The Lightning Tree

by Emily Woof

This is a story of two young people who fall in love - and then life gets in the way.

Ursula is part dreamer, part radical in the making. Raised in a matriarchal household by a CND-loving activist, she is impatient to begin a life of adventure.

But this is Newcastle in the mid-80s where girls are getting permed and their dreams go no further than copping off down the Bigg Market.

Then Ursula meets Jerry, a class warrior from the wrong side of town, intellectually hungry, erudite and ambitious. It is a meeting of bodies, souls, minds and ideals.

Keen to pursue the road less travelled, Ursula heads to India while Jerry goes to Oxford and the promise of politics and power. As Ursula searches for answers, she is soon drifting - and Jerry loses touch. What happens to young love when it is tested by real life?

The Lightning Tree is a lyrical and funny novel for fans of The Line of Beauty and The Marriage Plot.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Historical Fiction

328 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2015

About the author

Born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Emily Woof has written for stage, film and radio.

Her plays include Sex III for the Royal Court, Revolver and Going Going for the South Bank Centre, and, for BBC Radio 4, Pianoman, Baby Love and Home to the Black Sea.

She wrote and directed Meeting Helen for FilmFour, and directed the prize-winning short film Between The Wars. She has also worked as a trapeze artist and actor; her screen credits include Oliver Twist, The Full Monty, Pandaemonium, This Year's Love and Velvet Goldmine.

Her first novel The Whole Wide Beauty was published to great acclaim in 2010.

She lives in London with her husband and two children.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another tricky one to review, because I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. Emily Woof is clearly a talented writer who deserves to be better known, and much of this book covers ground that is very familiar to those of us who grew up in 80s Britain. Framed by a conventional love story, the rest of the book covers a lot of ground, part rites of passages story telling the parallel stories of Ursula and Jerry, two children of very different Newcastle backgrounds, whose love story is constantly frustrated by their incompatible expectations and by the sometimes malign influence of Ursula's grandmother "Ganny Mary", whose background in Padiham, a Lancashire milltown overlooked by Pendle Hill (the one famous for its witches) is explored in some detail. Some of the descriptions, particularly of 80s left wing politics are accurate and often funny, and there are some very striking passages, but the whole is a little uneven and I found my attention wavering at times.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this book solely because the blurb talked about growing up in the 1980s, which was my era. It turned out to be so much more though. It was really interesting following Ursula coming of age, meeting the different people in her life and wondering how everything would turn out for her. I even managed to overlook the absence of speech marks (which usually really irritates me). A great read.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ursula grows up in a house of mirrors and though she tries to avoid looking at her reflection, she cannot. So it is apt that she is the chameleon of this story, changing her appearance, her style, her clothing, so that as the years pass she seems a different person.
‘The Lightning Tree’ is the twin story of Ursula and Jerry. She lives in Jesmond, a nicer area of Newcastle, and through her childhood she passes close to Jerry, who grows up in a flat at the rougher Byker Wall. When they do meet, there is a connection. Their lives run in parallel, twisting and turning, sometimes together, other times far apart. It is a love story, and an un-love story. How it is to fall in love as an adolescent and then see that love challenged into maturity, changing priorities, changing values, changing circumstances. Jerry, his nose always in a book, goes to Oxford and seems destined for politics. Ursula, less academic, goes to India where she undergoes something of a ‘Marabar Caves’ experience which is not really explained and which I still didn’t understand at the end of the book.
Interwoven with Ursula and Jerry’s stories is that of Ursula’s Ganny Mary, her rural Lancashire upbringing, and how her life was affected by the death of her father and the change in her mother Annie who had her own ‘Marabar Caves’ experience, up Pendle Hill in Lancashire.
There’s no doubting the energy in this book, but I did find the storyline confusing, there are so many surplus characters who we never really engage with, and Ganny Mary never ages. It is an enigmatic book, but one which I struggled to really grasp. A small aside – I love the cover, but then I do love trees!

[Moira · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and looked forward to getting back to it whenever I had to stop reading. It’s a love story beset with obstacles of different personalities and diverging paths, and there’s an underlying theme (I think) of the past repeating itself in the future. The setting in Newcastle is beautifully done, and the story and characters are sad, funny and always interesting but if I had to do an ‘elevator pitch’ for it, I wouldn’t be able to hit on why this story stands out from a lot of others. However, having said that, it’s really well written and wholly engaging. I would definitely like to read more by Emily Woof.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Echoing what others have said, this book started off quite interesting but as I continued reading I found it a struggle to finish; on the whole I found it fairly bland and loose, but with some nice phrasing, characterisations and, in parts, planning. Probably won't remain on the shelf.

[Robert Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I didn't deliver on the earth shattering insights or changed my life in any tangible way, I enjoyed reading this book. These styles seem to almost get in the way of the story at first, but that soon smoothed out as I got used to it. This book this story contains slices of life from a family, I wonder if it's that of the author. It doesn't really matter because, well, we're all just slices of life really. Really. What I mean to say, is that we contain life, we live life, we are life. It's nice to be involved in someone else's life. Life sometimes when one's own life is a little less than super. Not that this is such a super life in this books. It's entertaining all the same. My life has entertaining. Perhaps I should write.

