Lisa Jewell: The making of us

Lisa Jewellin viihteellisessä romaanissa joukko nuoria ihmisiä elää elämäänsä, toisistaan tietämättä, kunnes käy ilmi että heillä kaikilla on sama isä: The making of us (Century, 2011; ISBN 978-1-84605-574-4).



Jewell pyörittää tarinaansa melkolailla näppärästi, mutta sitä ei voi välttää että toisiinsa kytkeytyvien elämäntarinoiden kokoelma vaikuttaa keinotekoiselta, ja juoni on melkolailla rakentamalla rakennettu. Mutta siitä huolimatta romaanissa tuntui paikka paikoin olevan kertomisen paloa ja iloa.

In a hospice in Bury St Edmunds, a man called Daniel is slowly fading away. His friend Maggie sits with him every day, she holds his hand and she listens to the story of his life, to his regrets and to his secrets. And then he tells her about the children he has never met and never will, conceived with women he never even touched. Four of them, apparently, two boys, two girls. His legacy, he calls them.

Lydia, Robyn and Dean don't know each other. Yet. And they are all facing difficult challenges. Lydia is still wearing the scars from her traumatic childhood and although she is wealthy and successful, her life is lonely and disjointed. Dean is a young man whose life is going nowhere. Robyn is training to be a doctor, just like her father - a man she's never met. When she falls in love with a man who is like her in every way, she needs to be sure. Its time for her to open the envelope her mother gave her on her eighteenth birthday. And Daniels children slowly find their way into each others lives...