Monday 5 December 2011

No blogging recently, for a number of good reasons, so will do a catch-up of what I've read in the past few weeks - not as much as I might have, but some good stuff, such as Gerard Woodward's story Nourishment.This was an intriguing read. Set in south London, starting during World War 2, Tory has recently learned that her decorator husband Donald is missing, eventually turning up as a prisoner of warin Germany. Her children have ben evacuated to the country, her mother has returned from her country cottage, all set to help Tory. Tory herself gets a job in a local gelatine factory, set up by a former boxer turned businessman. One day Tory receives al etter from Donald, asking her to write a sexy letter to him in return. Tory is shocked by this and feels at first she cannot follow this demand, but eventually manages to write a series of extremely erotic letters, due to her having an affair with the gelatine factory owner, which has other consequences. The theme of nourishment has several implications, one being the finding of a joint of meat by Mrs Head, Tory's mother, after the bombing of the local butcher's shop. There is quite a bit of humour in this story, and also a lot of sadness, some of being the results of war and its continuing effects on those who were involved in it.There is a write up here by dovegreyreader and a review here.  I haven't read any other novels by Gerard Woodward, but will be looking out for them, as this was well worth reading.

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