Fiction: July 2006 Archives

With interspersed diversions in the form of sleepover parties, friendships and amorous intentions with her boyfriend Jay, the novel for the most part centres around Finch’s quest to find her father.

Finch’s irreverent style of writing and her vivacious take on life make it difficult not to be swept along by the narrative of this enjoyable novel. Great care with typography, design and illustration of the book help to lend an authentic air to the novel as a twelve-year-old’s diary. Orchard Books have placed the rights page at the end of the novel in order that it constitutes less of an intrusion to readers.

A cliff-hanger ending whereby Finch meets her father and his family but does not entirely see eye-to-eye with them leaves open a great chunk of her life-to-come a factor which might well influence any proposed fourth instalment to the series…?!

After the acrimonious separation of her mother and father, the eponymous Scarlett inherits the wrath and hurt her mother feels. She thereby disassociates herself from her father. This manifests itself in acts of rebellion and anger quite singular for a twelve-year-old child.

At the end of her tether, Scarlett’s mother, who after leaving her husband has become a high-flying professional, makes the decision that as a last, ‘last chance’ her daughter would be best placed with her father, his new partner and child. Furious that her own views and voice with regards to her future have been so much marginalised Scarlett treads a familiar path of self-destruction. However, meeting Kian a mysterious boy with a horse, allows Scarlett opportunity to reflect upon some of the hurt and pain in her life, which become the first steps in the long-walk toward healing.

There are many writers whose novels burst at the seams with their glut of grievances and ungracious depictions of the children they concern. Few writers explore ‘problems’ and ‘issues’, with the grace, warmth and sincerity with which Cathy Cassidy’s do. Her writing shows an awareness that it is subtlety of style and it is the small unobtrubsive details that makes for profundity and lasting imprints upon mind and memory of readers…

The novel opens dramatically during Chloe’s involvement in a road traffic accident. Chapters are interspersed between past and present and Chloe has all the appearances of a highly intelligent though somewhat insular girl. Conscious of her supposed inadequacies, Chloe is reticent about making friends but soon develops strong bonds with Delia and Robbie, two other children within the hospital.

A clear juxtaposition between the insular and private family life of Chloe and the extrovert school based existence of Robbie is posited. An over-arching question as to what is most natural, normal or grounding for child-development is posed.

The ‘hothouse’ evokes parallels between nature and childhood of the kind that have a great ancestry in children’s literature – think about the woodland environs in “Children of the New Forest”, the fervour of natural life and the cycle of the seasons in “The Wind in the Willows” and of course the regenerative qualities nature holds in “The Secret Garden”. Here the parallel between nature and childhood is restricted and confined within the heat of an oppressive domesticity, analagous perhaps of our society whose legislative aims for child protection are perhaps limiting growth and development.

Towards the end of the novel as the secret that Chloe’s mother, Marian has been keeping is revealed, the ‘hothouse’ that has played so formative a role in Chloe’s childhood years is shattered. A well-realised, thought-provoking and highly unusual novel.