Alex, living in London, did a teaching degree in Edinburh where she had Robert as a tutor in Edinburgh. Now, as a favour, Robert employs her at the Pupil Referral Unit he runs in Edinburgh, covering for maternal leave. She used to direct at the Royal Court. She's had a tragedy involving Luke. There are hints that her Pupil Referral Unit work is in the past and that something went wrong - there's some retrospective analysis of her behaviour, and meetings with lawyers.
Her most problematic class has 5 15 year olds. At the first lesson they walk out. If she tries to relate to one, the others sabotage. She tries to be friendly rather than be authoritative. She gradually learns about their pasts - one of them tried suicide at the Unit and was saved by another. One of them is deaf because of measles - her brother died of measles.
She gets them to study Ancient Greek plays (they like them!) and to keep a diary. She asks them questions provoked by plays (about fate, responsibility, etc) that she's been asking herself. We get extracts from their diaries. They're interested in her. One of them following her around.
Robert (inexplicably) tells the kids about Luke. When they hint in a lesson that they know about Luke she says that he didn't die - he was killed. He was a lawyer. He intervened when a man was battering his girlfriend - the man knifed Luke. Thanks to plea-bargaining his murderer in the end gets 1.5 years. When he comes out he's in the press because he becomes engaged to his girlfriend.
The group of youths aren't stupid. Alex tells them that they shouldn't fear difficulty - citing computer games etc - and that Greek Tragedy is a challenge. One of the class wants to be challenged. All the same, I'm not convinced that any group of 15 year-old would care. And they're so articulate. Couldn't they have been older?
Mel follows her to London, pushes the murderer's girlfriend, who dies. Alex learns later than Mel knifed her. Some people blame Alex for exposing kids to suggestve plays, and not seeing the signs. Alex goes back to working in a theatre - a job found for her by Luke's parents.
There are several parallels between the Greek plots and the events in the novel. An interesting enough read.
Some artificiality is needed to set up the parallels with Greek Tragedy. One literary ploy bugged me. Novelists commonly delay the revelation of information. In this book, we only gradually learn about Luke. Were we part of the fictional world we could do what the kids did and search for her name online - all the gory details are there! But we have to wait for the info to dribble in -
- Act 1 Ch1 "when Luke was training ..." [to be a lawyer]
- Act 1 Ch2 "I didn't cry now when I talked about Luke. For the first few months, I cried all the time ... The world was heavier without him in it"
- Act 1 Ch6 "she was engaged to be married until last year, to a man she loved very much. And then he died"
- Act 1 Ch7 "I had never spoken to anyone about Luke's death"
- Act 1 Ch7 "after Luke died"
- Act 1 Ch7 "Luke didn't die. He was killed"
- Act 2 Ch1 "a man in his 20s, not much younger than Luke"
I don't think there's enough justification for this (other than being a literary device). True, she says she's never talked about it, but the kids would search, surely, and we get their PoV.
Other reviews
- Susanna Rustin (I don't think her novel about young lives reshaped by acts of extreme violence gets her or us anywhere very interesting. The court case at the end is an anti-climax and the teenage diary that makes up the portion of the novel not narrated by Alex feels all wrong. What Haynes is good at is the interaction between people. Her dialogue is sparky ... I think The Amber Fury should have been a play. ... )
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