Joby by Stan Barstow

I first read this book as a teenager, probably after seeing the TV dramatisation. Don't know why it popped into my head again, maybe because it's a 'coming of age' novel and I'm trying to write one of them myself.

Basic plot: The story is set in Yorkshire just before the outbreak of the Second World War and the novel follows the events of Joby's last summer before going to grammar school. Joby's mother is ill and goes into hospital; Joby stays with his Aunt Daisy while her daughter Mona goes in to clean for Joby's dad. From this one disturbance various large and small consequences follow.

Narrative style: The story is told in the third person close up to Joby's point of view. Not much attention is paid to the passing of time and, as we know the events all take place during the school holidays, not much indication of this is needed. Occasionally there are passages that are more like montages in film so that time can be speeded up. This is a pretty common technique in most novels. The chapter where Joby's mother comes out of the hospital is mostly written in this way and a big deal is not made of this event, it happens without warning at the beginning of a new paragraph rather than having a chapter devoted to it.

Characterisation: The scene where Mona teases Joby when he is being washed by his Aunt Daisy saying 'what have you got to hide?' indicates something flirtatious about her character even in dealing with a boy of Joby's age. Aunt Daisy and Mona are probably more fully realised characters than Joby's parents. Gus Wilson is a bit of a cartoon book bully; Snap, Joby's tall friend, is more real, more human.

Points of interest for the writer:

The major point I take on board as a writer from this novel, and 'To Kill a Mockingbird', is that, in a coming of age novel, the story events in the adult world must be much more consequential than those in the children's world. This seems obvious but maybe I'm a slow learner. Joby is being led astray somewhat by his association with a tough boy called Gus Wilson but it's his father's straying in a flirtation with Joby's cousin Mona that provides the climax and real drama of the novel. The plot and sub-plot are inter-linked as they are in the best novels and plays.