“What had been temporary had become settled. What had seemed like the end of the world had become the centre.”
I described Joan London’s The Golden Age to a friend as a ‘quiet’ book. And it is. Quietly brilliant.
This isn’t a book with a plot that knocks you over or language that demands your attention. Instead, the characters creep into your heart, win your admiration. London’s words are plain but poetic – I found myself re-reading passages and thinking, “Isn’t that just perfection?”.
“His parents had stood like this at the railing on the deck of the ship to Australia, backs turned to him, slender drifts of smoke curling up above the horizon like the thread of their own thoughts. There was something lonely yet resolute about the way they stood there. It was not quite hope.” Continue reading
