Review of 'The Pools' a novel by Bethan Roberts

I enjoyed reading this. It's a very good 'people-story' which explores families and their deep undercurrents. It reminded me of some of Elizabeth Berg's books. There is no high action plot, but she takes you inside the characters in a satisfying way.

Families are pressure-cookers and these characters seemed to be based on real people from real families: the beautiful Kathryn damaged by the loss of her first love, Howard the serious-and-sensible with his passion for orderly gardens, and their son Robert growing from child to the popular teenager 'Rob'.

It threw me some when, after a hundred pages, we jumped VP character and jumped families but I was willing to follow Joanna's narrative, and the introduction of the menacing Shane character pulled me along.

The story touches on a number of aspects to be found in real-life families:
~ a young woman's choice of a 'safe' or 'dangerous' partner
~ a mother who cannot accept her son's wife as good enough for him
~ adjusting to year after year of daily life with a partner who is programmed in a different way from yourself
~ a family breakup and the arrival of a new 'partner' in the house
~ teenagers becoming sexually aware
~ social 'norms', and the pressures if your child happens to be different
~ how an 'abnormal' or 'damaged' teenager is treated by strangers / school pupils / those close to him
~ communication failures
~ tragedy happens to anyone

The story was skillfully told using different viewpoints. Howard's VP is in past tense but Joanna's is in present tense.
I also liked the structure of opening with the aftermath of a tragedy then dropping back to the beginning of the journey that led to it. This gives it a feeling of suspense.

The background presence of those power-station cooling-towers added to the feeling of unease and also served as a reminder that regardless of family dramas, the humdrum of daily life goes on in the background.

Interesting to read that the author wrote it 'one sentence at a time' with no planned plot.

Despite the mixed reviews of Bethan Roberts' second book, 'The Good Plain Cook', I enjoyed the sample first chapter and will be reading it as well.