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Your Blue-Eyed Boy
Simone is 38, a district judge whose husband Donald is on the verge of bankruptcy and breakdown. Whilst she is at court, passing judgement on the lives of others, Donald stays at home and looks after their two young sons. One morning a letter arrives; someone she has tried to forget has not forgotten her and Simone's private history is about to collide with her public world.
252 pages, Paperback
First published March 27, 1998
33 people are currently reading
436 people want to read
About the author
Helen Dunmore
117 books970 followersI was born in December 1952, in Yorkshire, the second of four children. My father was the eldest of twelve, and this extended family has no doubt had a strong influence on my life, as have my own children. In a large family you hear a great many stories. You also come to understand very early that stories hold quite different meanings for different listeners, and can be recast from many viewpoints.
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
Poetry was very important to me from childhood. I began by listening to and learning by heart all kinds of rhymes and hymns and ballads, and then went on to make up my own poems, using the forms I’d heard. Writing these down came a little later.
I studied English at the University of York, and after graduation taught English as a foreign language in Finland.
At around this time I began to write the poems which formed my first poetry collection, The Apple Fall, and to publish these in magazines. I also completed two novels; fortunately neither survives, and it was more than ten years before I wrote another novel.
During this time I published several collections of poems, and wrote some of the short stories which were later collected in Love of Fat Men. I began to travel a great deal within the UK and around the world, for poetry tours and writing residences. This experience of working in many different countries and cultures has been very important to my work. I reviewed poetry for Stand and Poetry Review and later for The Observer, and subsequently reviewed fiction for The Observer, The Times and The Guardian. My critical work includes introductions to the poems of Emily Brontë, the short stories of D H Lawrence and F Scott Fitzgerald, a study of Virginia Woolf’s relationships with women and Introductions to the Folio Society's edition of Anna Karenina and to the new Penguin Classics edition of Tolstoy's My Confession.
During the 1980s and early 1990s I taught poetry and creative writing, tutored residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation and took part in the Poetry Society's Writer in Schools scheme, as well as giving readings and workshops in schools, hospitals, prisons and every other kind of place where a poem could conceivably be welcome. I also taught at the University of Glamorgan, the University of Bristol's Continuing Education Department and for the Open College of the Arts.
In the late 1980s I began to publish short stories, and these were the beginning of a breakthrough into fiction. What I had learned of prose technique through the short story gave me the impetus to start writing novels. My first novel for children was Going to Egypt, published in 1992, and my first novel for adults was Zennor in Darkness, published in 1993, which won the McKitterick Prize. This was also my first researched novel, set in the First World War and dealing with the period when D H Lawrence and his wife Frieda lived in Zennor in Cornwall, and came under suspicion as German spies.
My third novel, A Spell of Winter, won the inaugural Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996, and since then I have published a number of novels, short story collections and books for children. Full details of all these books are available on this website. The last of The Ingo Quartet, The Crossing of Ingo, was published in paperback in Spring 2009.
My seventh novel, The Siege (2001) was shortlisted both for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. This was another researched novel, which grew from a lifelong love of Russian history, culture and literature. It is is set in Leningrad during the first year of the siege of the city by German forces, which lasted for 880 days from the fall of Mga on 30th August 1941. The Siege has been translated into Russian by Tatyana Averchina, and extracts have been broadcast on radio in St Petersburg. House of Orphans was published in 2006, and in 2008 Counting the Stars. Its central characters are the Roman poet Catullus, who lived during the last years of the Republic,
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 123 reviews
June 3, 2018
Your dreams weren't like dreams. They were another life, rippling under the surface of this one, waiting to recapture you as soon as you dipped beneath the skin of sleep.
I've long been a fan of Dunmore but this book, one of her earlier ones, has leapt straight up into prime position as my favourite to date. It's a shimmering, uneasy, shifting narrative that looks like it's heading in one direction before we realise we're somewhere else entirely. This one really got under my skin leaving me quietly but deeply devastated by the end.
Although Dunmore writes marvellously about love, I've never thought of her as a prime writer on sex: but boy, she pulls it off magnificently here. Neither coy nor prurient, what she evokes is the visceral corporeality of loving someone physically: the smells and tastes of a body, not merely its look and feel.
Although this is a relatively early book, it looks forwards to ideas and images that re-emerge in later fiction: the ghosts of The Lie and The Greatcoat; the knock on the window that is so potent an image in the latter. And that interpenetration of past and present: 'I'm your past. I'm what you were. I'm what you think you left behind, but you can't do that.'
