Ghost Children
by Sue Townsend

Despite its author, this book is not a comedy. It is not remotely funny. It is a book fuelled by anger, which in retrospect was there in Townsend’s comedy too.

In some ways this is the book that My Name is Leon managed not to be; both look at unwanted or unplanned children, class, social services, neglect and adoption. Where Kit de Waal was all humanism and understanding, Sue Townsend is bleak and unforgiving. It’s a powerful, upsetting book railing against…life? Inequality?

The story follows Christopher Moore, a lonely middle-aged man who is still in love with his ex, Angela, who is now married to another man. 17 years earlier she had an abortion without telling him and it destroyed their relationship, but now he wants to hear the full story.

Continue reading “The baby eyed him with a frozen watchfulness”