Books like Heat Wave

The question is often asked ' Do you remember where you were when JFK was shot ?'...well probably in the midst of being breast fed by my mum if you're interested but I think a question could also be asked of the sun-starved british. ' Do you remember the heat waves of 1976, 1983 etc. We get so little that it remains burnt, if you'll pardon the pun, in the memory. This novel is all about an unspecified summer in which memory and past experience intermingle with the oppressively hot present. The main protagonist, having experienced the continuous infidelity 25 or so years previously of the husband in whom she had invested all her love and adoration to the point of obsession, now sees exactly the same history repeating itself in the relationship of her daughter and husband. Alongside these two histories which echo and reflect the misery and harrowing misplaced guilt and suffering of the two women involved we have, unusually, associative plotlines of two good men and the struggles of their relationships. One a close friend who faithfully supports and protects a long term mentally unstable wife and the other a work colleague the wife of whom leaves him and their children. Although as we only hear his side of the discussion on a phone, we cannot be sure of the facts. The questions raised though are understated but there. What is love? What constitutes fidelity ? Does the ' its just me I can't help it ' stance have any kind of justification and when does enough constitute enough ?All this confusion and angst and frustration bubbles alongside the heat and dryness which drains and deadens all life from the environment. Lively uses the fields and crops within them as markers of the downward spiral of Teresa, the daugther and of the growing anger of Pauline, the mother, who sees reflected in her daughter's grief and growing lack of confidence her past struggles. The descriptive passages are simple but lovely. The descriptions of jealousy and the paralysing inability to move forward is painted brilliantly; the charming little punctuation marks that Teresa's toddler Luke performs in the narrative are just that, charming and a welcome easing of the tension. The use of the images of poppies and wild flowers shining out even in amidst what seems dead; the questions of what is real nature and what is man-made, when does the countryside tip over into an artificial construct ? I could go on because this novel is packed with good things even in the midst of the evidently glowering misery which looms heavier and heavier over the plot and the reader until all comes to a head in a slightly obvious breaking of the tension with the almighty storm of storms right above the farmhouse in which most of the action has taken place.The ending might be a little predictable, certainly clues littered the story but it wass nonetheless satisfying for that. Good book. Well worth readingExcuse the relaunch but someone very kindly liked it which made me look at it again and I saw that back in 2011 I appeared to have a REALLY serious distaste for paragraphing