Simone, the narrator, is an interesting character to inhabit: she's hard because she's had to be but her judgements can limit her so that as readers we can see around her perspective, can perhaps understand things that she can't - or doesn't want to.
But the stand-out character for me is the fascinating, multi-faceted Michael: a 28-year old Vietnam vet when Simone knew him the summer she was 18; a man profoundly damaged yet also perhaps the wisest in the end, recuperated through suffering.
Dunmore's prose is, as ever, lyrical, precise, smooth - conjuring emotion effortlessly without laying it all on the surface. A relatively short book but a deeply, deeply affecting one.
February 2, 2011
Your Blue-Eyed Boy is my second novel by Helen Dunmore. I read her book With Your Crooked Heart a couple years back. Dunmore is a poet and although it’s not always the case, her skill with language translates beautifully to prose. She creates captivating and complicated characters, with interior lives that are filled with wreckage and hope.
Your Blue-Eyed Boy is, I think, about ghosts. Simone is a District Judge, married to an unemployed architect, mother to two young sons. Her story is told by layering all the bits of her life: her childhood, her young adulthood and her married life. When the story starts Simone describes herself as being “in that stage of youngishness which seems as if it’ll go on forever”.
And then, out of the blue, Simone receives a letter from someone from her past. If you were to take the novel’s prologue at face value, you would think that this book was about blackmail. “There are things you should know about blackmail…” Simone says.
But Your Blue-Eyed Boy is not as simple as that. This is a novel about reconciling who you are now with who you were when. It’s easy enough to pretend that each section of your life is complete and separate, but this is a novel that asks us to question our past choices, our past loves and our place in the here and now.
It’s a gorgeous book that reads like a thriller.
Your Blue-Eyed Boy is, I think, about ghosts. Simone is a District Judge, married to an unemployed architect, mother to two young sons. Her story is told by layering all the bits of her life: her childhood, her young adulthood and her married life. When the story starts Simone describes herself as being “in that stage of youngishness which seems as if it’ll go on forever”.
And then, out of the blue, Simone receives a letter from someone from her past. If you were to take the novel’s prologue at face value, you would think that this book was about blackmail. “There are things you should know about blackmail…” Simone says.
But Your Blue-Eyed Boy is not as simple as that. This is a novel about reconciling who you are now with who you were when. It’s easy enough to pretend that each section of your life is complete and separate, but this is a novel that asks us to question our past choices, our past loves and our place in the here and now.
It’s a gorgeous book that reads like a thriller.
April 4, 2016
I was really gripped by this book - quietly threatening, keenly observed, and very loving towards the physical world and the physicality of things. Another review here complains that nothing happens - but actually everything happens - love, sex and death. That's not a spoiler by the way - as she goes on and on about the bog, you can't tell me the sea air wasn't blowing down your collar and telling you to expect a body by the end of the book.
I loved the way that everything wasn't obvious - what he wanted, how she reacted, what they said to each other - that was very delicate and thoughtful. I loved the way that the central character had memories and reflections that were irrelevant to the plot - like a real person. It all made the story more real, not less, that the denouement was so stifled. More than anything what I loved was the powerful recollections of the knowledge of bodies, how they smell and taste and fit - and not just of previous lovers, but the marks of her children upon her, and of despair upon her husband. That strong sense of the corporeal is what made the threads of this story work - bringing together bodies from then and now. And what happens to bodies. And she captures that tension brilliantly with her refrain about wondering whose hand it is on the window that opens it to danger.....
Those heavy body things Helen Dunmore has down a treat, and I didn't know that - I sort of expected to waste a train journey on this and forget it. But actually I found it very moving. Not really like me. Am I going soft in my old age ?
I loved the way that everything wasn't obvious - what he wanted, how she reacted, what they said to each other - that was very delicate and thoughtful. I loved the way that the central character had memories and reflections that were irrelevant to the plot - like a real person. It all made the story more real, not less, that the denouement was so stifled. More than anything what I loved was the powerful recollections of the knowledge of bodies, how they smell and taste and fit - and not just of previous lovers, but the marks of her children upon her, and of despair upon her husband. That strong sense of the corporeal is what made the threads of this story work - bringing together bodies from then and now. And what happens to bodies. And she captures that tension brilliantly with her refrain about wondering whose hand it is on the window that opens it to danger.....
Those heavy body things Helen Dunmore has down a treat, and I didn't know that - I sort of expected to waste a train journey on this and forget it. But actually I found it very moving. Not really like me. Am I going soft in my old age ?
