The Boy from Rod Alley is an account of a 1930s childhood. This depiction of one boy's experience blends into a story of a decade, in the aftermath of the Great War, as ex-soldiers ride their old army bikes, 'widow-women' are familiar figures and 'Umbrella Joe' paces in shell-shock aimlessness. John guides readers past the deep pond in front of the house, both feared and loved, with surrounding willows simultaneously familiar and a challenge. The great village Green, with a mixture of humble or imposing dwellings, and ...
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The Boy from Rod Alley is an account of a 1930s childhood. This depiction of one boy's experience blends into a story of a decade, in the aftermath of the Great War, as ex-soldiers ride their old army bikes, 'widow-women' are familiar figures and 'Umbrella Joe' paces in shell-shock aimlessness. John guides readers past the deep pond in front of the house, both feared and loved, with surrounding willows simultaneously familiar and a challenge. The great village Green, with a mixture of humble or imposing dwellings, and school, church, chapels, shops, a smithy, and his family agricultural-engineering workshop and foundry around its edge, holds delights or threats. At each of its five corners, a road leads to other places which also become part of the story, a warren, lake, small stream, villages, small towns, the city of Norwich, the latter increasingly alluring as he grows. And from other places come strangers or familiar visitors. Among them, as among the 'locals', some are memorable. Discarding adult hindsight in favour of the immediacy of the narrative, John recounts feelings and notions inherent in his boyhood experiences and actions. In his head are characters from books, newspapers, songs, films, history and legend. His imagination relates these day-to-day, realities, shaping his attitudes and interests.
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I usually really enjoy books which explore the past through the eyes of someone who lived it, and I thought this would be a good one, as the author was remembering his childhood experiences in Norfolk just before the Second World War.
Some of the stories he tells are incredibly strong, some are funny, and some are absolutely heartbreaking (poor Ferdy, living a nomad life with his grandparents, will haunt me).
However, I had a problem with the way the book was written - it is just a ragbag of memories as they came to him in a stream of consciousness. There was no attempt to impose any order, any chronology or even to put them into themes. The result is very jumbled, with the reader bouncing around from one event to another, only to resume that theme some pages later. Paragraphs have no relevance to those going before or after. It is like he dictated his memories to someone and they wrote them down. I find this a very lazy way of presenting a story; the reader deserves some coherence which could easily have been provided and it is not enough to say the author is presenting it as if he were a child remembering, without any adult intervention.
It is worth reading, but be prepared for a jolty ride!
Thank you to NetGalley and Troubador Publishing Ltd for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
