1976: Peggy Hillcoat is eight. She spends her summer camping with her father, playing her beloved record of The Railway Children and listening to her mother's grand piano, but her pretty life is about to change.
Her survivalist father, who has been stockpiling provisions for the end which is surely coming soon, takes her from London to a cabin in a remote European forest. There he tells Peggy the rest of the world has disappeared. And so her life is reduced to a piano which makes music but no sound, a forest where all that grows is a means of survival. And a tiny wooden hut that is Everything.
Peggy is not seen again for another nine years.
1985: Peggy has returned to the family home. But what happened to her in the forest? And why has she come back now?
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[This morning I found a black and white photograph of my father at the back of the bureau drawer]***
(Fig Tree, 26 February 2015, borrowed from my library)
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Our Endless Number Days has been on my TBR list for ages and I'm glad I finally got round to reading it.
The book is every bit as great as I expected it to be.
I found the book riveting. I was fascinated by Peggy's father and his survivalist life, stockpiling preserves for the end of the world. I felt his obsession with this was sign of mental stability. Although he had friends that got involved in survivalist discussions, it was clear he was more passionate about it than them.
His behaviour verges on disturbing at times especially when he disappears into the forest with his daughter. Peggy thinks they are the last people on earth but the reality is the police are treating it a case of kidnapping. I would have killed him if I'd been Peggy's mouther for dragging my daughter off into a forest and getting her involved in my craziness.
Our Endless Numbered Days is quite dark and bleak at times, especially as Peggy and her father become increasingly isolated in the forest. I was riveted.
I liked the way the book is structured with several chapters set in the past including Peggy's life in the forest alternating with chapters set in the present as she adjust to life in civilisation and her mother tries to found out what really happened in the forest.
There are revelations towards the end about what happened to Peggy in the forest and how she managed to find her way home that stunned me and chilled me to the bone. I won't reveal what they are but - Jesus!
