Everlasting Lane

"There was something frightful about those woods. But it wasn't the trees… It was the shadows squeezed between them." Galley Beggar Press's third release is another novel from a wonderful new talent, following the success of The White Goddess: An Encounter in 2012, and Eimear McBride's remarkable A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing in 2013. Andrew Lovett's Everlasting Lane evokes the eternal summer of a 1970s childhood: sun-soaked, nostalgic, with the soft focus and warm glow of a Polaroid – but offset by darkness. Peter is a boy who doesn't really understand the present, who refuses to think properly about the past, but is compelled to come to terms with both, in a story that is part Secret Seven, part I'm Not Scared, and part A Month In The Country. Glorying in the joys and gentle adventures of childhood, and featuring a sidekick – Anna-Marie – as memorable as Dill in To Kill A Mockingbird, Everlasting Lane is a bittersweet and delightfully strange exploration of the complexities of family relationships, and the shadows that the past can cast over the present.