Past Caring

by Suzannah Dunn

How does it feel to discover you have lived before – in another time and place – and been born again?Little Zoe Fox is only three, but she is sure she used to live in a different house, in another part of town, with another mother and father… Dinah, her present day mother, won’t countenance such nonsense, even when an old lady from that ‘other part of town’ takes Zoe under her wing. In fact, it suits Dinah down to the ground to leave her daughter in Caddy Dutton’s care sometimes – after all, to what harm can she come?Witty, dramatic and audacious, Past Caring is a bewitching and intriguing tale of reincarnation and familial love, which explores the true nature of identity, and the bizarre quirks of fate which make us what we are.

260 pages, Paperback

First published October 16, 2000

About the author

Suzannah Dunn was born in London, and grew up in the village of Northaw in Hertfordshire (for Tudor ‘fans’: Northaw Manor was the first married home of Bess Hardwick, in the late 1540s). Having lived in Brighton for nineteen years, she now lives in Shropshire. Her novel about Anne Boleyn (The Queen of Subtleties) was followed by The Sixth Wife, on Katherine Parr, and The Queen's Sorrow, set during the reign of Mary Tudor, ‘Bloody Mary’, England’s first ruling queen. Her forthcoming novel – to be published in hardback in May 2010 – is The Confession of Katherine Howard. Prior to writing about the Tudors, she published five contemporary-set novels and two collections of stories. She has enjoyed many years of giving talks and teaching creative writing (from six weeks as ‘writer in residence’ on the Richard and Judy show, to seven years as Programme Director of Manchester University’s MA in Novel Writing).

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this 26yrs ago and have only just read it!
Told through the perspective of 3 characters and the time lines move along with the story.
This book is completely character based.
Zoe is a 3yr old and her mother Dinah is a 29yr old mum of two. Her son Danny is 5yrs old at the start of the book.
Zoe remembers another life, another Mumma , a sister.
Dinah is more interested doing other things rather than being a mother to her children.
Caddy is an older woman who spots Zoe one day and recognises her ‘as her own’ ... a friendship builds up over the years and Caddy is a very convenient babysitter for Dinah, and takes full advantage of Caddy. The characters each want something.
They are all flawed.
Zoe grows up and her teenage years are confusing. She falls in and out of love. This to me explores teenage life ( in the 70s / 80s) wonderfully well.
As for plot - don’t expect too much.
Ultimately something happens and all three main characters are forced to confront themselves and their behaviours.

The author lays the inner thoughts of the women open in and among the dialogues.

A touch of nostalgia for me - flashbacks to life in the 60s, 70s and 80s - naming of products linked to that time of life, which made smile.

I enjoyed the book. Probably would have done more so had I had read it as a twenty year old.
3/5

[Rohase Piercy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first of Suzannah Dunn's earlier books that I've read, and I was eager to see how it compares to her Tudor novels. I chose it because the subject matter sounded fascinating - a child who remembers a recent previous life. I did enjoy it, and admired the way young Zoe's past-life memories are presented obliquely, almost incidentally, and are all but forgotten with the onset of adolescence - this to me is very true to real-live cases. But I found the characters of the two mothers, Dinah (present life) and Caddy (past life) a little too pallid and incomplete, and the ending (if you can call it that) frustratingly vague. All in all, I prefer Dunn's historical novels which really spring to life on the page, with rounded characters and vibrant detail, both of which were missing in this book.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suzannah Dunn is probably more well-known for her historical fiction, not a favourite genre of mine, so I've stayed away from her books in the past. This however, is very modern, contemporary fiction - a short novel with just 260 pages, but a very engaging read.
Told in the first person by three generations of women, it is a very well-done story with three very different perspectives on the same unfolding story.
Zoe is a young girl, just 6 years old at the beginning of the story, then Dinah, her mother - a cold-hearted, undemonstrative person who seems to care more about gossip with her friends than her daughter's welfare, and then there is Caddy - an elderly lady who just knows that Zoe is her own long-dead daughter - reincarnated. Although it is Caddy's belief that Zoe is in fact, her daughter Evie, and it is this belief that brings the three characters together, this is not the focal point of the story. It's a story of a young girl growing up - about family dynamics, about loss and grief and touches on the issues of mental illness. There is no fast-paced plot, it's purely character driven - but the characters are great, the story unfolds nicely and it's a satisfying read

[Chris Morton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of this author’s best works. Another great chance to explore aspects of teenage life through the mind of a skilled and poetic writer. Everything she writes is wonderful in my opinion but when she writes as a teenager, as she does for a third of this book, it doesn’t get much better. Also see Venus Flaring for another great example of this.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

An intriguing style of writing initially but found it tiresome after a while.