The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

Every so often, a book comes along that draws you in from the first page. You become completely wrapped up in the setting and you really care about the characters. When that happens in an author’s debut novel, you know you are dealing with a genuinely exciting new voice. That is the case with The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey which is the best fiction book I’ve read this year, and I’ll be astonished if it doesn’t remain so. Hopefully this review will encourage you to read it for yourself and experience the alchemy of story and setting for yourself.

The Story

This novel takes place in Yorkshire in 1979 where the spectre of the Yorkshire Ripper hangs over the whole county, and the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister is seen as a great thing by many and anything but by many more. The murders have made people suspicious of each other and, for some, the situation has become so all consuming that they are thinking of moving away from the county. This is the situation Miv finds herself if when her Dad, Austin, mentions out of the blue that he is thinking of a fresh start away from the county. Miv can’t imagine leaving her home or, more importantly, her inseparable best friend Sharon. Miv asks her Dad if it’s something to do with the murders and he admits that this is partly the case. In order to avoid a situation she can’t imagine, Miv decides that she must investigate the murders herself in case there is something that the police have missed. She gets, initially at least, wholehearted support from Sharon and the two start to turn their gazes to some of the people in their own town who appear to have something to hide. It turns out they do, but not in the way that Miv thinks. Sadness, violence and tragedy combine as they turn their gaze on the hidden lives of those around them who find their way onto The List of Suspicious Things.

My thoughts

We all know the novels that try to set up a time and a place with a blitz of ‘iconic’ food brands, drinks, cars and music. Instead of bringing you into the world, it keeps you outside because you can see what the author is doing. They are like the websites and Facebook groups that try to grab your attention with cries of ‘Remember this?’ which is OK if you’re scrolling but incredibly distracting if you are reading a novel. The List of Suspicious Things has a far more effective approach to bringing you back to the world of 1979. Like a series of half remembered days, the spare descriptions of the surroundings and the lifestyles anchor this story in those days at the end of the 70s where the country was changing socially but not yet materially. I grew up ‘down South’ as they would say in this book, but I recognised the people and the streets because at that time the country had more in common than it seems to have nowadays. The chipped Formica, the corner shop where you got your sweets and just about everything else and that house you went to where your friend had a far brighter lifestyle at least on the surface. All of that was there, familiar and absolutely redolent of my mid teen years. Away from that surface of seemingly simple lives lived in simple styles, you had the casual and sometimes brutal cruelty dished out to anyone with a point of difference. What this book does so well is to bring you Miv’s point of view where she sees things that adults don’t but often fails to understand what she is seeing. Mixed in with her first person narrative, you get glimpses into the lives of the people she and Sharon are investigating. Omar, the corner shop owner with his constant battle against racism, the nagging pain of a personal loss and the feeling that he will never fit in. Mr Ware, the borderline bullying school teacher that we all had in the 1970s and 80s has a very different side that he keeps hidden. Helen, the school librarian whose husband has isolated her from everyone she knows including her own father. These characters and many others are shown to have their own struggles and it is Miv and Sharon who become inadvertent catalysts to bring those struggles to a head. Even her family have their secrets. The gruff, no nonsense Aunty Jean, who came to take over the household after Miv’s mother stopped speaking and retreated to her bedroom, turns out to have hidden depths that Miv is only dimly aware of. Until we step into these lives ourselves, we too are only dimly aware of what goes on behind those closed doors. It is so cleverly written that the pieces fall into place almost without you realising.

The book is full of humour, sadness, tragedy and stoicism. All human life is here and it leaps off of the page because of the incredibly skilful writing of Jennie Godfrey. At times, I quite literally gasped out loud at some of the twists. Then as I realised what had happened and why it had happened the shock turned to sympathy and sadness. It is a beautiful book that connects you with what it means to be human and part of the society around you. This is destined to become one of those rare books that I will want to reread at fairly regular intervals. I cannot wait to find out what Jennie Godfrey is going to write next, but I just know it will be amazing. This is my book of the year so far and I cannot recommend it highly enough.