Things We Knew Were True - Softcover

Gerrard, Nicci

3.34

865 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 071814631X ISBN 13: 9780718146313

Publisher: Michael Joseph, 2003

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THINGS WE KNEW WERE TRUE marks Nicci's debut, an atmospheric, highly charged, elegant coming-of-age novel.

At sixteen Edie knew things. She knew that her mother was charming and beautiful, that her older sister Stella was the star of the family and that her father, clumsy, quiet Vic, was loving and gentle.

Then Edie discovered what it was to fall in love; she dared to let herself be happy. But in one terrible moment of tragedy, her teenage dreams were torn apart.

Twenty years on, Edie is now a mother and a wife. When family duty calls, the sisters come together again, and it looks like the truth of what happened all those years ago may finally become clear.

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Review:

Nicci Gerrard is one half of Nicci French, the highly successful pseudonymous crime novelist created with her husband journalist Sean French. But anyone expecting the tensely wrought psychological thrills of the Nicci French books in Things We Knew Were True, this first novel written under her own name, will be in for something of a surprise. This is a poignant and expressively written narrative of a sensitive schoolgirl, Edie, ill-at-ease with herself, who loses her virginity to a boy from a local council estate and is embarrassed when her father discovers the couple in a compromising state. Later, her father Vic loses his job and endures periods of black depression before committing suicide. Edie finds that she is forced to grow up very quickly, and puts her teenage romance in the past. Decades pass, and Edie's mother dies, bringing back painfully unresolved situations.

This utterly absorbing novel has an acute and perceptive grasp of the tensions of family life, and Nicci Gerrard has a genuine skill in conjuring up the agonies of adolescence. The real achievement of Things We Knew Were True is the handling of the abrupt, enforced changes that take place in Edie's personality and the shadow cast over her life by the death of her father; this is a theme explored with both power and sympathy. While the intensity and danger of the Nicci French books is not to be found here, there is much of the subtle and intelligent observation of human character found in the books of William Trevor, and it's clear that Nicci Gerard has all the possibilities of enjoying separate success as a novelist along with her crime writing achievements with her husband. --Barry Forshaw

Review:

The author is half of Nicci French, the best-selling crime novel collaboration formed with husband Sean French. This first novel on her own is entirely different, a poignant account of a self-conscious schoolgirl who loses her virginity to a local council house lad and feels embarrassed because her father catches them in a mildly compromising state. When her father loses his job and the will to live, committing suicide, she puts teenage romance behind her. Two decades later, her mother's death revives unresolved memories. Gerrard touches the pulse of family life and adolescence changed in a stroke. She gently sheds light on dark family corners, mistakes that were made and perspectives that have changed. Not a novel to shout about but quietly recommend as middle-of-the-road women's fiction.

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