Call of the Curlew (UK) / The Orphan of Salt Winds (US)
December 1939, and Virginia, an orphan aged 10, is adopted by Clem & Lorna Wrathmell. She is taken to their large house, Salt Winds, on the margins of Tollbury Marsh in the east of England. Clem is a nature writer, while Lorna is a book illustrator and frustrated artist. From her very first night in her new home, it is clear to Virginia that there are tensions between her new parents – these seem to be primarily caused by the attentions of a sleek local businessman Max Deering, who is clearly attracted to Lorna and is a widower. He is portrayed as a sort of pantomime villain, though his behaviour towards Virginia is much more sinister than the conventional stuff of essentially harmless moustache-twirling melodrama. When the war finally comes to the isolated marshlands around Salt Winds, Virginia’s new life is turned upside down and she is forced to confront some terrible challenges to her young life.
Interspersed with the sorry tale is the narrative of an aged and infirm Virginia living alone in her mid-eighties in Salt Winds at the end of 2015, looking back at those events of over seventy years ago. An unexpected arrival of a female teenager, Sophie, upsets her plans, but learning who Sophie is links neatly with the past.
There is a mood of L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between in this delightful tale, a gently elegiac narrative of times long past. It is a gripping and moving story, with superbly delineated characters, excellent dialogue and descriptions. In some areas, the events of the story stretch credibility, but after all this is a novel (the author’s first) and it should be given the wider plaudits this beautiful tale deserves.