March 11, 2010
One heck of a writer! Helen Dunmore's books are darkly beautiful, extremely well-crafted works.
June 26, 2010
I'd hoped for good things from an awarded novelist, this particular book recommended both by a good friend and ee cummings line serving as the title's base. I found it heavy-handed, though, poorly plotted, and anytime it showed any lyrical promise, there was a decent chance the lines would reappear in some form or another later in the book. For instance, variations on the following paragraph appeared at least three times.
Blackmail doesn't work the way I always thought it would, if I ever gave it a thought. It doesn't smash through the clean pane of life like a stone through a window. It's always an inside job, the most intimate of crimes. Somebody in the house has left that window open, a crack. The person who leaves the window open doesn't want to know why. From outside a hand reaches up into the gap, and the window creaks wide. Cold air comes rushing in. I see that hand now, each time I shut my eyes to sleep. Sometimes it's heavy and alien, the hand of a stranger. I can count the hairs on the knuckles. But on other nights I feel the fingers move and I know they are my own.
Talking to the Dead had also been on my to-read list, but after slogging through this, I don't think I'll waste my time.
Blackmail doesn't work the way I always thought it would, if I ever gave it a thought. It doesn't smash through the clean pane of life like a stone through a window. It's always an inside job, the most intimate of crimes. Somebody in the house has left that window open, a crack. The person who leaves the window open doesn't want to know why. From outside a hand reaches up into the gap, and the window creaks wide. Cold air comes rushing in. I see that hand now, each time I shut my eyes to sleep. Sometimes it's heavy and alien, the hand of a stranger. I can count the hairs on the knuckles. But on other nights I feel the fingers move and I know they are my own.
Talking to the Dead had also been on my to-read list, but after slogging through this, I don't think I'll waste my time.
June 4, 2014
As I started this book I sensed muted whimpering about life’s injustices and past behavior. In “Your Blue-Eyed Boy” author Helen Dunmore tells the story of a district court judge in the English justice system who is caught up in struggles centering mainly on her husband’s inability to handle finances. In addition she seems overwhelmed by her judicial obligations, her decision to move the family away from the city, their cold existence in meager housing, her husband’s constant guilt, and with memories of a lifestyle some twenty years earlier that was filled with youthful indiscretion. Her narrative voice is filled with low-level mewling, almost kittenish in its persistence, as she assumes the blame for all the grievances life has dealt her.
It gets worse. Her partner in her earlier transgressions shows up with sordid pictures in his pocket and blackmail on his mind. The author is relentless as she piles this new pickle on the judge’s plate. It turns out that Michael, the man of her past, is a nut case who decides that Simone, the judge, needs to return to the scene of their frivolity in America Her family, her career, her distance from the girl he once knew have no relevance in his plan. She either returns with him or her sordid past will be revealed to all.
Michael turns out to be a worse whiner than Simone. When the two are together the keening drowns out the loud wind of the English sea coast. He declares that she doesn’t have the right to judge others while turning her back on him. He moans that she shouldn’t live like she does while he has nothing; that she should have stayed with him. They have a moment of intimacy (it seemed gratuitous to me) and then roam along the seawall exchanging lamentations in the rain. There is an accident that presents a convenient solution to the misery shared by both and, I might add, for me, the reader.
The writer has produced a steady stream of consciousness that never approaches being comprehensible nor promotes a feeling of peace. Her descriptions of the countryside; the sea, the wind, the fields, the sea walls, and the marshes are wonderfully done. But none of the characters, including her beautiful children, come across as likeable. Simone, the judge, is particularly repugnant with her constant moaning and inability to find anything worthwhile in her life. I’m ready to move on to something a bit more lively.
It gets worse. Her partner in her earlier transgressions shows up with sordid pictures in his pocket and blackmail on his mind. The author is relentless as she piles this new pickle on the judge’s plate. It turns out that Michael, the man of her past, is a nut case who decides that Simone, the judge, needs to return to the scene of their frivolity in America Her family, her career, her distance from the girl he once knew have no relevance in his plan. She either returns with him or her sordid past will be revealed to all.
Michael turns out to be a worse whiner than Simone. When the two are together the keening drowns out the loud wind of the English sea coast. He declares that she doesn’t have the right to judge others while turning her back on him. He moans that she shouldn’t live like she does while he has nothing; that she should have stayed with him. They have a moment of intimacy (it seemed gratuitous to me) and then roam along the seawall exchanging lamentations in the rain. There is an accident that presents a convenient solution to the misery shared by both and, I might add, for me, the reader.
