In
Susan Hollingworth's
novel A Life Fractured, we first meet the main
character, Eleanor Gregory, as a child in Colonial India where an
imposed, almost inflexible, social structure often jars against the
wild beauty of the surrounding countryside and the simple life
philosophy of the native people. When Eleanor is five years
old, an unexpected tragedy transforms her life, forcing her to
leave India to begin a new life in England. During the ensuing years,
she copes with a multitude of changes, including the war, and she crosses
paths with a mixture of people, many of them famous. After the war,
Eleanor spends a period of time in USA, and, when we leave her at the
end of the book, she is on her way to Australia, full of new hopes
and expectations. The thing that strikes me most about this book is its
wealth of imagery: page after page of vibrant word pictures that are,
at times, almost overwhelming. This is a book that paints a vivid,
living picture of a time past - both in India and elsewhere - and it
is, therefore, a book well worth reading. It is available on
Amazon,
both as a paperback and an e-Book. It is also available from other online retailers such as
Powell's, the
Book Depository and
Tower Books.