{"id":3669,"date":"2013-02-20T07:15:25","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T07:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=3669"},"modified":"2013-02-21T06:19:45","modified_gmt":"2013-02-21T06:19:45","slug":"lost-found-by-tom-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=3669","title":{"rendered":"Lost & Found by Tom Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Corsair 21 February 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

320pp, hardback, <\/strong>\u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Daphne Wright<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The number of titles published about miserable married women, disappointed in their husbands and frustrated by their children, is enough to girdle the globe at least twice.\u00a0 Many such novels are so dull that the remaindered copies could provide the foundations for a dozen motorways.\u00a0 All of which makes the discovery of Lost & Found<\/em> not only a pleasure but also a genuine surprise.<\/p>\n

The miserable married woman is Carol.\u00a0 Her husband is ‘a certifiable dickhead’ and her daughter a nightmare.\u00a0 As we are introduced to Carol, we’re told she read all the child-rearing handbooks but now feels that Sun Tzu’s Art of War<\/em> or ‘a field study of rabid primates’ would have been more use.\u00a0 The tone is set.\u00a0 Carol may be unhappy and thwarted but she is no lachrymose, drooping victim.\u00a0 She begins to fight back against her depression by writing letters and posting them in envelopes marked only with a smiley face.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They fall into the hands of Albert, a widower who has worked for the Post Office for forty years or more.\u00a0 His life is no more satisfactory than Carol’s.\u00a0 He’s lonely and sees almost no one except his bullying neighbour and his patronizing, much younger colleagues.\u00a0 His only warmth comes from his cat, Gloria, who suffers a serious injury.\u00a0 At work he’s put in charge of the undeliverable post and, contrary to all regulations, removes Carol’s letters, considering them to be addressed to himself.\u00a0 Soon he is looking for her, using the clues in her letters to work out where she lives.<\/p>\n

In spite of the small, soul-shrivelling lives of these two unlikely heroes, their parallel adventures in the unexciting suburb of Croydon offer great charm.\u00a0 Winter’s style is chatty and his wit gentle, but he has a sharp enough edge to avoid sentimentality.\u00a0 His message is more admonitory than consoling:\u00a0 anyone can make a difference; all it takes is stepping outside your dreary routine.\u00a0 He is said to be at work on his second novel and it will be interesting to see how he tops this charming tale of Albert and Carol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Daphne Wright<\/p>\n

The miserable married woman is Carol. Her husband is ‘a certifiable dickhead’ and her daughter a nightmare. As we are introduced to Carol, we’re told she read all the child-rearing handbooks but now feels that Sun Tzu’s Art of War<\/em> or ‘a field study of rabid primates’ would have been more use. The tone is set.[…] in Reviews <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-notable-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3669"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3809,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3669\/revisions\/3809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}