Book reviews of Watching the door: Cheating death in 1970s Belfast by Kevin Myer

Apr 6 2008 Sunday Sun

WATCHING THE DOOR: CHEATING DEATH IN 1970s BELFAST by Kevin Myers, is published in hardback by Atlantic Books, priced £14.99.

YOU learn not to grow too attached to any of Kevin Myers’ cast of Belfast characters . . . you can almost guarantee that the more likeable they are, the more imminent their death.

The creeping inevitability of brutal, futile ends to everyday lives is the most powerful element of this English-born journalist’s ground-level account of his coming of age at the heart of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

His portrayal of the violence as an intensely dark comedy rams home the reality of what otherwise civilised neighbours did to one other.

Myers is haunted by the death of British soldier Corporal Robert Bankier, whose final moments he is able to describe at close quarters after rightly predicting an ambush but warning no one.

His other fixations are with alcohol, sex and his girlfriend “Roisin“.

The disintegration of that relationship provides a parallel descent into a personal hell for Myers as he realises that the wider conflict won’t end quickly.

But for all its insight, the book is let down by accounts of sexual exploits so farcical they would be rejected for a Carry On script — JOE CHURCHER

OUR LONGEST DAYS – A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR by the writers of Mass Observation, edited by Sandra Koa Wing, is a paperback by Profile Books, priced £8.99.

GRIM years in a Britain of nightly blackouts and air-raids, food and petrol rationing, poor wages, often worse living conditions, and countless petty rules and regulations are vividly described here by people who survived the ordeal.

This is another collection of excerpts from wartime diaries produced by volunteers for the Mass Observation project, which started in 1937.

This book is full of fascinating details about daily life such as public transport problems, the nature of wartime meals, and what it was like to be on the receiving end of German bombs.

Observations by armchair pundits about the international scene are sometimes amazingly perceptive and sometimes spectacularly wrong — ANTHONY LOOCH

THE FRENCH GARDENER by Santa Montefiore, is published in hardback by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £16.99.

MIRANDA doesn’t want to move out of London, as she’s happy dining at posh restaurants and socialising with other rich wives.

But when her son Gus is expelled from school for violent behaviour, she takes him and her daughter Storm to live in a beautiful home in rural Hartington. Husband David stays in London during the week, as he doesn’t want to leave his City job, or his mistress.

The family’s lives are transformed by the arrival of mysterious French gardener Jean-Paul.

He teaches Miranda, Gus and Storm to restore the ruined garden, which in turn teaches them how to love each other as they deserve.

When David returns at weekends and sees Jean-Paul in his role, he feels pushed out. He resents the gardener, but is also beginning to tire of his clingy mistress.

This beautiful love story is a joy . . . there is an air of mystery to the last page, and Montefiore builds suspense perfectly. A thoroughly good read, but definitely one for the girls — CAROLINE DAVISON