Mona and Wolfie have been married for sixty-five years and have lived on Victoria Park for most of them. But Mona's been unwell; the cruel onset of Alzheimer's meaning she's slowly forgetting the community that she has known for nearly sixty years.
Bookended by the touching exploration of their love, Victoria Park follows the disparate lives of twelve people over the course of a single year. As the months unfold, ordinary days give way to extraordinary moments. A young man finds more than he bargains for when he breaks into a house. A couple navigate IVF with varying degrees of enthusiasm. A mother struggles with the morality of reading her daughter's diary. Meanwhile, the lingering memory of an acid attack in the park touches each resident in a different way.
Told from multiple perspectives over the course of a single year, these carefully interwoven tales create a rich tapestry of a novel and a touching exploration of resilience, love and loss.
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At the end of Wolfie's garden is a shed he built in the summer of 1951, the same year he turned nineteen and opened the kosher deli next to Victoria Park. OCTOBER, SMOKING SALMON
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(@AtlanticBooks, 7 January 2021, 197 pages, ebook, #ARC from the publisher via # NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed, #BlogTour 10 January 2021 via @RandomTTours)
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This is a debut and I had no idea what to expect. I thought Victoria Park was a terrific book, I fell in love with the twelve characters than span the pages, their lives, their hopes, pain, fear - the whole enchilada. I loved the concept of the book, how the lives of these twelve very different people connect and intercept. Some of the connection are obvious, for example, family members and other connections are surprising and come out of nowhere. I was never sure who I was going to meet next which made reading the book engaging and I got submerged in every word. I'd highly recommend this. I can't wait to see what the author comes up with next.
