Rachel Elliot’s sweet novel is an easy read for what appears to be such a hefty book and follows the intertwined lives of two families who happened to live next door to each other and created a place of happiness, safety and good memories. Sherry and Leslie and their daughters, Rae and Pauline – and Eve and her son Daniel.
Sherry loves her husband, Leslie. She also loves Eve. It couldn’t have been a happier summer. But then there’s a huge fall out, and Eve moves on again, breaking the spell. Now Daniel is all grown-up and deeply sad, his girlfriend has left him, he’s lost his home, has giving everything away and after a chance meeting starts ponding on the past, on that place where he once felt so safe and happy, with those cherished memoirs of happy summers. The kind of memories that anchor us to an ideal of happiness which we then always somehow long for.
He decides to return to the house, chasing his dream and we follow the strands of disappointment, unrequited love, and hope back to a secret which, as it reveals itself changes everything but leaves everything the same.
The book is a lovely study of the stories we tell ourselves to convince ourselves our actions are right, that we are doing the right thing, that what we see is what we know. It’s also a rather sweet story of redemption and understanding that sometime the huge things we hope for, but are not ready to try for, can wait for us to be ready. The books jumps between 2018 and the ’80s, dropping in and out of the combined lives and as the narrative picks up pace we start to understand what really happened that summer.
Elliot’s prose is graceful and engaging, I enjoyed her writing, the book flows comfortably with believable characters and a real sense of place. Taking place mostly across Norfolk, with the same people in two different phases of their lives, we begin to understand what might have happened, and how the impacts of parents, relationships, shyness, restlessness and expectations have on us growing up, not just into adults from childhood, but also as older people from their early lives.
Elliot’s characters are all complex, slightly damaged people, all doing the best they can, taking chances, wrapping themselves up in work, looking back with anger, nursing long held loves, they feel real and believable. The mix of people allows Elliot to examine different lives from different perspectives, and giving us insights into the lies people tell each other to keep each other safe. They are all kind people too, choosing kindness (or what they think is being kind) as a way of bonding and creating safety. It’s a beguiling plot device which doesn’t necessarily lead to the cosy existence desired.
As the book bounces between the decades, different people drop in and out of the story. It changes style a few times and the chapters become shorter, making the book pick up pace as you read it. There’s a lot of rather delightful power ballads threaded through the book from one of the main characters and I found myself googling them to listen to. Evocative singing and triggered memories of the people in my life who liked them.
Elliot can appear to be a callous author, discarding characters when they’ve done what she needs them to, but the focus changes and there were times when I’d wanted to learn more about a person, or understand their actions deeper, but no such easy plotlines here. Like real life there are times when you just don’t know, that things won’t work out.
The book left me unresolved, like many of the characters in it. That’s the subtle flow of this book; chance. We step in to these lives like a stranger, we step out, we see what we want, we are told what we need to know, sometimes we learn the truth, sometimes that sets us free, sometimes that changes the past and we grow a little more, sometimes it breaks us, but breakdown can be breakthrough.
Flamingo, at its dysfunctional heart, is a story of people learning to let go and grow, to accept and love people regardless of their flaws, to find a radical space in the heart for kindness to flow. It’s a book about chosen family, finding yourself and the way truly being seen is the safest place of all.
This charming book was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2022.
Out now in hardback & paperback, RRP £9.99
For more info or to order the book follow this link to the publishers website
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