Marking Time

"I love the Cazalet books , and Marking Time is part of that series. I also loved the TV adaptation, which only ran for one series but was fabulously filmed and acted. This is the best book in the series. War is coming, and the Cazalet family are plunged into the situation. Like everyone else they have to deal with the start of the war, and the youngest son goes off to fight in Dunkirk. The book is cross generational, so you have the children and the patriarch and matriarch in this lovely old house in Sussex. It is obviously heavily autobiographical. But she is very clever, because the readers get to switch between the different points of view of all the main characters. Yes, it is steeped in authenticity. It all feels right. All the characters feel very real, because they were based on real people. I can’t think of another book which more vividly captures the mood at that time of an upper middle-class family on the cusp of war. Novels can fill in the gaps that the history books can’t. They can give you conversations, you get the mood and the atmosphere. Also, it is a sort of escapism. But I am quite a hard task master. If the period feel isn’t up to it then I will give up on a book. I love historical fiction , but it has to be right."