Clare Wilson, a widow in her eighties, lost her husband long ago, her beloved son to a roadside bomb in Afghanistan, and in the last few years, to old age, two dear friends, one of most of her life, the second only recently encountered. She has written about all this in her earlier books,
In the Grieving of her Days and
A Late Finding. Now, appalled though she is by the horrifying wars in Ukraine and the Holy Land, and the rampaging return of President Trump, she is still sustained by her Catholic faith, while the younger people she loves, cast into her life and into her familiar Kensington flat from the cruel chances of war, with problems and suffering but also joy for her to share, need her understanding and care as never before.
Remember the Children is the last of three novels set in London and Yorkshire in the present day. The first two books of the trilogy have been much acclaimed: In the Grieving of her Days
is a contemporaneous 'state of the nation' novel, and also a particularly accomplished work . . . The passages describing the central character at Mass and at prayer, and her thoughts about her faith, are beautifully written and most moving. Piers Paul ReadA Late Finding:
Beckett's anatomy of human relationships is masterly. Lost and found, old and new, habitual and heady, dignified, vulnerable and intimate, they fill the pages with emotional life. Clare is beautifully drawn and the interaction between her interior and exterior life is compelling. Teresa Morgan,
The TabletLucy Beckett is a novelist, historian and literary critic. Her novels include
The Time Before You Die, set in the English Reformation,
A Postcard from the Volcano, set in Weimar Germany,
The Leaves are Falling, set in the borderlands of Poland and Russia during World War II, and
The Year of Thamar's Book, a powerful evocation of
La France profonde in counterpoint to the horrors of the Algerian War for independence.
