Books |
Crooked Heart
Lissa Evans
By
Published: Jul 06, 2016
Category:
Fiction
GUEST BUTLER NORA LEVINE‘s byline is familiar here; she owns the literary mystery/thriller corner of this site. In her real life, she says, “I was a law librarian until it wasn’t so much fun. Now I edit my husband’s briefs (the legal type) in Oakland, California.”
Pop Quiz: memorable orphans in literature.
Answers: Oliver Twist. Jane Eyre. Huckleberry Finn. Lord Voldemort. Noel Bostock.
Noel Bostock?
Noel Bostock. Ten years old. Gangly. Shy. Big ears, a bit of a limp. Too clever for his own good, especially in the schoolyard: “Hobbies are for people who don’t read books.” He leads a quixotic life in a rambling Hampstead home owned by a former suffragette, his godmother, whom he adores. Unfortunately, she won’t be able to care for him indefinitely, and the clock is running. Fast. His only other family, a married cousin distant in more ways than one, is not interested or capable of taking him on.
Complicating matters is that this is London at the height of the blitz, and children must be given safe harbor. Noel and his classmates are loaded onto an evacuee train and deposited in St. Albans. “Hitler was thumbing his nose from just across the Channel, and London had decided to move the children out again, all the ones who had come back and all the ones who had never gone.” Most find homes quickly, but not Noel. As he spends a long day wandering back and forth along the high street, he is eyed by Mrs. Vera Sedge.
She’d just started pushing half an onion and the heel of a loaf into the mincer, when the evacuees came back along the lane. Only two left now: a great lump of a girl who looked as if she’d eat you out of house and home, and the limping creature with the ears. Who on earth would want to look after a crippled evacuee, she wondered. You’d not only have to feed them, and deal with the lice and the London cheek, but you’d be forever at the doctor, going back and forth and —
She removes her apron, grabs her headscarf, and heads for the street. And “Crooked Heart,” Lissa Evans’ very engaging black(-ish) comic novel involving any variety of crooked hearts, is off and running. [To buy the paperback from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Vera is living on bare margins, supporting a mute mother addicted to the wireless and correspondence with Winston Churchill, as well as a thankless son with a heart mummer who pockets the monies he makes on the side failing other men’s Army physicals. Vera supports the family by working as a less than successful seamstress, charwoman and, most importantly, small time scammer.
Noel, plonked down in the middle of this domestic bliss, doesn’t have much to say to Vera, or her mother, but he has something of value: a ration book. Ignored by both women, he quickly ascertains Vera’s primary means of “employment” and offers suggestions on how she might improve her return on investment. They establish a begrudging alliance, each with their eyes on the larger prize of survival. Noel takes the lead as they walk the far reaches of London’s outer boroughs “collecting funds” for all manner of worthy causes –– from Spitfires to Widows and Orphans.
It’s not too long before Vera and Noel are in a bit over their heads (“You mean it’s legally wrong but morally right?”). The Dickensian plot twists are too much fun to spoil in this review.
“Crooked Heart” tackles classic themes of loss, survival, betrayal, loyalty, morality, and what makes a family. Ms. Evans has an excellent ear and a light touch and the prose is deliciously efficient. “Croxton didn’t move, just studied her with eyes that were the yellowish grey of bottled whelks.” Loss and betrayal and morality are taken seriously, but they do not overwhelm this very engaging and bittersweet story of an accidental thief and her unlikely accomplice as they struggle to pull up their socks and walk a fresh path to survival on their own terms.
