From Amazon.co.uk
Nikki Black owes nobody anything. She's hard, selfish, hurt and vengeful. If only she could stop having the Fear and falling from one disaster to the next, she could possibly succeed. But a childhood in erratic care has made her unable to retain a hold on life and when she decides at 28 to kill the mother who left her on the steps of Camden Post Office as a baby, she gains a clean, clear vindictive purpose. Since the preface of Jane Rogers' sixth novel is a local news report of the murder, the tale is less a suspense novel than a whydunnit, setting off at a cracking pace, as Nikki describes her alienation from "the mummied and daddied kids" and her fury at being constantly rejected by her carers. "She made me this; the one you can walk away from". When Nikki traces her mother to a remote and dismal Scottish island, she discovers that she has "a special half-wit of a brother", called Calum, who's like "something that's been grown in the dark, forced, like rhubarb under a flowerpot". Nikki rents a room in her mother's house to snoop and plan the most effective means of murder. Rogers' mordantly smooth humour becomes less vicious as Nikki befriends the fearless and lonely Calum. He tells her the history of the island through folktales that connect to Nikki's untapped inner world and rescue her from her own island of isolation and jealous rage.
Island is a compelling and chilling morality tale whose themes of redemption and loss are subtle and poignant. --
Cherry Smyth
From Publishers Weekly
"When I was twenty-eight I decided to kill my mother." This sixth book from Rogers (Promised Lands; Mr. Wroe's Virgins) is a caustically memorable literary shocker, built tightly around its antiheroic narrator. Abandoned at birth and shuttled among foster homes around Birmingham, Nikki Black (a name she chose for herself because it had "teeth") decided in her teens to remain at a children's home rather than suffer the ministrations of hypocritical caregivers. To call her unsympathetic is putting it mildly: the grown-up Nikki hates everyone, using whomever she needs for sex, sleeping space or money, and connecting emotionally with no one. She has one purpose in life: to find her real mother (listed on her birth certificate as Phyllis Lovage), ask her why she abandoned her, and then kill her. A financial windfall lets Nikki track Phyllis down to the small, remote Scottish island of Ayssar, where she rents her spare room out to boarders. Herself dying from cancer, Phyllis makes money by selling herbal remedies; she uses the funds to care for her slightly retarded son, Calum. Nikki rents the room and conceals her identity, the better to spy on, and then slay, her motherAand to win the affections of Calum. This novel's macabre plot is compelling enough, but Rogers's real talent lies in tone and psychologyAin Nikki's sometimes horrifying, sometimes nearly reasonable flights of fancy, and in the asides, details, folktales and anecdotes that percolate through the main narrative. Fans of Ian McEwan should relish this stylish, charismatic addition to Britain's gallery of antiheroes. (Nov.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
