Synopses & Reviews
Booker finalist
Astonishing Splashes of Colour takes its title from J. M. Barrie's description of Peter Pan's Neverland. It follows the life of Kitty, a woman who, in a sense, has never grown up. She lives an improvised life reviewing children's books, visiting her husband who lives in the apartment next door, and fostering a growing obsession to replace her lost child.
Kitty's strong, appealing personality drives this novel, as she relates her story in a jumbled state of consciousness. Her moods swing dramatically from high to low and are illuminated by an unusual ability to interpret people and emotions through colour. Kitty struggles to uncover the secrets of her childhood from her father and brothers, but their revelations threaten to overwhelm her tenuous hold on reality, leaving the reader feeling both sympathetic and horrified with her impetuous journey into madness. Skillful, unsentimental, fresh, and original, this is a sparkling debut by a writer of exceptional talent.
Review
"This finely constructed novel, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize, should please readers of both popular and literary fiction." Library Journal
Review
"[A]n ethereal novel of loss and redemption that is both heartbreaking and beautiful....Characters are brilliantly drawn, the pacing is perfect, and the tone is never maudlin....[A] novel to be savored." Booklist
Review
"A genuinely solid and satisfying work of fiction, skilfully plotted and fielding a cast of fully realised and individualised characters." Sunday Times
Review
"An extremely good first novel: deceptively simple, subtly observed, with a plot that drags you forward like a strong current." Daily Mail
Review
"This novel was shortlisted for the 2003 Booker Prize (and should have won)." Nancy Pearl, author of Book Lust
Review
"A moving novel about loss, and particularly lost children." The Guardian
Review
"Fresh, frightening, and raw. There's nothing in the least depressing about this nevertheless sad story, certainly nothing remotely sentimental." Margaret Foster
Review
"A heartbreaking and accomplished debut." The Bookseller (starred review)
Review
"Absorbing and sure-footed.... Extremely well written and compulsively readable.... Morrall has written a genuinely solid and satisfying work of fiction, skilfully plotted and fielding a cast of fully realised and individualised characters. More please." Sunday Times (U.K.)
Review
"An extremely good first novel: deceptively simple, subtly observed, with a plot that drags you forward like a strong current." Daily Mail (U.K.)
Review
"A moving novel about loss, and particularly lost children." The Guardian (U.K.)
Review
"We are drawn by Kitty into her unique world as she strives for a sense of self, of belonging.... I defy anyone to read this book slowly. Or to read it once and then just forget it." newBOOKS.mag
Review
"An intense portrait of a woman who cannot remember her own mother and will never be a mother herself.... A real page-turner." Big Issue (U.K.)
Review
"An extraordinary, gripping novel written with no sentimentality. A wonderful piece of writing.... it is astonishing that she has never been published before." Professor John Carey, Chair of the Man Booker Prize
Synopsis
Caught in an over-vivid world because of her synaesthesia (feelings are experienced as colors), Kitty feels haunted by her "child that never was." As children all around become emblems of hope, longing, and grief, she begins to understand the reasons for her shaky sense of self.
What family mystery makes her four brothers so vague about her mother's life, who died when she was three? Why does Dad splash paint on canvas rather than answer his daughter's questions? On the edges of her dreams, Kitty glimpses the kaleidoscope van that took her sister Dinah away is it a link to her indistinct childhood?
About the Author
Clare Morrall's first novel, Astonishing Splashes of Colour, was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize. She is a music teacher with two grown children. She lives in Birmingham, England.