Paradise City

Elizabeth Day

Average Rating 7/10 (1 Review)

An audacious, compassionate state-of-the-nation novel about four strangers whose lives collide with far-reaching consequences.

Beatrice Kizza, a woman in flight from a homeland that condemned her for daring to love, flees to London. There, she shields her sorrow from the indifference of her adopted city, and navigates a night-time world of shift-work and bedsits.

Howard Pink is a self-made millionaire who has risen from Petticoat Lane to the mansions of Kensington on a tide of determination and bluster. Yet self-doubt still snaps at his heels and his life is shadowed by the terrible loss that has shaken him to his foundations.

Carol Hetherington, recently widowed, is living the quiet life in Wandsworth with her cat and The Jeremy Kyle Show for company. As she tries to come to terms with the absence her husband has left on the other side of the bed, she frets over her daughter's prospects and wonders if she'll ever be happy again.

Esme Reade is a young journalist learning to muck-rake and doorstep in pursuit of the elusive scoop, even as she longs to find some greater meaning and leave her imprint on the world.

Four strangers, each inhabitants of the same city, where the gulf between those who have too much and those who will never have enough is impossibly vast. But when the glass that separates Howard's and Beatrice's worlds is shattered by an inexcusable act, they discover that the capital has connected them in ways they could never have imagined.

'As a state-of-the-city novel, it's richer than John Lanchester's Capital and less pleased with itself than Ian McEwan's Saturday.'

Review by Ben Macnair (010522) Rating (7/10)

Review by Ben Macnair
Book Source: Not Known
Rating 7/10
Paradise City is a murder mystery, a state of the nation address, a look at society, and how we all inter-relate. It is a book of tragedy and love, of untold riches, and sadness and luck, and how the four lives of seemingly unrelated characters mix, and the connections, regardless of how tenuous they can be, have a part to play under the surface of all of our lives.

Newly arriving in London, Beatrice Kizza finds herself in a strange land, having escaped a country that looks down on her for daring to love. Successful Businessman Howard Pink, the original rough diamond, the local boy done good, has a life that many people envy, but if they knew the truth, many wouldn’t want. Esme Reade is a young journalist, aiming to make a name for herself in the media, whilst her mother match makes her with unsuitable men, and then there is Carol Hetherington, recently bereaved, and trying to make peace with her life, her future, and her neighbours.

Their lives are soon to become more complicated. The body of Howard’s daughter, missing for years has been found in the garden of Carol’s neighbour, and as Esme also comes into the orbit of Howard Pink, their shared history of loss, means that there is a connection, of sorts.

The lives of all four of the characters change throughout the novel, but there are many other elements to the story. Howard misses his troubled daughter and wishes he had been a better father to her in life, but he knows that he can’t change things, and how the world views him in his gilded cage. Esme wishes her life was different, her loss giving her empathy with the people she writes about, but at the cost of seeming to be soft, whilst the life that Beatrice escapes.

We also see how the worlds of other characters are changed, with the unfortunate fame that Carol faces, and the interest that her friends, many of whom have not been in touch since she was widowed, ask what her neighbour was like, knowing that he moved the body that was found under her patio to all of the houses that he lived in.

The book is a pacey story, with plenty of characters and incidents, people we can root for, and other people we have no sympathy for. Elizabeth Day has enough talent to be able to turn those feelings around, as more and more of the personalities of the characters are revealed, allowing them to become fully formed, and three dimensional as the story ends its winding journey.
Ben Macnair (1st May 2022)