In Search Of Adam...

Caroline Smailes has written a novel. I would be surprised if anyone who reads this blog has not come across Caroline's amazing story, of how her unassuming blog launched her beautiful first novel, but in case you haven't you can catch up with her story here.

I read her novel this week. I was blown away. With the story of Jude - a motherless, abused child on a quest to discover her roots - Caroline has produced the most moving piece of fiction I have read in a long time. The subject matter is not for the faint-hearted. Childhood sexual abuse, post-natal depression, self-harm and suicide are not topics that raise one's spirits. The prose, however, will fill your heart with sheer pleasure. Soak up the words. Each one is carefully chosen.

Caroline has beautifully crafted form and style to shape the content. The ‘what’ is presented simply. The ‘how’ is the stunning beauty of the book. The way we meet the book is precisely the way we meet a broken child. With patience, with work, with tolerance. By hearing the voice that lay underneath the words, chilling as those words are.

Jude doesn’t let you get close to her easily. Of course she doesn’t. That is how it is when you are a child abused. She tells you her story in stark, brutal sentences and you have to read between her words to find out who she is. But once you are alongside her, she slowly begins to reveal herself. You have to work hard. That is how it is for children like Jude.

Books can often make me cry. I have read Love In The Time Of Cholera umpteen times and I cry every single time. In Search Of Adam made me cry. I began to weep not at Jude’s story, but the beautiful way in which Caroline allows me to know it. I began to weep at the beauty of the voices within; at the emotion that is held within the words. I had to work to attune to Jude, but once you are attuned Caroline draws you in until you are deeply involved in Jude's reality. This is precisely how I would ‘do therapy’ with Jude. Caroline has the consummate skill of an experienced writer to recreate this process in fiction form.

Caroline is a linguist. She captures Jude's voice beautifully, and through Jude we come to know the world of the grown-ups. As Jude grows, the voices begin to layer and layer until the book is dense with texture and meaning. Her use of language and poetry is exquisite. I was reminded of some of the Anglo-Indian writers: Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy. Quite some going for a first time novelist.


Caroline will be reading from her novel at Waterstone's in Deansgate, Manchester, on Thursday 14 June at 7pm. Don't miss it. I suspect it's the start of something big.