Night Watch

One of the damaged souls in Case Histories by Kate Atkinson quips that an indulgence in novels is harmful, especially of the bulky 19th Century variety, for the perception that life's narrative has an ending where it is simply undulating events that persist and affect without neat demarcation. My thoughts were of a parallel bent when engrossed in the first section of Night Watch by Sarah Waters. The novel begins in 1947 and then moves back to 1944 and finally 1941. Deft unfolding by Waters keeps most of the baggage hidden, the secrets remain safe. I enjoyed it and paused to note that everyone was as addled in 1941 as they were after the war. Sigh.