Larchfield by Polly ClarkMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I completed reading Larchfield on New Year's Day. It is an unusual book, weaving the lives of historical characters with Dora Fielding, a young poet, who moves with her husband to Helensborough on the west coast of Scotland. This is small town life at its most excrutiating and it starts to smother Dora, who is looking to find her true self. What to do?
When Dora discovers that the poet Wystan H. Auden lived in Helensborough in the 30s Dora finds a way to escape reality. This is handled by Polly Clark with great imagination. Auden taught at Larchfield school where he is mocked for his Englishness. He is rightly suspected of homosexuality and spends his holidays with Christopher Isherwood in Germany. Dora and Auden 'find each other' and Dora's imagination becomes all consuming. These are vulnerable people and Larchfield is beautifully written; a haunting novel about heroism and repression - a story that draws you in with a compelling sense of danger.
This is an ambitious story, which Polly Clark handles perfectly. Highly recommended.
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