Natural Flights of the Human Mind

Although the novel deals with tragedy, hurting, and loneliness, it is told in a fluent, smooth manner, with the language never getting too heavy or depressing. The characters are unbelievably real, they feel like your next door neighbors rather than fictional personalities. Worth reading.

Peter Straker lives alone in a lighthouse on the Devon coast. But his mind is full of the voices of 78 people who died in a train wreck almost 25 years ago. Peter feels responsible; he is sure he caused their deaths but isn't certain how. In the lighthouse, as the coast tears away at the shore, he hears their voices, accusations and sometimes even their kindness. Peter lives like a hermit, going to town only for food and supplies and talking to no one. But the arrival of Imogen Doody forces him out of his exile and back into the world of the living. Clare Morrall's sophomore effort, following ASTONISHING SPLASHES OF COLOUR (a Booker Prize finalist) centers on Peter and Imogen as they navigate a tenuous and emotional relationship that makes each deal with their tragic past and their hopes for the future. Imogen, or "Doody," is a school caretaker, an angry woman with no friends and a strained relationship with her family. She discovers she has inherited a cottage on the Devon coast from a godfather she never knew. The cottage is a dream come true, a place to be alone with her thoughts and perhaps even finish the novel she half-heartedly has been working on. But the cottage is also a disaster, abandoned and decrepit, and she has neither the money nor the know-how to fix it up. It is her activity in the cottage that attracts Peter, and he talks with his first living person in years when he meets Doody. Her anger flashes again and again and he retreats to his lighthouse again and again, but they eventually come to something of a truce and begin to work on the cottage together. Over time they open up to each other and discover that both were emotionally scarred and damaged 25 years ago --- Peter with the train wreck and Doody when her husband abandoned her never to be heard from again. Could the events be related? And why does the discovery that Doody has also inherited a small plane make Peter so upset? What happened to Doody's husband, and what happened when Peter last flew a plane almost 25 years ago? Although Morrall's book is not a mystery, these questions and others haunt the narrative as they do the characters. NATURAL FLIGHTS OF THE HUMAN MIND is a beautiful, thoughtful and thoroughly successful novel. Morrall's characters seem and act real; while the foundational events are quite extraordinary, Peter and Doody are just normal people who are lonely and guilty and more than a little afraid of relationships and the future. Morrall's prose is lovely and quite readable. This is serious stuff without being heavy, and character-driven without being dull. And there is resolution without easy answers or clichés. This is also a novel that is creative in its description and use of setting. The lighthouse seems to be crumbling along with the shore as Peter explores the truth of his responsibility and the world at large intrudes upon his solitude. Doody must clear away the years of misuse to find the beauty and functional space in the cottage. Guilt