Thursday 2 February 2012

The Roundabout Man by Clare Morrall


I was intrigued by this book: "The Roundabout Man" about a man living on a roundabout. How could that be interesting? Well it starts off with Quinn Smith living in his caravan on the roundabout being confronted by a newspaper reporter he clearly isn't interested in talking to. And that leads to a newspaper article and suddenly things happen to Quinn.

It turns out Quinn was one of the stars of a series of children's books written by his mother and "The Roundabout Man" flits between his current life and his past when his mother wrote those books and the days when he was a child. It does it very well with the flashbacks coming in and out of the main narrative concerning his current plight. Passages from his mother's books are also dealt like this.

I did however feel that the character Quinn Smith was a bit inconsistent. He wanted to meet a childhood acquaintance then he didn't; He wanted to escape his past but then he started delving into it in an attempt to finally separate the fact from the fiction. Maybe this was the author's intention for this character thus bringing a double meaning to the title of the book?

Anyway it was very well written and a nice read.


(Book was received through Amazon Vine and is available here)

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