[Book Grocer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Purchase The Lightning Tree here for just $7!

This moving, though somewhat inconsistent, coming-of-age love story set in 1980s Newcastle traverses the very different life trajectories of middle-class Ursula and working-class Jerry, who end up in a poverty-stricken part of India and Oxford University respectively. The novel explores themes of class, privilege and guilt and it is difficult not to become invested in the fate of the believable characters Woof has created. The Lightning Tree is worth a read.

Nadishka - The Book Grocer

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would like to give this 3.5 stars. There was a lot to like and the setting and characters were believable and interesting. There seemed to be a lot of people reaching for something and not finding it. The only fulfilled people seemed to be Joyce and Peter and they are criticised for neglecting Ursula. But the main idea seems to be the apocalyptic epiphany though this does not lead to nirvana. At least, not until the last line when it seems to be equated with God. I felt a slight sense of anti-climax at what seemed to be a 'happy ever after' ending.

[Yalan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an uneven read. It’s purportedly a love story but the romance I found not quite believable, with the central characters rather flat. Worse, a huge chunk of the book was devoted to the grandma’s story which detracted from the love story and ended up being quite unimportant in the end. Wasn’t a fan of the writing either - didn’t like the liberties taken with time jumps via the omniscient third. The final third of the book was what interested me, especially Ursula’s struggles with her son. But it was ultimately a relief when I finished this, as it meant I can move on to something else.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

It begins with a passonate description of true love and emotion. And follows that with 300 pages of deeply unlikable characters, and time skips that take away from the emotional buildup. There is nothing to appreciate in these characters. And they have not grown when they inevitably reunite. They remain the same awful, non self aware characters so full of their own personalities that there is no room for anything else.

[Dearbhla O’Regan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5☆, rounded up

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A different style of writing and no speech marks but enjoyable once I got into it. It’s a good story primarily about Ursula, starting as a child, through her loves, travels and struggles.

[Lydia Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of references to god, feeling things & spirituality which doesn't interest me at all. A nice story of U & J over the years which I did enjoy but a lot of waffle about stuff that didn't really
add to the story.

[Anne Goodwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ursula is from middle-class Jesmond while Jerry hails from the working-class Byker Wall. They first come across each other in the town centre aged eleven, but they don’t meet properly until, aged fourteen, Jerry’s hairdresser sister escorts Ursula home after a new hairstyle goes drastically wrong. But Jerry has to wait another three years for Ursula to ditch her boyfriend for him, after which they spend an idyllic year sharing their bodies and minds. Then their paths divide: Ursula’s to India to help out in a school for children with disabilities; Jerry’s to Oxford University where he’s torn between his commitment to overthrowing class-privilege and his intellectual and political ambitions. They exchange letters, confirming their attachment to each other while sharing their mutual bewilderment at the worlds in which they’ve found themselves. After a few months, Ursula’s letters dry up until she returns to England, waiflike and mentally adrift. When they try, and fail, to pick up their relationship again, Jerry gives voice to the distance that has grown between them:
Continued on my blog http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...

[Simea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly enjoyable read. I found this book exciting as it catapults you through time, changing gears constantly throughout whilst keeping the forward momentum. Woof obviously chose to play with the context of time and devilishly does so, weaving us through the ebb and flows of the two main characters lives, intermittently syncing them. She easily makes the reader/s want, crave and feel despair for the same outcome. I thoroughly enjoyed this read mainly due to the playing with time, i thought she worked in that realm excellently and it translated well on page.

[Fiona Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book and have a kind of floaty aftertaste of it 2 weeks later - the same thing that happened with 'life after life' , 'behind the scenes at the museum', and very few others . Beautiful love story and lovely northern realism. I liked the way that jerry's reaction to Ursula's 'enhanced state' was despite his self knowledge exactly the same as that of her grandfather to her grandmother's entrancement - and that finally we find this out in the end.

[Michael Lonegro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uneven; nearer to three stars in some places; perhaps four and a half in others. Nicely evocative of place, time, and some rare kinds of ineluctable experience. Catches the way a certain sort of world-defying youthful romantic love thinks of itself for a (longer or shorter) while, and what happens when real lives verge beyond that serendipitous coincidence of connection. Much to admire in the style of the work, even where the story leaves one doubtful.

[Sylvia]

i don't know how to rate this. it really wasn't my jam and i kept hoping it would become my jam but then it ended on notes categorically not my jam.... but it also gives the greatest unintentionally hilarious description of the civic centre ever, and is properly enough geordie to have made me laugh once or twice. in short: ????? stars.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book set in Newcastle and in the 80's. Reminded me of the atmosphere and politics of that time and spoke of places familiar to me. I found the story of the characters believable and enjoyable.

[Helen Stanton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly touching love story

[Merryn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't finish... No thread to the narrative

[Vivienne Strauss · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is somewhere between 3 & 4 stars

[Lisa of Hopewell]

I learned of this book via this blog post: https://alifeinbooks.co.uk/2019/03/si...