Maggie O'Farrell - The Hand That First Held Mine

After I finished work, in a stressful sprint to the finish line, I found that my brain had temporarily stopped working. Or like my Russian obstetrician with the bedside manner of a KGB henchman said to me yesterday, "very leetle brain activity". So anyway, I needed something lighter to read, and a friend of mine recommended the fiction of Maggie O'Farrell - well-written chick lit, she said. And I like chick lit, but I do require that it is well-written, so this seemed to fit the bill. Then I read an article in The Guardian that said this book, The Hand That First Held Mine, marked O'Farrell's transition from chick lit to big 'L' Literature. Hm. Not so sure about that.

It is true that Maggie O'Farrell writes well, although her style is not  always to my taste. Occasionally, in this book, she writes from the perspective of an omniscient narrator who is self-consciously standing on the outside of the action, looking in - like the Morgan Freeman narration of an epic film. For me, this doesn't work so well; I would always prefer to be caught up in the action, and the occasional plot give-aways handed out by the narrator seemed unnecessary - and sometimes even jarring.

The Hand That First Held Mine follows two different storylines which eventually collide in a way that, by that point, comes as no surprise to us readers. The rebellious Lexie Sinclair runs away from her suburban childhood home to settle in London where she leads a glamorous life in 1950s bohemian London. She becomes an art critic under the guiding hand of Innes Kent, the star editor of a ground-breaking arts magazine. After tragedy strikes her life for the first time, Lexie leads a complicated existence involving several love affairs, one of which leaves her with a son to whom she is entirely devoted.

Elina and Ted are a modern-day couple, dealing in today's London with a newborn and the aftermath of a traumatic caesarian birth. As Elina gradually recovers from the temporary memory loss incurred by that trauma, she finds her relationship challenged when Ted starts suddenly to remember things from his childhood that are not in keeping with the memories he has always had about his own family.

Whilst O'Farrell's experienced hand kept me reading from beginning to end,  it took me a while to develop any significant interest in the story. I wasn't quite sure why I was supposed to care about these characters. When it started to become clear how the two disparate storylines were connected, my interest grew and I did want to know how things would work out, how the characters would be brought together, what would happen.

In the end the storylines were deftly woven together and I found the book ultimately satisfying. However, I wouldn't necessarily say it was memorable.

Admittedly O'Farrell might have suffered by comparison, in that my reading recently has focused on writers like Edward St Aubyn and Jennifer Egan. At the end of The Hand That First Held Mine I still wasn't quite sure why I should care about this story; it was diverting, and an enjoyable read, and I know that should be enough - but I have been spoiled, recently, by writers whose story-telling is matched by their ability to explore broader themes, and I missed that, here. I wonder whether that is also what separates big 'L' literature from genre fiction. A topic for another time.

Overall assessment: 3 out of 5. It was a good distraction, this read, and I would recommend Maggie O'Farrell if you are looking for well-written women's fiction to pass the time.