Fiction Friday (132)

 

 

I had meant to take a break from reading YA fiction, but recently the library I work out weeded the Teen collection and I went through the DISCARDs and grabbed a few that looked interesting. I started to read this one, mostly because the cover appealed to me, and because it was named after an Iron and Wine album. It turned out to be a very satisfying read.

Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller

(Tin House Books, 2015)

The world of adults and the world of children are often lived in separate realities that overlap somewhere in the middle like circles on a venn diagram, leaving members of each without a full understanding of how the other half lives. This is very much 8yo Peggy's situation, living on an estate in North London in the mid-70s with her eccentric parents. Her mother is a famous German pianist; her younger father a survivalist dreamer. Both seem to exist outside Peggy's internal world except when their world intrudes into hers.

Peggy's father emerges quickly as an unstable personality, and after a fallout with his wife, begins to fully embrace a split with reality, sweeping his daughter along with her. When the two of them leave their home and hike off into the secluded mountains of Bavaria, Peggy has no idea she will be spending the next nine years of her life alone in a cabin with her father. Terrified of crossing the river, and walled in by mountains, there is nowhere to go. Even if there was, her father has told her that beyond their little section of forest, the rest of the world has vanished.

This is one of those novels the joins the reader to the main character. The reader is the character's only true friend and confidant. As a result, we get to know Punzel, nee Peggy and she becomes someone we care about. She is a very strong character, yet we lament her losses that she cannot fully comprehend. And as her father's mental grasp on begins to falter, we begin to fear for her safety. 

We are never completely fearful for her however, because the novel alternates between her time in the woods and her time home, which is very effective in creating a sense of mystery and providing clues to keep the reader engaged. There are a few open ended questions at the end, deliberately so, that are meant to engage younger readers to consider options. However adult readers are fairly convinced of what happened.