Crossed Wires - Rosy Thornton

[bookgazing]

(Full disclosure time – this novel was sent to me for free by the author, with the understanding that I would produce an entirely honest review.)

Mina works in a car insurance call centre, dealing with pushy people all day. She lives in her mum’s old house with her book obsessed daughter Sal and her unreliable younger sister Jess. Her mum lives with her boyfriend Dave and won’t have anything to do with Jess. With effectively two children to worry about Mina finds her social life severely restricted by her overactive conscience.

Peter is a geography professor at Cambridge university, responsible for twin daughters and a hermaphrodite cocker spaniel. Peter is immediately a sympathetic character, if a little fussy, he’s the kind of person who goes to the pub on his own because he’s worried about his PHD student’s finances and wants to create a babysitting job for her. He’s also terribly accident prone and after his neighbour’s cat causes him to crash his car he rings the call centre where Mina works.

Something in their conversation, which strays a little outside of Mina’s work script, sparks an interest between them. After a second car accident allows them to continue their conversation Mina and Peter begin a long distance friendship, which becomes an important bond for both of them. Although apart for the majority of the novel this relationship feels real, as the characters listen to each other’s problems and offer comfort their understanding of each other grows. Could long distance love flourish between two such different people?

One of the things to be celebrated about Rosy Thornton’s ‘Crossed Wires’ is the novel’s wonderful recognition of the diversity of English life. In a world where English writers seem increasingly sure that London is the only place worth describing in England, Thornton sets the majority of her action in Yorkshire and Cambridge. She embraces the unique words and phrases used in these locations, for example the fantastic expression ‘tea that could stop rust’, deftly demonstrating the differences that can be found in this small country. She includes social housing in her novel without demonising its inhabitants, or resorting to the stereotypical image of tower block flats. She includes a traveller community, without using easy ‘gypsy’ stereotypes to portray them. The characters are varied, showing the many different forms of romance and friendship that can be found in England’s communities. Thornton is a novelist who has really looked at England before writing about it and this realism provides a nice counterbalance to the fantasy of the central romance.

At the beginning of the novel the writing feels a little slow, as it fully tracks the physical and mental activities of Peter and Mina. Peter’s thought processes especially seem overly described, but after about twenty pages I realised that this overabundance of detail had sucked me into the main character’s lives quickly. It’s easy to care about Mina and Peter because so much attention has been given to revealing what goes on in their minds and what makes up their worlds. The secondary characters may be more mysterious, as the narrative does not provide direct access into their thoughts, but much can be learnt through the two main character’s interactions with them and by listening to their concerns about these characters. Even Mina’s mysterious sister is illuminated, both by Mina’s thoughts on her history and by the way Thornton fleshes out her absence with other character’s recollected sightings of her. By the end of the novel I felt like I knew the majority of the characters intimately and even the children had their own struggles to face.

The weakest area for me is the set pieces created for comic, or dramatic effect, for example, when Peter holds a firework party at his house the fact that something will go wrong is excessively signalled. Every aspect of setting up the fireworks is described in great detail and it’s clear to see an accident coming from the beginning. When the same level of description that gives such an insight into the characters minds is used to set up a joke, or a particularly dramatic moment it tends to deadens the episodes effect. This type of set piece seems to be discarded as the book progresses and the biggest times of tension and drama were announced quickly, producing a suitable feeling of shock. However the comedy does sometimes suffer from too much preparation, meaning that there are times when you feel Thornton meant an episode to be funnier than it was.

Before I finish let me just mention the lovely cover art. It’s cute, cartoonish and has some lovely small touches like the rings of the tree which are shaped into a heart. It may be pastel pink to attract the eye of female readers who like romance, but the graphics department has avoided the depressing formula of the majority of chick-lit covers, resulting in something more individual and quirky. It fits well with the tone of this original, attentive story of family and romance.

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