Why a Booktrail?
1970s: A woman’s husband lays dying, and she thinks about the mistakes of the past forty years
How It Was
What you need to know before your trail
Marion Deacon sits by the hospital bed of her dying husband, Michael. Outwardly she is, as she says, an unremarkable old woman. She has long concealed her history – and her feelings – from the casual observer. But as she sits by Michael’s bed, she’s haunted by memories from almost forty years ago . . .
Marion Deacon is a wife and mother, and not particularly good at being either. It’s the 1970s and in her small village the Swinging 60s, the wave of feminism, the prospect of an exciting life, have all swerved past her. Reading her teenage daughter’s diary, it seems that Sarah is on the threshold of getting everything her mother Marion was denied, and Marion cannot bear it – what she does next has terrible and heart-breaking consequences for the whole family.
Locations
ResetTravel Guide
How it Was in Kent with Janet Ellis
There aren’t a great deal of locations in this novel and the village and hospital where much of it takes place is fictional or vague. Kent is the background of the novel but it’s the landscape of the 1970s that provides the sense of time and place.
There are many sad scenes set in the hospital and many might find it hard to read if they have recently lost a loved one.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: How It Was
Destination : Kent Author/Guide: Janet Ellis Departure Time:1970s
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