- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Picador; Main Market edition (5 Mar. 2020)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1509898158
- ISBN-13: 978-1509898152
Synopsis
Jack Chalmers is a man of few words, married to a woman of many. He and Bet have been together for seventy years – almost a lifetime – and happily so, for the most part.
All Jack and Bet want is to enjoy the time they have left together, in the flat they have tried to make their home. Their son Tommy has other ideas: he wants them to live somewhere with round-the-clock care, hot meals, activities. Bet thinks they can manage just fine.
When they strike up an unlikely friendship with Marinela, a young Romanian woman, Bet thinks she has found the perfect solution – one that could change Marinela’s life as well as theirs. But this means revisiting an old love affair, and confronting a long-buried secret she has kept hidden from everyone, even Jack, for many years.
Review
Jack and Bet is a beautiful read about three wonderful characters who really touched me with their stories. Jack and Bet have been married for seventy years, they have overcome problems along the way, a secret love affair, being forcibly removed from their home, but they have have each other. Their son Tommy thinks they should consider going into an old peoples home, but they want to keep their independence. A chance meeting with photography student, Marinela opens an opportunity that may let them stay at home and also help Marinela. Sarah Butler has written a true and honest portrayal of a long marriage, and a couple getting older and all that entails.
You can’t help but fall in love with the characters in this book, they are written with such detail and understanding and Sarah Butler really gets under their skin. Jack walks every morning to the shopping centre in Elephant and Castle, passing on the way his old home that has been demolished and due to be renovated. It was in that tower block that Jack and Bet were at their happiest, and even though it hurts ever day he passes he can’t help himself and won’t change his route. Bet doesn’t go out much now due to eye problems that she won’t admit to. She is determined to keep her independence, like a lot of elderly people, and refuses to go into a home. Like so many women, even at nearly ninety, she worries about not being a good enough mother, a good enough wife, and that she is still letting her husband and son down by keeping a secret.
Marinela is in her early twenties, and has recently come over from Romania to study and aim for a better life; she is also running away from a broken heart. Both Jack and Bet see a bit of Bet in her, her high cheek bones, personality, and for Bet she becomes a friend. Marinela’s story is like a mirror to Bet’s past, just sixty years later, but still with difficult decisions to make, in life and love, and she also secrets.
There are many reaccuring themes, like family and love, in this book, one of the main ones being the importance of home, and what that means to different people. Jack and Bet were happiest in their flat, in the tower block, with a view over the London skyline. There was a sense of community, friends and neighbours they knew, but that was all taken away by the council. For Marinela, Romania is home, especially her grandmother’s house where she has such happy memories. After her grandmother’s death it became inhabitable left to fall down, and this breaks her heart. Home is not just bricks and mortar, it’s where we are happy, where we are safe and where we feel loved.
Jack and Bet is a wonderful and endearing portrayal of seventy years of marriage, its ups and downs, but it is not overly sentimental. The characters are fullbodied, and beautifully drawn by Sarah Butler, and I couldn’t help but love them. This depiction of everyday life, marriage and the problems of getting older make this a poignant read but very relatable. There is nothing more important than family, love and friendship and this book is full of all three. A stunning and hugely enjoyable read, with unforgettable characters.
I would like to thank Anne Cater and Picador for my copy of this book in return for my honest review.
