Ten year old Grace Bennet lives at no.4 The
Avenue, somewhere in England, the only child of Derek and Sylvia. It is the sweltering summer of ’76 and
something is amiss in the cul-de-sac of eight dwellings. Mrs Creasy has gone missing.
It has been reported to the police by Mr
Creasy and among the adults in The Avenue speculation is rife. Grace and her best friend Tilly decide to
help find the ‘lost’ Margaret Creasy with an approach culled from a confusing
sermon by the local vicar, who advises that the way to avoid getting lost is to
‘find God’. Grace and Tilly proceed to
look for God among the neighbours.
Thus we are introduced to the residents and
while Grace narrates throughout, her daily updates are alternated with private
glimpses into the lives, past and present, of the likes of the officious Mr
Forbes and his dominated wife, the thoughtful but ineffective Eric Lamb, the
nervous ‘thin’ Brian who lives with his mum Mrs Roper, and the brassy single
mum Sheila Dakin. Then there is Walter
Bishop who lives alone at no. 11 and is shunned by the rest for a perceived
misdemeanour years previously.
It is a multi-layered read. The innocent perspicacity of Grace’s comments
on the adults’ behaviour is brilliant; her deep affection for Tilly, punctuated
by casual cruelty, rings true. The
unfolding of the adult relationships is darker and the gradual revelation of
past misdeeds is very well done – right to the very end. In all the use of language is original and
vivid.
That there is good and bad in everyone is
made clear enough. Although the vicar’s
sermon tells of how God will separate the sinful goats from the righteous
sheep, for Grace, as a mere human, the trouble is that it is not always easy to
tell the difference.
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