book review: Keeping Up with Magda by Isla Dewar
The backstory: Keeping Up with Magda , Isla Dewar's first novel, was longlisted for the Orange Prize (now Bailey's Prize) in 1996. The basics: Jessie Tate walks away from her life and husband in Edinburgh. She ends up in Mareth, a small Scottish fishing village, and stays. She rents an apartment above The Ocean Cafe, which is run by the titular Magda. My thoughts: I'm quite drawn to tales of small town life, as well as stories of characters, particularly women, traveling to a town and starting a new life. So Keeping Up with Magda was right up my alley, yet it was so much more than I expected. While at times it is a quiet novel about a town and its inhabitants, it also was much deeper and darker than I expected. Jessie's journey to Mareth is not one of a woman searching for something new because she can; her journey begins because of a devastating event in her life. While I laughed and smiled as I read, I also winced. Dewar's characters are flawed people wh...