Idle Grounds bookmarks

The following is an account of an afternoon in June in which we sallied forth and then for the most part back By we I mean the cousins who were a varied crew with the normal range of grubby characteristics and while we weren t great I d like your sympathy because of our humanity and also what we ve lost Idle GroundsThe main storyline in this debut novel by poet Krystelle Bamford is set over one hot June day in the 80s in rural New England A group of young cousins have gathered with their respective families for a birthday party at the house of their unmarried aunt Frankie Left to their own devices the children explore the house and from the window of an upstairs bathroom spot something eerie and undefined prowling in the grounds of the property Three year old Abi runs down and promptly disappears For the rest of the day the children led by eldest cousin twelve year old Travis explore the house and its surroundings looking for Abi but by the end of the day discovering than they bargained for. Book Idle grounds guys This type of novel in which a now adult narrator looks back to a defining event in childhood youth has become a genre in itself It takes an original writer to make such a story stand out and Bamford fits the bill. Idle groundsill cipamingkis What I felt makes this slim novel memorable is the idiosyncratic voice of the unnamed narrator It combines within it the wide eyed wonder of the child who experienced the day s events and the knowing style of an adult who perhaps is trying too hard to sound like a literary author The result is a narration which is at times eerie and unsettling surrounded by a magical aura we never learn what exactly the children were seeing from the bathroom window probably a figment of their fertile imagination and at others darkly humorous in an offbeat way The narrator for instance has a knack for convoluted metaphors and irrelevant digressions but then surprises us with passages of poetic intensity Bamford also keeps a tight control over the plot As the day unfolds and things come to a head there are several flashbacks and flashforwards which allow the readers to slowly piece together the dark history of this eccentric family dominated by the matriarchal figure of Grandma Beezy and her mysterious demise Thus the novel achieves a double climax one happens on the day of the main storyline but it coincides with our discovery of what actually happened to Beezy It s all very clever and well crafted turning a now common trope into a memorable debut.4.5 Krystelle Bamford