The writer has produced a steady stream of consciousness that never approaches being comprehensible nor promotes a feeling of peace. Her descriptions of the countryside; the sea, the wind, the fields, the sea walls, and the marshes are wonderfully done. But none of the characters, including her beautiful children, come across as likeable. Simone, the judge, is particularly repugnant with her constant moaning and inability to find anything worthwhile in her life. I’m ready to move on to something a bit more lively.
April 2, 2025
Okay, til at starte med var det her seriøst min nye ynglings bog, jeg var så draget af sproget og fortællingen. Simone er dommer, og har taget et job udenfor London fordi hendes mand er gået bankerot med hans business. Pludselig begynder der at dukke breve op fra Simones første kæreste fra USA, flydt med Polarid nøgenbilleder af hende. Historien veksler mellem de to tider, med de to mænd, og den krop hun giver til dem. Virkelig virkelig smukt sprog. Dog, tabte den mig fuldstændig til sidst, spoiler alert hun drukner kærestens lig efter at have haft sex med ham??
June 10, 2010
OK, so this book was first published in 1999, I'm not sure why I've only just read it, but I took it on holiday this year and really enjoyed the pace of writing.
The story deals with Simone's past, she is presently a judge living in a remote part of England with her husband and sons, the blue-eyed boy of the title is Michael, a boyfriend from years ago who has suddenly re-appeared in her life. Like many of us, Simone did some things in her youth that she would rather forget, that do not fit in with her modern image as a judge and things that she would rather her family did not know about.
This is a really dark but engrossing story. Michael wants Simone to return to their past life - he is obviously mentally disturbed and she is obviously quite scared.
A short but intense read that makes the reader consider the wrongs and rights of things that have been done in life. I enjoyed it and will read more of her books.
The story deals with Simone's past, she is presently a judge living in a remote part of England with her husband and sons, the blue-eyed boy of the title is Michael, a boyfriend from years ago who has suddenly re-appeared in her life. Like many of us, Simone did some things in her youth that she would rather forget, that do not fit in with her modern image as a judge and things that she would rather her family did not know about.
This is a really dark but engrossing story. Michael wants Simone to return to their past life - he is obviously mentally disturbed and she is obviously quite scared.
A short but intense read that makes the reader consider the wrongs and rights of things that have been done in life. I enjoyed it and will read more of her books.
August 6, 2011
This story of a woman surrounded by men in varying stages of mental disintegration felt like two separate novels. One very straightforward with its feet on the ground, dealing with domestic stuff and an interesting job in the legal profession. The other rather more nebulous, poetically written but sometimes hard to grasp.
I can only admire the way Helen Dunmore writes, the poetic nature of her prose, her ability to make you see the world in a different light with her subtle use of language, particularly when describing the marshy coastline around where this story is set. My only problem - and it's almost certainly a problem with me rather than the book - is that I struggled to grasp exactly what was going on with the 'blackmail' plot, why the characters acted as they did, and why anyone would find the character Michael endearing. That said, it's got to be a four star for me, an intelligently and thoughtfully written book.
I can only admire the way Helen Dunmore writes, the poetic nature of her prose, her ability to make you see the world in a different light with her subtle use of language, particularly when describing the marshy coastline around where this story is set. My only problem - and it's almost certainly a problem with me rather than the book - is that I struggled to grasp exactly what was going on with the 'blackmail' plot, why the characters acted as they did, and why anyone would find the character Michael endearing. That said, it's got to be a four star for me, an intelligently and thoughtfully written book.
April 2, 2010
Helen Dunmore is a very talanted writer. Her prose is absolutely beautiful, very descriptive and a joy to read. There were passages in her book, when she described her relationship with her children and love for them that I have always felt but never been able to put into words. But, when all is said and done, the prose is all this book had to stand on. The plot started very intense, and grabbed me immediatly, but about half way through the book it just stopped and went nowhere. I can relate to her first love experience, I too walked away from someone that I knew wasn't good for me, despite the fact that my love for him made me feel unbreakable. But, the ending seemed like an easy way out, and was totally unbelievable. I just wasn't impressed. I would reccomend purely for the beautiful, perhaps a little depressing, prose.
August 10, 2021
The promise of its atmospheric build-up is unfulfilled by a confused ambiguous ending.
March 20, 2020
From BBC Radio 4:
Five-part dramatisation of Helen Dunmore's 1998 novel, weaving together crime, judgement, desire and loss.
Episode 1 of 5
Simone is a district judge whose husband Donald is on the verge of bankruptcy and breakdown. She attends court, passes judgement on the lives of others when out of the blue a letter arrives; someone she has tried to forget has not forgotten her and Simone's private history is about to collide with her public world.
