O Fortuna

    I agree with Victoria Hislop's comment there on the cover of East Fortune: James Runcie's characters do leave you wanting to know much more about them, but what the reader does get here is a considered novel, and one of sensitivity, compassion and quiet warmth.
    Set largely in and around Edinburgh (East Fortune is a real place about twenty miles from here), it describes the Henderson family, three middle-aged sons and the crises they face - some of their own making, others happenstance - and their parents Ian and Elizabeth, who have their own private history but who have learned to respect "the grace of silence".
   Forced out of his life of "disciplined withdrawal" by a dreadful event, divorced classics scholar Jack begins a tentative friendship with a young Polish woman. While his elder brother Angus finds his solid, settled world threatened by redundancy, the youngest of the three, Douglas, embarks on a dangerous liaison. As the brothers gather at the family home, they come under the scrutiny of those who know them best, and find both comfort and censure for the paths they have chosen and the fates which have befallen them.
    The book speaks of much thought on the intricacies of family relationships, on their internal rivalries, secrets and inevitable expectations, and the plot - though it has its dramatic moments - is a means of exploring these themes. I enjoyed it very much indeed and am left wanting more from James Runcie whose writing is informed by his deep intellect and enhanced by his film-maker's eye.