An Ocean Apart Book

It's a double-edged sword, being the son or daughter of a famous novelist. Martin Amis quickly established the fact that his novels were nothing at all like his father Kingsley's, and one approaches Robin Pilcher's novel wondering if it's in the rich and detailed style of his mother Rosamund. The answer is yes and no: the characterisation has the evocative and sweeping quality of his mother's, but his narrative is tougher and more concerned with the present than the effects of the past. When his wife dies of cancer, David Costorphine finds himself totally unable to cope. Withdrawing from his three children and the family whiskey business, he escapes into his much-loved garden, establishing an order there that is not possible in the rest of his life. When he is forced by business to go to America, his rehabilitation begins when he meets the remarkable Jennifer and her son Benji. As he builds a relationship with both mother and son, a disturbing discovery forces him to return home and come to terms with the neglect he's been practising. Pilcher's prose is much more forceful and less elegiac than his mother's, but it's clear that he shares her narrative gifts. Slowly An Ocean Apart begins to exert an inexorable grip on the reader, and David's fate becomes a matter of concern and interest. --Barry ForshawRead More