The Moon at Midnight - Charlotte Bingham

...at Midnight' is set in the 1960s, and starts by introducing the various families involved in the book, at the time of the Cuban crisis. The families all live in a British fishing port called Bexham. I was two at the time of the crisis, so don't have any memory of this, but the tension in everyone's minds becomes vividly clear at the beginning of the book, as we see the different ways that people are dealing with the possibility of another world war. ...
...on real people. However the problem with having such a good background in an author's mind is that it can be overwhelming for the reader, suddenly introduced to these people whom we've never heard of before, and somehow expected to remember who they are, how they behave, and what their relationship is with everyone else.

In the first chapter, we meet:

~~ Hugh Tate, playing the piano to his wife Loopy. Just the names ... more

'The Moon at Midnight' is set in the 1960s, and starts by introducing the various families involved in the book, at the time of the Cuban crisis. The families all live in a British fishing port called Bexham. I was two at the time of the crisis, so don't have any memory of this, but the tension in everyone's minds becomes vividly clear at the beginning of the book, as we see the different ways that people are dealing with the possibility of another world war.

Charlotte Bingham has quite a gift with characters - she creates mostly realistic individuals, and clearly knows them well. She writes about them as if she's personally acquainted with them; at one point I wondered if some of them were even based on real people. However the problem with having such a good background in an author's mind is that it can be overwhelming for the reader, suddenly introduced to these people whom we've never heard of before, and somehow expected to remember who they are, how they behave, and what their relationship is with everyone else.

In the first chapter, we meet:

~~ Hugh Tate, playing the piano to his wife Loopy. Just the names tell us instantly that these are upper class types; at the end of their introduction they drink martinis to take their minds off the crisis.

~~ Max Eastcott, an actor about to go on stage for a comedy revue, more worried about some of his relatives being in the audience than about the world situation.

~~ Walter and Judy Tate, Max's step-father's brother and his wife, complaining that Max's show was disgracefully facetious and made fun of the previous war.

~~ Flavia Sykes, an attractive teenager, and her mother Rusty, preparing for a dull luncheon with the Empire League for Ladies, and not remotely interested in politics.

~~ Lionel Eastcott, Max's grandfather, and his old friend Waldo Astley, who went to see Max's show on its first night. They enjoyed it thoroughly, but are worried about family tensions - and also spend much time discussing the world crisis.

A few days later, still in the first chapter, we meet:

~~ Kim Tate, her cousin Jenny, Jenny's brother Sholto, and Jenny and Sholto's parents John and Matty. They are all going to see another performance of Max's show. Jenny, we're told, is Max's half-sister.

~~ Peter Sykes, Flavia's father, and her brother Tam. With Flavia and Rusty, they too are going to see Max's show.

That's just the first chapter! By the end, I was bewildered at this vast array of characters, and their inter-relationships. Max the actor was about the only one I could remember.

Fortunately, there's a full family tree drawn at the start of the book. So for the next few chapters I could refer back to that every time there was a scene-change, to remind myself who each person was. I'm not over-impressed with books complicated enough to require family trees (unless they're historical novels about real people) and it felt rather hard going, with the book divided into small chunks, no more than a page or two each, skipping between the various families with a great deal of conversation and not much plot.

Still, there's a dramatic section in chapter Two. The Cuban crisis over, Kim and Jenny are persuaded to ride in a car with Tam Sykes. It's clear from the build-up that there's going to be some kind of tragedy - and this is what happens. Jenny is thrown from the car when he drives too fast, and shatters her face on the windscreen. She survives, but inevitably the lives of all three of them are dramatically altered. Jenny is in pain for many months, and has to have extensive plastic surgery, Kim becomes deeply depressed, and Tam is sent off to America to be out of the way of Jenny's angry family.

The rest of the novel revolves around relationships between the various characters, particularly between adults and children. Jenny has to come to terms with her pain and the deep scars that remain on her once beautiful face. Tam has to learn to adjust to a completely new culture, where he's the odd one out. Kim is so depressed that she's eventually sent to Ireland, to a delightfully bohemian 'school' where lessons are optional, and the focus is on healing.

Alongside the family saga style of writing, there's an ongoing crisis in the village of Bexham, which is under threat of commercial development. The end of the book sees a resolution to this, and is even followed by an epilogue which neatly ties up neatly all the loose ends and tells us what happens afterwards. At first the Bexham crisis seemed to me like a red herring, yet I finally realised that the book was making an important point: it's in times of crisis that families and neighbourhoods pull together, united by a common cause. The Cuban crisis did that, the world wars - which the elders refer to frequently - did that even more, and even a minor village crisis can have a similar effect.

Charlotte Bingham is a prolific author. She has about 20 novels to her credit, and currently seems to produce a new one each year. She has turned her hand to both modern family novels and historic ones based in the early or mid-20th century. This is the first one I've read which was based in the 1960s, and probably my least favourite so far.

For me, a child of the '60s, it feels somehow incongruous to be writing a historical novel in this period. It's intended that way, with the political background mentioned frequently, and one or two other key historical events impinging on the lives of the characters. In a sense they seemed unecessary to mention - detracting somewhat from the plot, almost contrived at times. And yet those things did affect adults of the time profoundly.

On the other hand, it seems strange that the teenagers in the book are immune from so many of the temptations and tensions that hit young people in the freedom of the 1960s. There is no experimenting with drugs, no alcohol abuse, no wild promiscuity. It's not that sort of book - which is fine, from my point of view; I don't like explicit or violent books, and would have little interest in deep discussions of drug culture. Yet somehow I have a credibility gap when reading about teenagers and young adults who are deeply concerned with politics and world crisis, but apparently oblivious to everyday dangers around them.

Rock music and television are acknowledged - one character becomes part of a rock band which rises to fame, and another appears on a popular TV show. But even with these, Charlotte Bingham seem to gloss over the unpleasantness that was so often part of an actor's or musician's life. Both characters retain their childhood values, their commitment to excellence, and their drinking is mostly limited to a couple of beers at the bar. There's a recognition of the hugely growing fashion industry too - Flavia, the beautiful teenager, is determined to be a model. But although she becomes annoyed with the restrictions around her, and her narrow-minded father, there's no rebellion - little anger, and no break of the relationship. Reassuring, but somehow not quite realistic.

Overall, I give the book three stars. It's well-written, and the characters are good, even though there are too many of them, and they're apparently blinkered at times. It was a pleasant enough read for someone like me who enjoys character-based books, and the ending was comfortable and tidy. I can't say it was disappointing in any way - but it wasn't gripping, either. I had no problem putting it down and forgetting about it for a day or two. I only cared about the characters in a mild way, and have no feeling of regret having finished the book.

I'm glad I didn't pay the full cover price of £6.99 for the paperback, nor even Amazon's discounted price of £5.59, but having paid £1.49 at a charity shop, I consider it a reasonable buy. Recommended as the sort of book for reading a couple of chapters each evening, with no compulsion to stay up all night to finish it!

 

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