First Aid
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
On a weekend in late summer, Jo is fleeing to London with her children when, a few miles into the journey from the Kent coast, her teenage daughter jumps off the train.
Since Jo’s husband left her, she has been caring single-handedly for her three children, working in a junk shop to make ends meet. A new love affair was just beginning to give her life meaning until the man inexplicably lashed out at her. Jo’s instinct was to pack hasty bags and head to her family in London.
As we follow Jo's attempt to cope with the repercussions of her daughter's action we gradually learn what led up to the attack from her lover, and begin to understand how desperately each of them would like to escape the ties that bind and begin afresh.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
British author Davey's mordantly affecting second novel begins with teenage Ella jumping off a stopped train to escape going with her recently divorced mother, Jo, and two younger siblings to Jo's childhood home in London. Reeling from a nasty breakup with loathsome rebound boyfriend Felpo (he cut her face with a broken wine bottle during their last fight), Jo makes no attempt to find Ella and lies to her family about Ella's absence during the visit home. In chapters that alternate between Jo's and Ella's perspectives, Davey plays out her dual running-away story lines: Ella grows increasingly desperate as she fends for herself crashing on a junk shop floor and tracking down her father while clinically depressed Jo grieves over the violent breakup with Felpo, but for reasons more sordid than the reader initially realizes. Davey's work will be appreciated by readers of Penelope Lively or Iris Murdoch not much happens, but a great deal is felt.
