By and large the Martin Rubin reviews we’ve excerpted on this site are favorable reviews, but this one, not so much:
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By MARTIN RUBIN
Wall Street Journal April 4, 2008
THE RAIN BEFORE IT FALLS
By Jonathan Coe
(Knopf, 240 pages, $23.95)
Rosamond, who as a child was evacuated from wartime London to the countryside, is now a dying woman “recording a family history by describing a handful of photographs, for the benefit of a young, blind relative….To Mr. Coe’s credit, he does capture the voice and spirit of his female characters and the intensity of their experience. But the heavy hand of determinism guides the story, imputing order to tragic and seemingly chaotic events. The air of doom and inevitability — together with the novel’s apparent message that misfortunes have a way of recurring across generations — makes ‘The Rain Before It Falls’ profoundly depressing and not especially persuasive to anyone with even the vestige of a belief in free will. If tragedy is easy and comedy is hard, here’s hoping that Mr. Coe is hard at work on his next book.”
For the full review, click here or visit www.wsj.com.