BEYOND THE ARCH.

BEYOND THE ARCH by DAVID EVERED.

A provocative challenge at a dinner party, a serendipitous encounter on a Northumberland cliff top, the accidental death of a friend and the rupture of his marriage converge to disrupt Peter Bowman's well-ordered middle-class existence as he approaches middle age.

Peter negotiates a sabbatical from his job as a solicitor to pursue his long held ambition to write fiction. He embarks on an odyssey which leads him to new challenges and loves shaped by happiness and tragedy.

 When Peter goes to France to stay with Sally, an enigmatic freelance journalist with a troubled past, he takes the first tentative steps towards writing a novel. But can he, as a member of the pre-baby boomer generation, ever fully escape from the constraints imposed by his background and upbringing and embrace the liberal and permissive attitudes of the 1960s and achieve his lifelong ambition?

- Back Cover Blurb

Ann's parting injunction as he had left for work that morning could not have been clearer.

- First Sentence, Chapter 1

Ann's father's condition had stabilised and he remained in that grey and uncertain clinical no-man's-land, neither well enough to leave hospital nor yet sufficiently ill to cause immediate concern to his family or medical attendants.

- Memorable Moment, Page 34

SOURCE ... Received with thanks from the author.

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... No.

MY THOUGHTS ... Not what I thought of as a complex plot, this is very much a character driven. What I described to a fellow reader as a coming-of-(middle)age drama; the main character being, not the usual suspect, but rather a middle-aged man. 

A character I'm sure many of us will relate to ... if not indeed identify with on a more personal level. Beyond The Arch's Peter is the type of person for whom, the so called Swinging-Sixties never having existed, is feeling a certain lack of fulfilment; a lack of fulfilment that if fulfilled, others might think of as foolish; of him acting on a whim. 

Meandering with a decidedly melancholy air. Arguably dense of dialogue (my goodness how the author likes his long sentences); some of it inconsequential, much of it fairly stilted. All things that in other circumstance might have irritated me greatly, here they somehow seemed fitting, giving the reader a great sense of, well, Peter.

Definitely one worth sticking with if you are interested in people. After the first few chapters I found myself enchanted by the characters; totally engrossed in their relationships, intrigued by where life would take them but, most of all, longing to know if Peter would break free of those dratted perceived chains and find fulfilment.