{"id":6851,"date":"2016-06-17T10:36:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-17T10:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=6851"},"modified":"2016-06-21T11:12:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-21T11:12:39","slug":"conrad-and-eleanor-by-jane-rogers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=6851","title":{"rendered":"Conrad and Eleanor by Jane Rogers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Published by Atlantic Books UK\/HarperPerennial US June 2016 <\/strong><\/p>\n

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

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Award-winning author Jane Rogers\u2019s latest novel is a gripping account of a marriage based on role-reversal.\u00a0 Meeting as Cambridge undergraduates in the 1970s, Conrad and Eleanor embark on a life together.\u00a0 They discuss it beforehand, but the odd way in which they make the decision has long-term consequences.\u00a0 Conrad pushes Eleanor into marriage and motherhood, just as Eleanor will later push Conrad into work that goes against the grain, and this sets up a whole string of assumptions and reactions.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The main storyline begins in Manchester in the early 2000s.\u00a0 Between them, Con and El Evanson have four grown-up children, two scientific careers, one current affair (hers, and not the first).\u00a0 What none of the rest of them knows is that Con is contending with a serious dilemma all of his own.<\/p>\n

Away at a conference in Munich, Con finally cracks.\u00a0 He needs to run.\u00a0 \u2018He imagines leaving the hotel, dragging his wheelie case, crossing the road to the tram stop\u2026 He sees himself vanishing down the line, diminishing to a dot.\u00a0 He sees himself gone\u2026\u00a0 If he disappears, how will it affect the children?…What will happen at work?\u00a0 If he disappears, who will take the car for its MOT next Tuesday, who will be there to let the plumber in?\u00a0 Who will know where he has put the key to the shed?\u2019\u00a0 But he does disappear.\u00a0 He takes the train to Rome, his mind going round and round in circles, then leaps off the train without his luggage, at Bologna.<\/p>\n

No one knows where Conrad is.\u00a0 Eleanor is up to her ears in work, with lectures to give, PhD students to supervise.\u00a0 People depend on her.\u00a0 And she and the children depend on Conrad.\u00a0 One son can\u2019t work, one daughter has a pig of a boyfriend.\u00a0 They need help. Everything is so much more manageable when Con is around.\u00a0 They function as a team:\u00a0 he likes the protection of routine (doesn\u2019t he?) and being depended upon.\u00a0 She likes the protection of energy and movement, things to do, places to be.\u00a0 Now she can\u2019t do anything.\u00a0 At her nadir (and this is really pitiful for the reader), she looks in the freezer and finds none of the careful laying-in of food by Conrad that she so takes for granted.<\/p>\n

Throughout this fast-paced, thriller-like narrative, dialogue both external and internal crackles with authenticity.\u00a0 The honesty on both sides is completely disarming.\u00a0 And the issues they tackle\u00a0 –\u00a0 questions on the one hand of parental responsibility, of gender equality, of commitment versus lust, of truth and lies, and, on the other, of ethical science\u00a0 –\u00a0 give the story terrific momentum.\u00a0 There is also real pain and suffering, in the past but also, inescapably, in the present.\u00a0\u00a0 The resolution leaves all these things ticking, including the questions raised in the reader\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Throughout this fast-paced, thriller-like narrative, dialogue both external and internal crackles with authenticity. The honesty on both sides is completely disarming. And the issues they tackle – questions on the one hand of parental responsibility, of gender equality, of commitment versus lust, of truth and lies, and, on the other, of ethical science – give the story terrific momentum […] 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":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851","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=6851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6897,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6851\/revisions\/6897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}