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Monday 28 November 2011

Review of Descending by Catherine Chisnall

Catherine Chisnall
Image by stuartaken via Flickr
Rightly or wrongly, what matters to me most in fiction, apart from the necessary quality of the writing, is whether I care about the characters or not. In Descending, Catherine Chisnall has created a narrator who is so believable that the novel reads like a memoir. The other characters are drawn with equal skill and their variety brings wide interest to the book. 
At times, I felt that the writing was a little too much like that experienced in a report. And that quality did slightly detract from my enjoyment. 
But the characters saved the day in what is a contemporary story of self-discovery. I wasn't at all sure what the book was about when I started to read, but it soon became clear from the first person narrative that this was a tale about a young woman learning a hard lesson in life and growing to understand that we don't always recognise our actions as selfish until we later examine them. 
A good story, well told.


I interviewed Catherine here on the blog - the link to that interview is here: Catherine Chisnall
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1 comment:

Lily Byrne said...

Wow, thanks Stuart. Only just seen this.