BelEdit Book Reviews
Scenes of a Graphic Nature is a moving, intelligent, perceptive and well written novel. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
“After a tough few years floundering around the British film industry and experimenting with amateur pornography, Charlie and her best friend Laura take a trip to her familial home on an island off the west coast of Ireland. Her father’s health is rapidly declining and this could be the last chance to connect with her roots. But events on the island cause Charlie to doubt her father’s childhood stories – and then there’s her complicated relationship with Laura. Pursuing the truth will shatter everything she thought knew – but is that what it takes to grow up?”
As an Irish woman who has lived outside Ireland for almost all my life, I connected with Charlie’s mixed feelings about her ‘home’ country, that sense of being both Irish and not. Of feeling that you understand, and are understood, while also being totally ‘other’. Never knowing if you can relax and enjoy it or if you’re being sucked in by the shenanigans put on for the tourists.
Scenes of a Graphic Nature is a very good novel about the messiness and ups and downs of old friendships, how people can disappoint you and surprise you, be there for you and let you down, irritate the hell out of you then connect with you in a way no-one else can.
It’s also about truth, lies, cover stories and hiding from the past. About unreliable narrators, conspiracy and filthy liars.
And it’s a good story. Plenty of mystery and intrigue and a satisfying conclusion. There’s also the start (at least) of a love story.
All in all, a very good read from an author I’ll be looking out for in the future.
I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a novel that’s thoughtful and a bit different, but still extremely readable.
My thanks to Netgalley for giving me a free copy of this book. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.
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