Life: an exploded diagram

Mal Peet (author)

Walker Books, UK: Australian release August 2011; 416pp

ISBN: 9781884281008

Genres: historical fiction, realistic fiction

Issues: change, family, identity, relationships, sexuality

Norwich, UK, 1962. Clem Ackroyd is working class; Frankie Mortimer is the daughter of a landowner: they must not be seen together or their families will explode.

Against the backdrop of the Cuban missile crisis, the Cold War and the threat of imminent nuclear Armageddon, not to mention restrictive parents and the conservative social attitudes of the era, Clem and Frankie snatch moments of bittersweet joy. When they're together they escape the cages that confine their restless personalities; apart they only find the chains of family and social expectation the more painful. How much time do they have before reality pulls them apart?

Mal Peet is a powerful, concise writer and this remarkable novel is perhaps his greatest work yet. Like the Norfolk Broads that are part of the backdrop, Life is a meandering narrative following the river of each character into unexpected offshoots, tributaries and the occasional shallow lake. Written as prolonged flashback from the point of view of Clem, now an established writer in Manhattan, Life covers not only his family history but also the social and political changes that impacted so heavily on them. From the final days of WWII to the attack on the World Trade Center (9/11), Life explores the rapidly changing political and social landscape of those incredibly intense, creative and destructive decades.

'That summer six Teddy boys and their girlfriends appeared on the seafront at Cromer...They sported Elvis hair, Brylcreamed into waves that met and slumped onto their foreheads... Their girls wore tight sweaters over brassieres like the noses of jet aircraft and loose skirts.' (p109)

Very much about self-discovery, change and how the past drives the present (and future), Life: an exploded diagram is a challenging, thought-provoking, coming of age novel that takes the reader outside the normal limitations of that genre. It is not just about the coming of age of Frankie and Clem but of the human race in general and two super-powers in particular. As Frankie and Clem stumble clumsily through the passions and distractions of first love, two world leaders are stumbling almost equally clumsily towards some kind of balance of power at a time when nuclear proliferation was just beginning to terrify the thinking world.

Walker Books promotes this as reading age 12+ but the understated storyline and the writer's tendency to lose sight of his main characters while narrating long passages of political background make this more suitable for experienced, sophisticated readers. Rather like a piece of sedimentary rock, Life: an unexploded diagram shows the reader both the global and the parochial – the rapid international changes and conflicts and how they slowly affect one small community. Quite fascinating and written in stark, authoritative prose, Life immerses the reader in their recent past. What is truly remarkable is that, despite the threatening background of the Cold War and the untidy and dangerous remnants of WWII, Life: an exploded diagram is an optimistic book that celebrates human resilience and laughs affectionately at both our self-absorption and our resistance to change.

'I lived through all these times, these great events, without caring very much, concerned with my own ageing rather than the world's. Most of us do likewise. History is the heavy traffic that prevents us from crossing the road. We're not especially interested in what it consists of. We wait, more or less patiently, for it to pause so that we can get to the liquor store or the Laundromat or the burger bar.' (p387)

Warning: explicit descriptions of 'petting', sexual references and one fairly vague sex scene between central characters.