Falling

As Hampshire journalist Mark Swabey enters prison, the nature of his crime emerges through a variety of voices, including Mark's own and those of the two women in his life, who each define the word "love" very differently

A man in prison; a seedy circus; a beautiful star of the big top who transcends the mere spangles of her act; a girl who dabbles in stained glass--these figures would seem to endow Thubron's ( The Hills of Adonis ) second novel with a surrealistic surface and a compelling psychological undercurrent. And for the first third of the book, the pages do turn quickly, as prisoner and protagonist Mark artfully tells us (or does not tell us) why he is in the pen. What is the tragic accident to which he obliquely and repeatedly refers? Why do most people react to him with horror and yet with sympathy? The implied answers are tucked mysteriously into the novel's intriguing interstices. All too soon, though, the plot loosens: instead of continuing to narrate with Mark's voice, Thubron begins inserting weaker narratives told from the points of view of secondary and sometimes minor characters. Most of these are never fully realized, so that even a climactic act of euthanasia seems but a plot device, distancing Mark rather than revealing him. By the time this odd and promising story ends, readers may well feel set adrift.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At the beginning of this novel Mark is entering prison for a one-year term. Through a series of nostalgic vignettes, we learn what his life was like before his prison term and, ultimately, that he has been imprisoned for the mercy killing of his lover Clara, a circus acrobat who had been left paralyzed from the neck down after an accident. This novel is about Mark's struggle to find himself through Clara, a kind of second coming-of-age, while trying not to hurt Katherine, the other woman in his life. Despite their circumstances, Clara's vitality and strength are far more captivating than Katherine's safe, somewhat dowdy existence; the reader knows early on that Katherine doesn't stand much of a chance. Unfortunately, these colorful circumstances don't add up to much; the writing is often droll and pedantic, and very little sympathy can be mustered for Mark, who tends to lapse into painful platitude whenever describing his relationship to Katherine or Clara.
- Jessica Grim, Univ. of California Lib. at Berkeley
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.