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Ninepins (2012)

by Rosy Thornton(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1905207859 (ISBN13: 9781905207855)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Sandstone Press

review 1: Cambridge academic Laura Blackwood and her twelve-year-old daughter Beth live in Ninepins, a former tollhouse build atop a dyke out in the fens. To help make ends meet, Laura has been renting out the adjoining old pumphouse. As the novel begins, her latest tenant arrives: Willow Tyler, a seventeen-year-old care-leaver. Laura is wary of taking Willow on, because she’s younger than previous tenant, and there are whispers of arson in her past – but she wants to give the girl a chance, and Social Services will pay more rent than would a private tenant. But the subsequent months bring problems with the weather,Willow’s estranged mother, and Beth and her friends.The sense of place is vivid in Rosy Thornton’s new novel – the damp atmosphere of the fens and the remotenes... mores of Ninepins come straight off the page. The dislocated setting provides a fitting background and mirror to the story: Laura starts to feel increasingly distanced from Beth, who’s now getting into trouble in ways she never previously did; and Willow is trying (though not always succeeding) to leave her mother behind. Besides this, the whole book moves along nicely, all adding up to an engaging read.
review 2: I have read all of Rosy Thornton's books and I think that this latest book is by far her best. The subject is much darker than her previous novels but the writing is compelling and atmospheric. Her description of the Cambridgeshire Fenlands is beautiful and you get a real sense of her love for the area.She introduces us to Laura, a divorcee and mother to 12 year old Beth. I believe that any mother with teenagers will identify with Laura's struggle to let her daughter grow up as she moves from the relative safety of the contained environment in primary school to the myriad of new experiences of the secondary school. The child that depended on her for everything and who was the centre of her existence is making the first tentative steps to forging her own way in life and Laura struggles to find the compromise between keeping her daughter safe and letting her spread her wings. At times it made for uncomfortable reading as I recognised the mistakes she was about to make and knew that I would probably have done the exact same in her situation.In contrast to the relationship between Beth and Laura we have Willow, who's experience of family life couldn't have been more different. She was brought up in a series of foster homes after her bipolar mother was unable to care for her and at 17 yrs old is supported by social services and placed in lodgings in Laura's pump house. We get a hint of something a little menacing in Willow's past which is heightened when her mother turns up uninvited at Ninepins.A series of unfortunate events thrust the three women and Vince, (Willow's social worker) together and they all have to adapt their attitudes and learn to make adjustments to accommodate the needs of the others.I would like to have been given a greater insight into Willow's thoughts and feelings, we get a few snip bits in flash backs but they do little to tell us what interests her. We are not told how she fills her days alone at the pump house, nor even what course she is supposed to be doing at the college, or very much about her reaction to certain events such as the arrival of her mother. We are lead to believe that the 2 girls become close and spend time together but at no point do we get any insight into what they actually talk about. At various points I wanted to know what Willow would say to Beth, about her experience of being bullied for example, and I wondered if Willow might not compare her own experiences to Beth's and tell the younger girl to be more grateful for what she already had.There is a love interest in the book in the form of Vince. It is a subtle love story which I like because the main story has to be the relationship between the women, each of them vulnerable and damaged in their own ways. We don't get much of a picture of Laura's married life although her relationship with her ex husband is very amicable and she obviously remains fond of him, but it is very hard to visualise them actually living together as her life is so controlled and his is so chaotic. Vince is an altogether more robust, dependable character and he helps give Laura an insight into her daughter's problems. It's nice that Laura has him to bounce problems off but I'm glad he didn't become a main part of the story.All in all I think that this is Rosy Thompson's most accomplished piece of writing to date. less

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