Kate Evans

And so as each character came in, you sort of felt that something mysterious or tragic in their lives would reveal itself, which, you know, is pretty close to life anyway, obviously.

I mean, but I sort of, she does it so skillfully, you know, like on the page that I was completely drawn into the book.

I must say, this is the first book of hers that I've read.

I did take out many years ago.

My name is Lucy Barton out of the library and I read about

two or three pages and the book and and just you know reading about the book attracted me you know like it was something that you know that this was a field I was interested in but you know those pages didn't talk to me from to hold me through the book but this one did I was sort of you know this was late at night you know like I can't put this down

you know, I'll read for another half hour type of thing because the plot and the characters, you know, like what you were saying are so vivid.

It's beautifully woven together.

It jumps around quite a lot, you know, like there's not long chapters that sort of settle you.

It's very jumpy, but it works really, really well.

And all the characters, when they came in, I just, I thought it was a beautiful flow.

Brilliant.

I thought she did it just so well.

It just came in really, as you say, subtly.

She never names Trump, but it's cultural wars going on.

And the fact that he's framed as a...

where he exists as a history teacher, is of course a really brilliant touch because basically history is in a way overrunning him and forcing him to question his job and question his life.

But I thought she did that really, I wasn't expecting it.

And it just sort of came in and she did it really, really well.

It's just things that are going on in the school.