Back - Susan Day

A story of friendship and loneliness, of losing and searching and occasional joy.

Everyone in this novel would like to go back in one way or another – back home, back to the past, back to being friends, even back to being lovers.

There’s Bill who has recently been widowed and is feeling restless as well as bereft – he’d like to go back to his lost love from his student days. She’s Joan, also on her own and intrigued by the prospect of seeing him again. And there’s Viv, Joan’s friend, who becomes entangled in Bill’s search.

Meanwhile, Joan is having her own misfortunes at the other end of the country, and when she returns home she seems to have changed and to be unresponsive to Viv’s friendship.

The adventures of all three are woven into a comedy of errors in this gently under-stated story from the author of ‘Who Your Friends Are’, ‘The Roads They Travelled’, and ‘Hollin Clough’.

As usual, her sharp eye for detail brings to life her quietly woven characters, who find their way to a finale which holds possibilities and risks for each of them.