Spring

by Ali Smith

This is the third book, in a series, that I have read by this author.  I just read my comments on the previous book, Winter.  I commented that I hoped "Spring" would not be as depressing as "Winter".
Well, it wasn't really.....

The book has a few references to new life and growth in spring but... it doesn't really seem to be regenerative or hopeful.  One of the book reviews I read calls this the darkest book.

The story makes references to climate change, Brexit and Trump

The first chapter is like a stream of consciousness rant.  The second chapter "I'm the child who's been buried in leaves, the leaves rot down, here I am".  No idea who this is, she doesn't seem to appear else where in the book.

Then we meet Richard Lease, TV and Film Director, who is struggling with a script he doesn't want to work on.  He is distraught after the death of a female friend and Mentor. He leaves his home, throws away his phone and heads out of London on a train going he knows not where.

Then we meet Brit who is working as a guard at an Immigrant detention centre. It sounds like a horrid place and a horrid job.  Rumours start circulating that a young girl entered the facility, no one knows how she got in our got through security.  She apparently met with the Head of the Centre and after that cleaning crews cleaned all the bathrooms in the place.

One day Brit is on her way to work and at a train station she is approached by a young girl in a school uniform.  The girl says she wants to get a a location on a post card she has and heads to the train.  Surprisingly no one asks her for a ticket .  She gets on a train and Brit follows her. 

They head north and eventually get to a train station where Richard has decided to commit suicide by lying down on the train tracks.  The little girl spots him and he is rescued.

Then the three of them head off to the girls desired destination driven by a woman in a coffee wagon that doesn't really sell coffee or anything else.  It turns out that the driver is one of a group of volunteers who try to help immigrants.  It seems that the young girl hopes to find her mother.

When they arrive at the destination, a battlefield, Brit calls in to her agency and there is a raid.  The driver is arrested and Richard and the young girl are taken away.

We never learn what has happened to the girl or the driver but at the end of the book Richard is doing a documentary about the volunteers who work to help the immigrants.

This was a powerful book but disturbing too.  I am afraid the last book Summer won't have much Sunshine when it comes out.  She is an amazing author.