This was a recommendation from A Good Read. They said on there that the title and cover might put people off, and I don't think I'd have read it if I'd just come across it in a bookshop. But I think this might have been the best book I read in 2018.

It's a series of long-ish stories following Jane at different stages of her life as she negotiates work and relationships. I found it a bit slow at first until I got into the writing style, and then it was as if I'd clicked into the way she was writing, and I was completely hooked.

Some quotes

• In the cab to the station, he told me that when he was growing up he'd see a look of pleasure cross his morther's face and ask what she was thinking; she'd say, "I was just thinking of your father."
  "That's how I want us to be," Archie said.
  I smiled.
  "What?"
  I said, "I was just thinking of your father."
• "Sometimes you're loved because of your weaknesses," she said. "What you can't do is sometimes more compelling than what you can" - I remember this quote from A Good Read
• At dinner, he ate his corn typewriter style and told us funny stories about New York. He'd fone out with a dancer from the MidWest. He said that when she'd first arrived in New York, the dope dealers around Washington Square had said, "Loose joints, loose joints," and she'd said "Thank you"
• Of Bella, who's from the Caribbean:
  Bella is turn-and-stare gorgeous - big dark eyes, long dark hair, smooth dark skin.
  She says, "James," which sounds like "gems," and kisses him - cheek cheek, cheek
  [...]
  When she speaks her voice is an orgy of accents. "My stepfather is the arr-she-tekk," she tells us. "He designed the windows so you feel the water. You will see," she says, "the house is cool." Her vowels and consonants are all off - trying to understand her is like picking fish out of the clover and goats from the ocean.
• Then I look up and see Yves and Bella at the railing of the veranda, holding hands. When they wave to us it is like seeing a photograph move. - reminded me of Tony and Amanda dancing.
• To me, she says, "How is your lobsters?"
  "Nice," I say, realizing only afterwards that I've mimicked her, a bad habit of mine I'm like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.
• I watched him thinking about Corky
  He said, "She was once the most magnificent woman on earth to look at."
  "So," I said, "what makes you think I want to hear about this?"
  "What?"
  "All these women," I said.
  He said, "It's my life I'm telling you about."
  I said, "What's your point?"
  He told me that he'd lived for fifty-four years before knowing me, and those fifty-four years made him the man he was. The man I loved. I shouldn't begrudge him those experiences, and there was no reason for me to be jealous of any woman. I told him I thought I understood.
  "Good," he said.
  I said, "Let me tell you about the men I've known."
• Giancarlo is gazing at Isabelle, studying her face; I can't tell if he's madly in love or doesn't understand English.
• They walk inside. It's been raining, and Isabelle's white shirt is wet through in spots; it sticks to her skin. - this reminded me of Maggie O'Farrell. And another: On your first date, he will pick you up on his motorcycle, and bring a helmet for you. He nods his big helmet head when he's ready for you to get on"
• Archie asked if I'd told my parents about him, and I said I hadn't. "How much longer are you going to keep me in the closet?" he said. "It's dark in here. And I keep stepping on your shoes."
• Something changed then. I saw my life in scale: it was just my life. It was not momentous, and only now did I recognize that it had once seemed to so me; that was while my father was watching. I saw myself the way I'd seen the cleaning women in the building across the street. I was just one person in one window. Nobody was watching, except me.
• I sigh inwardly and pull back
  "What?" he says.
  I tell him that I'm not ready to sleep with him yet.
  "Okay," he says, and pulls me back to him. We go on kissing and touching and moving against each other for another few minutes, and then he says, "Are you ready now?"

There were loads of times when I sighed with pleasure and wanted to recommend the book to other people but at the same time there is a worry that it's so specific to me that other people wouldn't get it. This reminds me of what Alan Bennett said about reading something which you thought was particular to you.

Writing this makes me want to read the book again.

Completed : 01-Jul-2018