BOOK OF THE YEAR? (Border Crossing - Pat Barker)

Member Name: pje

Product:	Border Crossing - Pat Barker
Date:	28/05/01 (157 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Powerful, thought-provoking narrative and dialogue., tackles difficult issues from many sides., must be a strong candidate for the Booker prize, surely???

Disadvantages: Disturbing echoes of the murder of James Bulger.

Tom Seymour is a child psychiatrist, and one Saturday morning
he finds himself walking along a riverbank with his wife Lauren,
discussing the breakdown of their marriage, when they see
a young man dive in, apparently in an attempt to commit suicide.
Tom jumps in and rescues him. That evening, Tom goes to visit the lad in hospital and recognizes him as Danny Miller - who thirteen years earlier, at the age of ten, was convicted of the murder of an old woman.

It was Tom whose assessment of the young Danny led to him being tried in an adult court, and it was Tom whose evidence turned the jury against Danny. Coincidence? Tom has his doubts.

Rather than putting the past behind him and starting life afresh with his new identity, Danny seems desperate for help to come
to terms with what happened; so Tom agrees to talk, or rather, listen to him, in a professional capacity. As part of this process, Tom has to find out what has happened to Danny since his conviction, and a trip to the secure unit where Danny served
out most of his sentence uncovers several startling episodes.

Also, while on a visit to his mother, Tom remembers a disturbing incident from his own childhood which strongly echoes the killing
of James Bulger. Indeed, this whole novel deals with the issues raised by the controversy over the possible release of his killers.

Pat Barker addresses some very important questions here.
How and why does a young boy become a killer? And can he ever return to society and live a normal life? Because, although Danny has served his time, he is still on the run from the tabloids...


In many ways, this is a psychological thriller - I was transfixed,
reading it with real trepidation and my eyebrows permanently raised. The uneasy relationship between Tom and creepy Danny reminded me of the central characters in Ian McEwan's Enduring Love - and believe me, if you thought that was a grea
t book then you won't be disappointed by this. It will be interesting to see whether the Booker prize judges include this on their shortlist.
I'll be staggered if they don't (as happened with Enduring Love.)

Pat Barker is a previous winner of the Booker Prize of course -
for The Ghost Road - the last book in the trilogy which began
with Regeneration (for my money the best book of the 1990's.)

Here she keeps the drama bubbling by dropping in new ingredients all along the way. I would love to give you some examples, but I don't want to give away any of the surprises.
In particular, one question Tom asks Danny's old headmaster
is so revealing I gasped! I do enjoy reading a book where you
never know what's you're going to find around the next page...

If you put this book down it's because you're afraid to find out what happens. I am looking forward to reading more opinions
about it - so check out your local libraries, or, if needs be, buy it!


£11.38 at Waterstone's Online
£11.89 at BOL

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