The novel starts off when Melody Browne is 9 years old. She wakes up with her mum and dad outside her house shortly after her ninth birthday. Her house is on fire.
Melody has only a couple of memories of her childhood before the fire, and grows up, estranged, from her parents, with her son, whom she had aged fifteen. This is part of the reason they are estranged.
The book moves from nine year old Melody to 33 year old Melody, weeks before her son's 18th birthday. She is unhappy with her life. She is a single mother, living in a council flat and working as a dinner lady. And then, on the bus one night, she meets a man. He admires her shoulders. She thinks he is a freak. And yet, she agrees to a date with this man.
He takes her to a hypnotism show, and Melody is chosen to go up on stage and act out the part of a five year old. Afterwards, Melody faints and slowly, over the next few weeks, Melody's memory starts to come back. It happens slowly. Sometimes, she just recognises a house or a hairy mole on a lady's face, and knows she knows it. Other times, she actually has to be told about it.
By the end of the book, Melody actually knows what has happened to her and has met some of the people who, during the first nine years of her life, were important to her.Book Review
The book starts off a bit slow, and to be honest, after reading the first few pages, I was almost tempted to give up. However, I persevered and it was worth it. As you learn more, along with Melody, through her fleeting flashbacks, or her feeling that she knows something, you are eager to learn how she got from there to here.
The book flips back and to, between now and 1979-1981, not always in order, so if you like a book that is chronological, it may not be for you.
I'm being deliberately vague, not wanting to give away the plot, but it is so surreal. It is a very exaggerated book, and if things like that happen in real life, then I must have lead even more of a sheltered life than I thought I had.
By the end of the book, I was in tears about Melody's life.
Except the disappointing start, I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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