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction for her third novel, Ordinary People, which was a New Yorker, New Statesman and Financial Times book of the year, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. Her fourth novel, A House for Alice, is the highly acclaimed follow-up, for which she was again shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Evans is a former dancer, and her journalism, criticism and essays appear in among others Time Magazine, Vogue, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s Bazaar. She has been an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. www.diana-evans.com

Reviews

[Pam Hutley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this hard to rate. The quality of the writing is easily a 4* but the interest and moving forwards of the story is for me a 3*.
Diane Evans is a master of powerfully evocative descriptive language- at all points appealing to all the senses . She captures an era, culture, the movement of dance, buildings and spaces, characters and their attitudes phenomenally well. However the prose is dense and the story moves slowly. It concerns two narratives one set in the 60’s/ 70’s London and the life and times of Afro Caribbean Antoney. The framework is the story of Lucas, his son trying to find out about his dad ) Antoney) who he thought was dead.
I liked it but it was hard work.

[Mark Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite the most stunning second novel from this widely regarded and Orange New Writers winner. Set in Notting Hill in the mid 90's and also in the 50's, it paints a a tender and insightful portrait of the area, the world of contemporary and expressive dance and the relationships between lost parents and their children, as well as the intense and passionate relationships within a creative dance company. It's laced with beauty, politics and life lessons. Quite remarkable.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was amazing. I found Diana Evans from loving Ordinary People, then read 26a and now this. Her writing is compelling to me and like the other two this book builds and swells, layer after layer of stuff that goes all over the place in depth as well as thread. Some parts are suddenly really funny or off the wall, then others disturbingly dark and all absolutely bloody true. It's a style that demands you to attach to the characters and invest in what happens. I am still bothered about the characters from Ordinary People months and months since reading it so I imagine it'll be the same with this lot.

[Monique · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked this book, the journeys into the past, Lucas learning about himself through rediscovering the life of his theatrical dancer father and mother. I had some hope that Antoney was still alive, I do not know what made me think so, perhaps I thought he really was in Jamaica in contact with Riley, but alas not and that saddened me. Nonetheless I really enjoyed this book and all its elements. Though the use/lack of commas felt weird and grammar fluctuated (but I feel this was more for dialect!)

[Marie Hemingway · Rating 1 out of 5]

Gave up at page 86. Just couldn't get on with it.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

really great writing but I did not connect to the characters or the story.

[Ruth Brumby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flying and falling in dance and in life. I was fascinated by the historical details about black dance companies and by the evocation of areas of London. In the end no-one really makes a successful relationship or becomes a worthwhile person, which may be true to life but is quite depressing in a novel. I was gripped by the characters and believed the details of their existence. I would have liked some more ideas.

[Kaye Arnold · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to enjoy this book, but I found it confusing and simply not my cup of tea. I finished it, determined to get through it so I could judge it fairly. It's not something I'd recommend to my friends and am unsure who it is pitched at. Perhaps someone with a strong interest in dancing???

[Carol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read.

[Chloë Fowler · Rating 2 out of 5]

I so, so, so loved Ordinary People. All I can say is that this, a much earlier novel, helped pave the way for better books since.

[R.W. / Gillian Westall · Rating 5 out of 5]

complex

History of the Afro Caribbean community in London and their creative and complex lifestyle and life chances and family structures .

[Babus Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucas and his sister, Denise, live in a riverboat and were raised by their maternal grandmother. Their mother died when Lucas was only months old and their father was estranged from their mother before this. With very little information about his father available, Lucas, a budding journalist, decides to track down this father's past and find out where he went and why he left.

This story is told from Lucas' point of view, which alternates with the story of Antoney, his father, from boyhood to his years in a dancing troupe in London. Lucas discovers the tumultuous relationship between his parents and retraces his father's steps.

I thought the book was well written, but the story was not told in a way that made it easy to engage with Lucas, who was largely unaware of what we were learning about Antoney. It felt strange as a reader to be drip Fed details of Antoney's life some thirty years ago, when Lucas, the struggling son had no idea of his father's past.

However, the story does come together to give a haunting ending and immerses itself in the local culture of dance and arts where it is set, in London. Not fast paced or adrenaline infusing, but still a beautifully haunting read about a young man's self-discovery and his long lost father.

[Fran Clark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Struggled to get through this one but it was no reflection on the story but rather how it was told. I just found it a bit long winded but interested enough in where Evans was taking the plot to want to see it through to the end. Also it was based in the area I was raised so that kept my interest. I would say give it a try but I wouldn't call it must read. I would still be keen to read something else by this writer.

[Lynrose · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read the first third, skipped most of the rest and read the final chapter. It was very descriptive and didn't really go anywhere. There are a lot of technical details about dance and normally I like to learn something from a novel but it didn't hold my interest.

[Precious Williams]

I might read this. I might not.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was okay, it took a long time getting into it

[Clair · Rating 5 out of 5]

A real wonder, I read it in French and now have to get an English copy.