THE
ARTIFICIAL ANATOMY OF PARKS
BY
KAT GORDON
THE
BLURB:-
At
twenty-one, Tallulah Park lives alone in a grimy bedsit. There's a
sink in her bedroom and a strange damp smell that means she wakes up
wheezing. Then she gets the call that her father has had a heart
attack.
Years,
before, she was being tossed around her difficult family; a world of
sniping aunts, precocious cousins, emigrant pianists and lots of gin,
all presided over by an unconventional grandmother. But no-one was
answering Tallie's questions: why did Aunt Vivienne loathe Tallie's
mother? Who was Uncle Jack and why would no-one talk about him? And
why was everyone making excuses for her absent father?
As
Tallie grows up, she learns the hard way about damage and betrayal,
that in the end, the worst betrayals are those we inflict on
ourselves. This is her story about the journey from love to loss and
back again.
THE
REALITY:-
I
bought this during a day trip to one of my favourite places-
Painshill Park- from their second-hand book bin. But I began to read
it during a time when I couldn't devote myself to reading- I think,
by default, I visited (and blogged about) six other tourist
attractions. This book was an interesting read but in no way
gripping, so I found it easy to put down, and slightly less easy to pick up upon the thread. The Park family seemed to have a lot of
relatives; some of whom were obscure and some not, so I had to kind
of revisit sections to work out who was who and how who was related
to whom, etc, etc. I realise that this is my fault, not the
author's!
This
novel is what I would call a slow-burner; in other words, a catchy
read with a gently unfolding trot towards the finale rather than a
gallop. Having said that, I liked the character of Tallie a lot, and
could certainly relate to her teenage angst. I loved the
descriptions of life within her boarding school (my next novel has a
character who goes to boarding school, so this was all good research)
and also empathised with the long hot summers she spent at her
grandmother's house. They were reminiscent of my own childhood;
marooned somewhere between town and country, and Tallie's closeness
with the old lady (a woman with depth) was touching and evocative.
It's intriguing the way that secrets and lies exist within every
family and can shape people's lives.
I
did however work out, quite early on, that (spoiler alert!) Jack was
Tallie's real father. Tallie manages to get to the bottom of
everything, but only after a long estrangement from the man she
believes to be her father. Incidentally, he did step up to the
plate and do his job properly- it's just that, like a lot of that
generation, he perhaps didn't know how to express his emotions
effectively. Oh, I could identify with Tallie's adolescent
anger... As well as living alone at only age 16... And also living in
the King's Cross area of London... Tallie lived there in 1997,
exactly when I did (although I would have been a tad older).
Although the character is about ten years younger than me, I could
certainly relate to the 1990s background and trends.
I
liked the way this novel explored our closest relationships with
friends and family (I would- my work is on the same theme) and I'm so
glad that Edward's heart attack forced Tallie to confront her aunts
and her father, and Toby. This novel explained its motive
towards the end, and I'm pleased that everyone seemed to get the
happy(ish) ending they deserved. I suppose I would call
this a soul searching book (Tallie was forced to take a long, hard
look at herself and her nearest and dearest) and it did this with
aplomb. I loved the way the book was divided into sections
inspired by human organisms (heart, skin, bones and blood) and some
of the parts I devoured the most were the beginnings of the sections,
where compact medical explanations took place. I like to learn
something new and I certainly did via the biological descriptions.
A good read and I will certainly look out for more work by this
author.
