From My Bookshelf: David Gilmore

What a novel idea for a book! (pun intended). As the story teller writes this he is in his sixties and the book consists of vignettes of his life and the defining moments what made him who he is.

Do we all do this as we age – revisit the past loves, mistakes, hurts, memories of success that we all carry around? I don’t know, but this narrator had me hooked from the beginning. This reads like a book of short stories but they are all about the narrator’s life. There is the trauma of a parent’s suicide, a lost love, ex-wives, children. Some of it is bleak, some of it is funny, some of it is downright fun and I had to wonder how much is autobiographical.

The narrator, Monday, seems able to revisit old haunts in France, on tropical islands in the Caribbean, at the Toronto Film Festival – wherever he wants. And what he discovers about his younger self is often funny, dillusional or sometimes just mundane. He does develop some compassion. He is able to delight in his favourite Beatles songs.

There is not a lot of action in this novel – it is more a meditation. It is a quick read that leads to a lot of self observation.

………..and others