38 Our Endless Numbered Days - Claire Fuller
I didn't really like this book, having read a couple of others by the author, one in particular that I found excellent. This is the story of a young girl Peggy, set mid '70s when she is aged about 7 or 8, living in North London with her successful, German pianist mother, and her English father some 7 years younger, when as a good looking 17 year old when he captures Ute's heart, having done nothing much more in life than turn her sheet music at concert halls when required.. Ute is the breadwinner, and James the father spends most of his days meeting up with a group of friends making plans for a post apocalyptic world, also a theme in The Bee Sting. A marital crisis trigger, sends father and daughter ostensibly off on a European holiday, but ultimately to some remote forest deep in Bavaria way off the beaten track. Dad has been told about "Die Hutte" which roughly translates to shack and this is where they spend the next decade eeking out an existence living off squirrels, rabbits, fish and berries, plentiful in the summer, but as their supplies dwindle in the winter reducing them to near starvation levels, young Peggy often in the throes of hunger whiles away those cold days dreaming constantly of her mother's food such apflekuchen .Father James spins her the line that everyone in the world is dead including her mother. The novel is told in flashback, Peggy back home at the age of 17 when a decade has passed and the time setting is now the mid '80s. In the meantime a younger brother was born just after her departure who she is getting to know. The tale is one of survivalists, Peggy embracing their new lives at first when they draw together.As time rolls on her rebellious spirit emerges whilst father James becomes increasingly batshit and eventually as she rebels, resenting their life and no longer hangs on his every word, an inevitable chasm opens up between them, leading to a shocking conclusion.
