24 in ’24 Challenge – Book 16 “A Nest of Magpies” by Sybil Marshall

Sybil Marshall first came to my attention as a writer when I read her autobiography A Pride of Tigers about growing up in the Fen Country between the two world wars – see my review here. A Nest of Magpies is her first novel, published when she was eighty, and it turns out that it is the first in a series of five which I hadn’t realised when I chose it for my 24 in ’24 Challenge (I had tried to choose stand-alone books for the challenge in the hope that this would reduce my to-be-read pile). The novel is also set in East Anglia and, although it was published in the 1990s, it is set in the 1960s.

The book is told by Fran who has come back to live in a small village where she was brought up. She is widowed and her children are adults so she makes the decision to purchase the house in which she grew up and to settle in a place that she loved but hasn’t visited for many years. She links again with people she knew in childhood and slowly becomes assimilated into village life. The author uses the story to tell us about the lives and loves, and deaths, of many local characters who are connected in some way with Fran. Fran also reconnects with William who is a university lecturer and who grew up with her, even though he is not related by blood – their relationship evolves and changes during the novel but its development is challenged by the fact that William is married.

Into the village comes Joanna. She doesn’t fit or even try to blend with local people. She is a woman who is navigating her way in life via her relationship with men and is trying to find financial security. Fran is often repelled by Joanna’s actions and her attitude to life but she likes the woman and is often the repository of her secrets. Joanna is a disrupter and she shakes the village to its core, with her words and deeds touching nearly everyone in it. Often Fran and William have to pick up the pieces after Joanna has interfered with or affected the lives of others.

This is a slow novel, and quite a long one. It’s gentle in tone but there’s a lot of observation and depth in the writing. It is set at a time when society and culture are experiencing extreme change and the village and its inhabitants are often forced to change with it.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I liked how the author created lots of threads and wove them into a story, with Fran in the centre, that revealed a lot about people, relationships and how we handle change. I shall proceed now to read the next books in this series to see what the author has in store for Fran and the village.