The Trick to Time - Kit de Waal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I found this a very moving read.  I must warn readers that it does contain a short chapter dealing with still-birth and also mention of mental illness.  But these two very serious subjects are part of the whole;  and the whole is a tender, and powerful read that made my heart hurt.  This is the story of Mona's life - from the death of her mother when she was very small, the loss of her father when she was in her early twenties. It's also the story of her early marriage, which didn't last long, and what she has done since, now approaching her 60th birthday.  For a long time she has made clothes for, and painted the faces of, wooden dolls for collectors.  The dolls are made by a carpenter - a lonely man she seems to feel she must keep an eye on as he appears even sadder than she.  There's also a man about her age who likes to meet her for coffee.  She likes him, but wants nothing further from him - though perhaps he wants more from her?

It jumps about in time, but that didn't worry me at all, I wasn't lost in time, although Mona was, and she was not the only one.  I wonder what I would have done in Mona's shoes?  There are clues everywhere about what has happened, and what is still happening.  There are lovely people who support her, make her smile, and generally guide her through life, but there is also a worrying character or two who turn out quite differently than expected.

I think it's a book to read slowly, because every so often a short sentence appears, seemingly meaning little, but actually opening out Mona's life.  One of those short sentences, which appears during a visit to Birmingham just after her birthday to visit her old friend Val as she does every year, was heartbreaking.  The reader will see that Mona is not the only person in the world to have suffered - for different reasons of course - and she doesn't always think kindly of them because of that.  But all those characters make the book what it is, and make Mona's story so much more.  This is certainly one of my top ten books of the year.