I apologise right now.
For those new to the audiobook experience, I am afraid that this is precisely the kind of story that will get you hopelessly addicted. Hook, line and sinker. The audiobook is a completely different art form to a novel or film – and on its day it can beat them hands down. Those who already enjoy audiobooks know that a compelling narrative is key – and that the other absolutely essential ingredient is the voice, or voices. It’s a simple recipe. If the story is good and the narrator has a great voice and is genuinely in tune with the plot and the characters, then the listener cannot fail to be entranced.
Seasoned narrators like Martin Jarvis, Juliet Stevenson and Samantha Bond (check out Chocolat on audiobook) deliver the goods pretty much every time, and Emilia Fox is coming up hard on their heels. But here’s a new kid on the block – well, on the audio block. David Tennant. He’s the good “Doctor” who can make anything from the Tardis to Casanova a treat, with his clear Scottish diction and unbridled enthusiasm.
And he’s rolled up his sleeves here and really got stuck in. In fact, on the CD cover, he says: “I couldn’t put this down – I had to record the book.”
So what’s the story and why should we care? Well, if you’ve enjoyed Emma Donaghue’s brilliant book, Room, then you’ll already be familiar with the idea of a child narrator carrying the entire narrative through their eyes – with all the hidden nuances lurking behind their naïve and inadvertently moving observations. Here, first-time novelist Annabel Pitcher employs a ten-year-old protagonist, Jamie, to tell the story of himself and his own family, which was blown apart when his sister Jasmine’s twin – Rose – was the victim of a terrorist bomb in London five years earlier. But they’ve never been able to move on since her death – and her ashes are right there on the mantelpiece to remind them.
Jamie sees his parents’ marriage unravel while feeling guilty about not missing Rose, and Jas seems to be going off the rails in classic teenage rebel fashion. What’s more, his dad has uprooted them from London to rural Cumbria, where Jamie sticks out like a sore thumb. After an unpromising start at school, he befriends another misfit, Sunya, and has to address his genuine moral quandary over whether he should even be speaking to a Muslim girl when it was Muslims who carried out the terrorist attacks that killed Rose.
Not to mention that his dad is vehemently and vocally anti-Muslim. But the duo bond over being bullied outsiders, and over their desire to be superheroes. Jamie is Spiderman, in his precious t-shirt, while Sunya is Girl M, with her hijab flying behind her like a cape. And his only other friend is Roger, his beloved cat. Quietly, tentatively, Jamie begins to start life afresh, discovers new talents and an assertiveness, and the narrative steers a clear optimistic path that never strays into sentimentality.
David Tennant is simply perfect at conveying Jamie’s innocence, sadness and joy – making this the kind of audiobook to entertain adults and children alike. And in Annabel Pitcher, it seems we have a major new literary talent. Bring on the second novel! Highly recommended.
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