Thanks Gransnet for the copy of this book. It was such a lovely surprise, so smart in its hard back and its pretty dust jacket. And what was inside was just as good. I have just been doing a course on creative writing (yes, another wannabe) and have been thinking about point of view and how authors get inside a character's head and give the character a unique voice. It was good fun to concentrate not only on the story but on how Penelope Lively manages to give each of her characters a particular way of 'speaking' in their internal dialogue. Jeremy always finding a justification for his bad behaviour, and two-timing his mistress with his wife (very clever), Stella never knowing her own mind, Charlotte thinking alternatively about her past and her painful present. Actually I thought the description of pain was very well done.
Another thing that we 'learned' in our creative writing course was that, in a conventional novel, the 'initiating incident' that sets the ball rolling, happens about 25 pages in. By that time we usually know about the main characters, the setting, time and place etc. But good authors are free to break the rules. Here PL puts the incident right at the very start of the book, before we even know who the other characters are going to be. It's very entertaining the way the story unfolds.
I'm looking forward to reading more Penelope Lively!