Martin Rubin reviews Justin Cartwright’s novel To Heaven by Water:
Quest in the fog: A recently widowed former British TV news anchor frantically searches for meaning in this novel that knows its setting.
By Martin Rubin
L.A. Times, August 21, 2009
Justin Cartwright was born in South Africa in 1945, came to study at Oxford in the mid-1960s and has lived in England ever since. Like his previous novels, “To Heaven by Water” showcases his uncanny ability to get the British scene just right, combining the perspective of a onetime outsider with the innate knowledge of one thoroughly at home.
The novel is a snapshot of a particular time in London—the present—and will serve very well one day as a time capsule of this interregnum. This is British society post-Iraq, post the prosperity and exorbitant property prices that characterized the early years of the 21st century. It’s a time of bewilderment, of anger, of bitterness—what went wrong? Even despised old Tony Blair is looking good in a world where his successor seems to be nothing more than a punching bag for everyone, including retired TV anchorman David Cross, the novel’s protagonist . . . .
For Martin’s full review, click here or visit www.latimes.com.