A Hidden Life (Adele Geras)****

Adele Geras is a brilliant writer. Her style is both poetic and very gripping; she can be very funny, and A Hidden Life, like a lot of her stories, has some really great twists: the type that could fall flat but never do. Her characters are really lovely, and even some of the dodgy ones are quite appealing.

A Hidden Life also manages to get away with something I usually really don’t like writers to do. One of the characters is a writer, and A Hidden Life includes a number of excerpts from the character’s book. I usually don’t like this because my brain would rather not be keeping an eye on two such completely different storylines at the same time, and the fact that the second storyline is in a book immediately makes it seem unreal. And, as it is unreal, I’d usually prefer not to waste my time with it.

But Geras has a reason for doing this, and it’s a reason that works because she does manage to make it real. The book sections tell you something important about the character who wrote them, and they therefore become an important part of the book. Still, I don’t think it’s something authors should try too often.

All the main characters seemed a lot older than me, including the one who was supposed to be about my age. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I am quite immature anyway, so most characters would seem older than me, but I didn’t identify with the characters as much as I usually like to. The person my age, Lou, is a very nice girl, and her story is very interesting, but even though we have quite a lot in common, I don’t really identify with her. I love her name, though.

My favourite character is Vanessa – she seems fun, and I really like the way her relationship with Mickey (a girl) is described very simply without any fuss. Kissing girls is really no different from kissing boys except girls are better kissers, so there’s no need to make a big drama about it. Coming-out books are fine, and they probably are important and encouraging for people who are thinking of coming out themselves, but you can often learn more about same-sex relationships when they’re not part of the main story - because, most of the time, the fact you’re gay isn’t the most important factor in your life. Life is about how you relate to each other and to outside events, and A Hidden Life is mostly about outside events. While Vanessa is concerned about coming out to her family, her relationship is something for her to enjoy, and to derive comfort from – but not something for her to worry about especially. The main theme of any book is what the characters are most worried about.

It was disappointing in a way that Vanessa’s girlfriend had a male name because it does tend to make the girl-on-girl thing less obvious (NOT that I was getting turned on by it), but maybe it helps readers who might feel uncomfortable reading about lesbians if they can half-pretend she’s a man. They really did have a lovely relationship.

The men were a bit annoying, though. There was only about one man in the whole book who wasn’t unfaithful, and he never really got the chance to be because he only showed up about halfway through, and only got into a relationship later on. Still, in a way it kinds of makes you feel, no wonder Vanessa became a lesbian if that’s what all the men she knows are like. And I’d really prefer to think she is with her girlfriend because she really likes her rather than because there aren’t any decent men around.

But, as usual, Geras has created lots of really good characters, and it’s very easy to remember who’s who. I think I liked just about every character by the end. Phyl can be annoyingly pathetic, but I couldn’t help admiring her for not being even worse. Harry is absolutely adorable, a proper romantic-novel hero, and the fact he does have his imperfections makes him a lot more human than most romantic heroes. Even the people who aren’t actually alive when the book takes place are very powerful characters. A Hidden Life really is an intelligent and intriguing novel.