The Gardener

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The descriptions of nature and the garden are so evocative and I felt I could clearly picture the house, the garden and the characters. She loves a reference to poetry, quotes "Twelfth Night" to us, has an expectation about certain magazines she's probably never read, and despite claims of poverty (due to her only work being illustrating a kids' fiction franchise which she of course hates) diligently overspends because it's for the locals. They have a passionate long relationship that is only able to be maintained on the sly, as Robert is married and has no intention of leaving his wife.

Salley Vickers (Author of The Librarian) - Goodreads Salley Vickers (Author of The Librarian) - Goodreads

Steeped in a sense of the redemptive power of place, Salley Vickers’s 11th novel is a paean to green-fingered regeneration that is both rigorous and charming. It gives her a chance to process her father’s death, think about her upbringing and reflect on a love affair she had with a married man that went painfully wrong, the story of which is told in snatched flashbacks tinged with drama and excitement. I have listed Salley Vickers as a "new to me author" although I'm pretty sure I have read one title by her at least, but possibly decades ago. I was sure at around the halfway point that my rating for The Gardener would be higher, but I personally found the ending extremely unsatisfactory; in my opinion, it did not tally with the characters’ behaviour up to that point, and it felt rather rushed.

Our narrator, Hassie Days (it is revealed) is writing to her unborn child and the father has got to be Murat, the Albanian gardener with the beautiful white teeth and dazzling smile. Perhaps this is because, although Salley Vickers begins her novel in the second-person (she is writing to a ‘you’), she only briefly uses this device maybe a couple more times throughout the main narrative. When I was a jejune, know-it-all, twenty-year-old student, I would have been scornful of a novel such as this. We also have to see how snippy Margot is, and a lot in flashback about the relationship with a married man Hass is seemingly on the run from, and a lot else besides.

The Gardener - Salley Vickers

it comes across at Robert and Hassie‘s relationship being mostly physical, but then why would Hassie be unable to get over him? Hassie plans to live there permanently, but Margot, who has a job in the city, will simply visit on weekends or stay over when she needs a respite from London life. My only complaint (and this 3 stars) was with the end which I felt to be confusing and unnecessary— I don’t want to spoil, but I wish a book like this, so much about a woman finding her own soul, community and peace, could end with that being enough. A run-in with a young girl, Penny Lane (there are a lot of weird names in this book, it has to be said), creates a tipping point in the story, which is perhaps the only bit that doesn’t quite ring true.She becomes interested in the mysterious previous owner of Knight’s Fee, Nellie East, whose notebooks she finds and reads; a young and wayward girl, Penny Lane, dashes into her life; and then there is the gardener, Murat, employed to tend the grounds of Hassie’s and Margot’s new home.

The Gardener by Salley Vickers - The Church Times

Salley Vickers is the author of many acclaimed novels including the best-selling Miss Garnet's Angel, Mr Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and The Cleaner of Chartres (Viking 2012) and two short story collections, the latest The Boy Who Could See Death (Viking 2015). It’s a simple story, episodic, with no danger or too much heartbreak; just a tale of place, community, and time helping to heal a person’s heartbreak, broken relationships, and loss. Finding it rather a large task, she asks for the help of Murat, an Albanian refugee, who has largely been ‘made to feel out of place amongst the locals’. In my mind’s eye, my infant self went whizzing past the sober middle-aged person padding down the dusty stairs to the hall.A bit mawkish, but I’m not decrying this at all in the context of the novel: in fact I grew to like it the more Vickers revealed about Hassie and her self-image as someone who had grown up feeling unloved by her mother and outshone by her very beautiful, stylish and Cambridge-intelligent older sister, Margot. Through Hass's eyes, as she's the more regular resident, we see how they differ – in decor, in willingness to befriend the locals, and in so much else. Together, these elements form a notion of the healing force present in nature, and the ever-present possibility of rebirth and joy. Alongside Hassie’s present day existence, we learn very early on that she is still locked into her childhood, and the pains which have filled her past. The lovingly described recreation of a neglected garden and the healing power of nature were captured beautifully and unlike others I liked the way the story was bookended by short first person commentary.