New Cross Reading Group News

Those who attended our May session had enjoyed The Distance Between Us, where it is perhaps Maggie O’Farrell’s ability to present a retrospective view of what has already occurred in the lives of her central characters, Jake and Stella, which reveals most to the reader.

Initially the narrative, almost in the style of a quality television drama, seems dispassionately to provide glimpses into their everyday lives with what may at first seem unexceptional events occurring at a simultaneous point in time.  As Jake, resident throughout his life in Hong Kong hurries to join friends there to celebrate the Chinese New Year, Stella crosses Waterloo Bridge in London to reach the studio where she is due to present a radio programme. Why will the appearance of  a person she has never met, who is walking towards her on the bridge, cause Stella to experience a disabling panic attack at around the same time that Jake and his companions are injured in an onward surge of revelers? Although they are  separated by thousands of miles it is interesting to discover, as the plot unravels, how seemingly unrelated events will bring Jake and Stella together in a remote Scottish resort.

Although some members of the group were inclined to agree that the ending was predictable, it was intriguing to see how skillfully Maggie O’Farrell brings to life the backgrounds of both Jake, whose Celtic parents met while travelling, freeing themselves from social convention, in the far East during the short time they were to remain together and that of Stella with her Italian and Scottish parentage. It seems apparent that they are both troubled individuals who are seeking to resolve conflicts of interest in their lives, Jake, having through a sense of moral obligation, married an incompatible partner whom he was led to believe was too seriously injured to survive for much longer, is left feeling disorientated and lonely within the marriage while at the same time desperately keen to delve into his paternal background which has always remained a mystery to him. Stella needs to escape from the demands made on her by her family, particularly her sister towards whom she has remained fiercely protective particularly during those so important formative years when as an innocent child she was compelled to take one decisive action which threatens to have an all too far reaching an effect.

Have you read this novel? Let us know your thoughts.

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