Barb Jungr
posted 30 April 2007

On the paperback cover of the paperback of Willliam Boyd’s new novel, Restless, the Times quote proclaims him to be a 'first rate storyteller' going on to add 'and this is a first rate story'. Most paperbook books feature ecstatic quotes on the cover, and regular readers learn that they are often meaningless. In this case however, they are entirely accurate.

Restless relates the stories of a mother and daughter living in Oxfordshire in the long, hot summer of 1976. The daughter, Ruth, is a single parent with a dry sense of humour, a serious young son (Jochen), a job teaching English as a foreign language to a variety of clients (some of whom fancy her and want to move their relationship with her from client to romantic), a flat above a callisthenically-orientated dentist, and a mysterious and reclusive mother living in a remote cottage near the woods in a hidden village.

Ruth’s story unfolds alongside the discovery of her mother’s memoirs, which she, Sally, drop-feeds her daughter in order to engage her assistance in a final bid for freedom from her strange and exotic past. Sally was – indeed, is, Eva Delectorskaya, recruited as a young woman in war torn Europe as a spy for the British government by Lucas Romer, a confident, handsome and enigmatic puppet master. Through their contrasting stories, (Ruth’s in 1970s Oxford academia and Eva’s in Europe and America before and during the Second World War), we come to understand their unusual relationship, similarities and uniquely entwined destinies.

Just like Ruth, we are drawn into Eva’s extraordinary life as Boyd’s intricately unravels the intelligence networks of the last century’s European upheavals, and Eva’s passionate relationship with Romer. As Ruth reads (at first incredulously), so do we, sharing her process of understanding not only Eva, her character and motives, but also the role they must both play in the final chapter of her mother’s drama. Ruth’s own life with Jochen, her struggles with her thesis and supervisor, her relationships with Jochen’s uncle and father and her position among the single mothers outside the school gates are beautifully drawn (and funny). Tantalisingly slowly, we come to understand just how much she and her mother share.

Boyd’s attention to historic detail, his easy prose, wry humour and excellent structure are all employed to superb advantage and its not a surprise that – and this is a sort of back-handed compliment – the Richard and Judy book club and the Costa Novel Award both recognised Restless with their prizes and praise. Over the years Boyd’s writing has consistently received recognition, and his fans will find everything here they would normally expect from his work, but Restless must certainly attract new readers. The book finishes as quietly and confidently as it begins, and too soon, but William Boyd’s compassion and characters linger long after the final page has been turned.