The Baby

Lisa Drakeford

Chicken House

9781910002230

July 2015

hardback

The party is Olivia’s. The girl with the baby is her best friend Nicola.

I don’t normally enjoy books with multiple narrative viewpoints, but this book is masterfully constructed, so that we experience events from one person’s point of view and then move on to another’s. The author doesn’t fall into the trap of switching back and forth, but continues the momentum of the narrative forward in time as she switches from character to character.

Olivia narrates the first section, February. Nicola takes over in March. Then it’s Alice, Olivia’s younger sister’s turn in April. These three sections, forming just over half the length of the novel, are superb.

By the time the two male narrators, Jonty and Ben, take over in May and June, the novel becomes a little less engaging. I think this is partly because they have already been seen through the other narrators’ eyes, partly because the author is less assured in writing in the masculine voice, but mainly because the introduction of an additional ‘issue’ (Ben’s ‘secret’) is an unnecessary loading of concern into a novel which already has Nicola’s teenage pregnancy, Alice’s autism, Jonty’s anger issues and Olivia’s sense of betrayal to contend with.

This is, nevertheless, a book that can be very heartily recommended, and the author’s next novel eagerly awaited.

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