- The Children {Charlotte Wood}
The Children by Charlotte Wood is an intriguing story of a family, as normal as most. ‘As normal as most’ includes the usual collection of an elderly mother coming to grips with prospect of a life alone, the private hell of a war correspondent who has seen too much, the self-imposed estrangement of a disenchanted brother, and the struggle of a sibling trying to hold together the whole ungainly mess.
The story opens with the father fixing the roof of the family home, staring at the sky and backyard, considering ideas of memory and the workings of the human brain, and dreaming of things yet to discover in decades-familiar places. When he ungracefully slips to a tragic encounter with the concrete below, the remaining family is forced to reassemble, to confront each other and their inadequacies through and around the backdrop of the brand new intensive care unit of their local hospital. The plot is further complicated by a hospital wardsman whose obsession with a dark secret, unremembered by its protagonist, intensifies to breaking point.
Wood’s writing style throughout is beautifully inclusive of little visual details, and compelling in its study of humanity. However, I did find the opening scenes awkward and unpolished – rather too filled with adjectives for my liking.
Nevertheless, I must say that overall I enjoyed this book. Despite the unwieldy first chapter, and a plot that owes a bit to Hollywood, this story succeeds because the relationships are so beautifully and subtly explored. Relationships are rendered as vivid, living things, and when forced, there are rediscoveries and realisations between siblings and parents who, despite separations, are still bound together in indescribable and indestructible ways.