{"id":585,"date":"2011-05-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-07T21:14:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/?p=585"},"modified":"2024-12-31T14:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T01:40:30","slug":"122-britannia-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2011\/05\/08\/122-britannia-road\/","title":{"rendered":"122 Britannia Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><strong>Amanda Hodgkins<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-large-font-size\"><em>Penguin<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Otago Daily Times, May 8th 2011<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><em>22 Britannia Road<\/em> deals with the aftermath of war and the profound changes that it wreaks on people.\u00a0 The novel opens in the spring of 1946 as a refugee ship carrying a young Polish woman, Sylvana Nowack, and her son Aurek docks in Ipswitch where her husband, Janusz, is waiting for them.\u00a0 Separated when German forces entered Poland, Janusz escaped and joined the British RAF while Silvana spent years hiding in the countryside with Aurek, waiting for the fighting to end.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Six years and a lifetime of events now stand between them, and they meet as strangers.\u00a0 Although both want to start afresh (Janusz by creating the perfect English family, Sylvana by finding a father for Aurek), it soon becomes clear that they must come to terms with the past before they can make a future together.\u00a0 But the secrets to be revealed could shatter the fragile new relationship as irreparably as continued silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The story alternates between the novelistic present and the events during the war, providing welcome variations in tone, pacing and voice, as well as moments of respite from the bleakness that pervades much of the book.\u00a0 This is particularly true of Aurek, who retains the capacity to be filled with the woods and sharp smell of spring, and who imagines the bone-lined nests of the kingfisher as tiny, bejewelled palaces.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">As a mother, Silvana\u2019s story embodies the worst of nightmares, but some of the imagery stays with me just as strongly; a happy memory for Janusz is <em>\u201ca weakness he savours briefly, sweet and good as a spoonful of sugar in bitter barracks tea\u201d, <\/em>while Aurek imagines splitting into a hundred different boys who could climb every tree and perch up on high <em>\u201clike a great cackle of magpies.\u201d\u00a0<\/em> This is a rich and rewarding novel, particularly impressive for being the author\u2019s first, and I will be interested to see where she goes next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-small-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/explorations-aftermath-war\">https:\/\/www.odt.co.nz\/entertainment\/books\/explorations-aftermath-war<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amanda Hodgkins<br \/>\n<br \/>\nOtago Daily Times review May 8th 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[126,134,370,18],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","tag-126","tag-amanda-hodgkins","tag-fiction","tag-odt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1485,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions\/1485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cushla.spooky-possum.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}