MARY GEORGE OF ALLNORTHOVER

Precise, lyrical prose distinguishes London poet Greenlaw's haunting debut novel, set in a dying English country village in the 1970s. British reticence and punk music provide the backdrop for the story of 17-year-old Mary George, a young woman growing up without direction. When Tom Hepple, a local who has spent the last decade in psychiatric care, returns to Allnorthover, he seeks out his childhood home, long since buried under the town's reservoir. An optical trick leads him to believe that he sees Mary walking on water above his home, a belief spurred by both his mental turmoil and the burden of family trauma. Although Tom's twin brother and other of his family members try to deflect Tom's obsession, he compulsively pursues the girl. Meanwhile, Mary simply tries to remain invisible as she contends with her own insecurities. Both of her parents are off-kilter: her architect father lives like a recluse outside town, and her mother pleads with Mary to remember her father's indiscretions and his past dealings with the Hepples (referring to a scandal that the reader learns about only gradually) while assuring her of Tom's harmlessness. Mary is also figuring out how to belong—to a family, to a group of friends, to a boyfriend—and her search dredges up further secrets and class tensions. At town festivals and rave shows, the pre-goth Mary and a band of sympathetic characters move slowly in different directions, but also toward an inexorable and tragic denouement. Greenlaw sets her secret-filled story in a meticulously realistic setting—a village where all the families are intertwined by shared history and where fuel shortages and power cuts signal the disruption that will follow. Rights sold in Germany and the Netherlands. (July 9)