Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido

Well, it’s an attention grabbing title, but I would have rushed out and bought a new book by Barbara Trapido whatever it had been called. It was around the time of Juggling and Temples of Delight that I first fell in love with her writing. And the backlist that I investigated and the new books that I rushed out to find continued the romance.

The words that came to mind were warm, quirky and real. So Sex and Stravinsky came as a surprise! What did it mean?

Well, it seems that the author has drawn inspiration from Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. A ballet of complex relationships, stolen identity, missed opportunity and triumphant rebirth. Certainly all of those can be found within this text.

The relationships would be best explained by a three dimensional diagram, but I don’t believe that WordPress has that facility (at least not yet) and so I shall do my best to explain as I work my way down the page.

First there is Josh, a South African who has come to England to study for a PhD in mime studies. Yes, really! He was a simple, quiet character, and so he was surprised that he was the man chosen by Caroline. She was an Australian student, beautiful, witty and the kind of girl who could create her own wedding dress from a discarded festoon blind, cater with panache for pennies, turn a dilapidated terraced house into a stylish home…

Caroline beat Josh in the entertainment stakes, but I’m afraid he trounced her in the believability stakes.

She became a little more believable when her fatal flaw came to light. She felt compelled to support her demanding, widowed mother. So she and Josh lived in a small house and accepted that they could only afford one child, while they supported her mother in a comfortable house of her own.

Josh and Caroline’s daughter, Zoe, reads girls’ ballet books and longs for ballet lessons. She is sent on a school French exchange and finds herself with the family from hell. You feel for her, you really do. But then she meets a runaway boy who shares her passion for dance…

Meanwhile, on the east coast of Africa, Hattie , Josh’s first love, has a successful career writing the ballet books that Zoe reads. But she struggles to cope with Herman, her demanding husband and Cat, her adolescent daughter, who is planning to take a most unexpected step forward.

And finally there is Jack. Also known as Jacques. Also known as Giacomo. The housemaid’s son, who has come home after travelling the world. Why?

Caroline who propels the plot when she discovers that her mother is not as poor as she claims. Indeed, she is positively rich. The worm turns. Caroline takes positive decisive action, and you just have to cheer. Suddenly I loved Caroline!

Her next step is to collect her daughter from France and take her to Africa, where Josh is at a conference. Where he bumps into Hattie. Who takes him home to meet her family.

And so all of the cast is assembled, and an elaborate dance begins. It’s a little contrived, the outcome is a little too neat, but I loved it anyway.

Because Barbara Trapido still has that magic. She creates such a lovely mix of utterly believable characters and relationships, balances quirkiness perfectly with serious themes, and tells wonderful tales that keep the pages turning.

There is more darkness here than I found in Barbara Trapido’s earlier books, but so much light too.

And yes, there are echoes of Pulcinella: stolen identity, missed opportunity and triumphant rebirth.

Not the magic I was expecting, but magic nonetheless.