A very unusual story about the pains of growing up and the pain of never quite being satisfied. Carol Birch has written a story that could be considered contemporary fiction about female friendship OR it could be considered a story about mental health OR it could be considered a story about being haunted about guilt. But it's all of these.
Sally is 15 and and attending an all girls school in the mid 1960s. She is friends with Pamela, a rough girl who no one else likes, and they both spend large parts of the day in the greenhouse on the roof. Their classmate, Sylvia, a prim and proper girl, is their enemy and constant source of their bullying. Many nights, Sally ends by staring out her window, looking at the train passing by.
Tragedy happens at school, followed by another incident that causes some sort of incident at the school. Sally breaks up with her long term boyfriend Robin and then....and then the book takes off into an amazing, beautiful turn..several years into the future. Sally and her friends have finished college and are young adults. Sally and Robin run into each other in the street and reconnect. He's living in her old school, which has recently become an apartment building. And this is where the most interesting part of the book begins.
Carol Birch has written this haunting story that almost...melts your brain. Timelines weave in and out as Sally falls deeper and deeper into her mania and confusion. Visions and voices appear and you wonder if Sally is the only one who is experiencing it or if everyone is.
I found the "aftermath" the cherry on top of this story. It's added the extra something that I didn't realize that this story needed. It was already excellent but this just made it....near perfect.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.