February - Lisa Moore

Advantages: Disadvantages: The cover is attractive but has nothing to do with the book

When the phone rings in the middle of the night, Helen thinks it must be bad news again. Nearly 27 years ago her oil rig worker husband died at sea on 14 February 1982 (Valentine's Day), leaving her with three children and a fourth on the way.

This time, no one has died - her son John is travelling round the world but a woman he had a brief fling with is pregnant with his baby. He was phoning from Singapore. What should he do?

February is Canadian novelist Lisa Moore's second novel (she has also published two collections of short
stories) and was longlisted for the Booker Prize. It is a thoughtful, contemplative book about coming to terms with the past and a different future from the one the characters envisaged. The narrative shifts between Helen and John, and also Jane, the pregnant woman. This is not a story with fast paced action and a tight plot - it is a narrative of thoughts, and while the characters have family and friends to interact with, they spend a lot of their time here alone with their thoughts. I found all this introspective reflection surprisingly compelling.

Helen remembers meeting John, marrying, getting pregnant, and the night he died in a storm. Shockingly, the oil company didn't even tell the families of the drowned men directly, but suggested they listen to the news on the radio.

This novel is beautifully written. I found Helen's story of her past, of coming to terms with what has happened and moving on from it, very moving. There was enough description of her relationship with her husband Cal to really sense the extent of her loss when he died. John was a more annoying character. I could sympathise with his confusion about Jane's pregnancy, as he had clearly expected a no strings fling and never to see her again. I was outraged though when he took on a job working for an oil company to identify where they could cut corners on health and safety bureaucracy, and it was all the more shocking because of the nature of his father's death.

Like several other recent novels including Room by Emma Donoghue (shortlisted for the Booker in 2010), Moore has taken the inspiration of a real life event and imagined what it might have been like to live through its aftermath.

My biggest criticism of this book is the rather puzzling cover on the UK editions, showing the torso of a woman in a blue summer dress. It's attractive, but why that dress in a book set in the winter months? Also, from the visible bits of her (her arms), the woman is too young to be Helen and doesn't look pregnant enough to be Jane. Is this because they think a picture of a woman in her 50s won't sell the book?

This review originally appeared at www.thebookbag.co.uk

Format: Paperback 309 pages
Published: First published in the UK 2010, Vintage February 2011
ISBN: 978 0 99 54628 3
RRP: £7.99, Amazon price £5.08, Kindle price £4.83

Summary: A thoughtful, reflective novel about coming to terms with the past and future.