Restless - William Boyd Reviews

"Restless" is a book set in two time periods - WWII and the period just preceding it and 1970s Britain. The book begins with a first person narrative and as a reader I found it a bit confusing as I wasn't sure who the narrator was. The narrator turns out to be Ruth, a young single mother, thinking about her mother and when ...  Read the complete review

Ruth Gilmartin is a single mother, working on her Masters thesis and teaching English as a Second Language in Oxford. Her mother, Sally, has decided to write down the story of her experiences during WW2 and give them to Ruth. This is when Ruth discovers that the woman she grew up with was actually Eva Delectorskaya - a Russian who moved to Paris ...  Read the complete review

picked up this book because I was drawn to it by the blurb on the back, and was not disappointed by this part of the story. I was, however, disappointed by the fact that episodes were alternated with incidents in the life of Eva's daughter. I can see why this was done - so that the reader could discover things at the same time as the daugher ...  Read the complete review

In offering a review of a novel by William Boyd I could certainly be accused of bias. I would proudly plead guilty, since I regard him as one of just four or five British writers who are capable of constructing supreme works of fiction, written in a framework that is both informative and thought-provoking and all this set within a continuum of ...  Read the complete review

This is another book from the Richard and Judy Book Club 2007. I read this book while I was on holiday; it is the third book that I have read from the Richard and Judy selection and the first I have read by William Boyd. ~ The Author ~ William Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana, on 7 March 1952. He has written many novels and won ...  Read the complete review

In ‘Brazzaville Beach’ (1990) Boyd wrote a 1st-person narrative from a woman’s point of view, & the novel won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In ‘Restless’, his 9th & most recent novel, he employs a parallel narrative structure, & writes from 2 women’s viewpoints. The book opens with Ruth Gilmartin, a single ESL ...  Read the complete review