This is an odd book that I expected to
dislike, but actually I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Basically it tells of the eight months that
Frances and her husband spend in Saudi Arabia while he works for an
international company building a new ministry centre. But it is so much more..
Frances is a delightful character.... a
tough, feisty feminist though one who is still very much a sixties colonial. She defers to her husband , whom
she met while teaching in Africa, yet she asks questions and is keen to know what is happening around
her. In particular she wants to know what is happening in the empty flat above
them, who the stealthy men are who creep
up and down their service stairs, why their flat was broken into with little of
value taken and why the maid of the adjoining flat weeps all the time.
The background to this story is life for an
ex-pat living in Saudi Arabia, and shows how difficult it is for western women
to live within the same constraints and restrictions that their Saudi
counterparts appear to accept . One example of this which infuriated Frances
was that if she went shopping ….usually with her husband ,otherwise the
religious police could challenge her....the shopkeeper would only speak to her
husband not her.
It's a well
written story , and my faith is restored in Hilary Mantel after my
struggle with Wolf Hall.....perhaps she is worthy of being a prize-winning author after all.
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