Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido

What an utterly delightful book. I picked it up on the bookshelf of our apartment book exchange (recently installed in the common garage) and found myself compelled by its charm. Barbara Trapido is an accomplished writer, who knows her literature and her music and her language, so it’s a genuine pleasure to read, quite apart from the story. The narrative verges guiltily on the chick-lit, but avoids it because it has a true voice. It is the story of Katherine, a rather displaced young woman leaving school and starting at university, who becomes friends with her professor’s family. It covers about ten or fifteen years of her life, as she matures, works her way through relationships and losses and finally, of course finds happiness. This book won the Whitbread Special Prize for Fiction. I’m going out to find more Trapido books now as they are a light enough read to put on the detestable Kindle for my three months of travelling this year.