Simone - Pippa Nixon
Donald - Graeme Hawley
Michael - Andonis Anthony
Matt - Elija Wolf
Joe - Milo Robinson
Busker - Paul Cargill
Dramatised by Fiona Evans
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...
Five-part dramatisation of Helen Dunmore's 1998 novel, weaving together crime, judgement, desire and loss.
Episode 1 of 5
Simone is a district judge whose husband Donald is on the verge of bankruptcy and breakdown. She attends court, passes judgement on the lives of others when out of the blue a letter arrives; someone she has tried to forget has not forgotten her and Simone's private history is about to collide with her public world.
Simone - Pippa Nixon
Donald - Graeme Hawley
Michael - Andonis Anthony
Matt - Elija Wolf
Joe - Milo Robinson
Busker - Paul Cargill
Dramatised by Fiona Evans
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000...
May 20, 2025
I enjoyed the present but the flashbacks to America I found disturbing, especially Michael’s friend Calvin always being with them.
September 14, 2008
Can I give one and a half stars? I didn't like this book, but I did finish it, so that's something. Although I have to admit, after about the halfway point, I skimmed it and skipped over all the flashbacks, so I didn't exactly read the whole thing.
What I did not like about this book:
- It was completely unbelievable. The premise itself was fine, and interesting even, but the way the main character reacted to the arrival of the man from her past, and just the entire last third of the book, was wholly unbelievable.
- The technique of using flashbacks. About half of the book was in the form of flashbacks, with the woman remembering a summer from 20 years earlier. This made the entire narrative drag too much, and the things that happened that summer weren't even that interesting.
What I did not like about this book:
- It was completely unbelievable. The premise itself was fine, and interesting even, but the way the main character reacted to the arrival of the man from her past, and just the entire last third of the book, was wholly unbelievable.
- The technique of using flashbacks. About half of the book was in the form of flashbacks, with the woman remembering a summer from 20 years earlier. This made the entire narrative drag too much, and the things that happened that summer weren't even that interesting.
September 18, 2016
I'm afraid I thought this had lots of promise but failed to live up to it. **Potential spoilers** I know for an author to take the obvious route or an easy way out isn't always the right course of action, but at one point there's an obvious answer to our heroine's problems but the story goes off elsewhere and I thought the result was dismal.
November 17, 2017
Another Dunmore novel I hadn't read. It was very different to others of hers I have read and not as good as most. This novel was tense from the start. I was absorbed in what was going to happen when a man from Simone's past contacts her and sends compromising photos from when they were a couple twenty years before. Simone is now a district judge in the marshy areas of south-east England so her future is at risk. As readers we are made to think that Michael will blackmail Simone but things work out rather differently. In this respect I thought the author was rather manipulative. I wanted to keep reading but often felt disappointed. The ending particularly was over dramatic and not very believable. I do think it could be made into a good movie thriller though.
June 23, 2022
Helen Dunmore is a great writer and I was really pleased to find another of her novels to read. As usual, a realistic depiction of a relationship a vivid description of two particular places. For me the novel lost interest slightly as it went on.
November 14, 2016
When your past catches up with you......
I'm not normally a fan of thrillers, and blackmail would definitely not attract me, but this book was chosen by my book group and so I agreed to read it.
I had particularly enjoyed The Siege by Helen Dunmore and more recently, Exposure. In addition, she was scheduled to attend our up-coming Lit Fest (although in the end, she didn't make it).
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. It was not so much a book about blackmail, as about the relationships that we make during our lives, how they affect us and how we respond to them.
I felt for the lead character, who was working as a district judge - a job she probably would not have pushed for, had her husband not lost his job and debts begun piling up.
She had to drag herself to work every day, where she would pass sentence on various cases, but notably, declaring people bankrupt, when all the time, her husband got closer to being in the same position. The irony of this appealed to me.
Then a past boyfriend erupted onto the scene, complicating an already difficult situation.
It was interesting how she responded to this, especially as he was no longer the sexy young man she'd known before. He also had some mental issues, which made him a bit of a 'loose cannon'.
For me, the resolution let the book down, but as a study of characters and interactions I enjoyed it.
Other books I've read by this author:
Burning Bright (4 stars)
Ice Cream - short stories (5 stars)
House of Orphans (3 stars)
The Siege (4 stars)
Exposure (4.5 stars)
I'm not normally a fan of thrillers, and blackmail would definitely not attract me, but this book was chosen by my book group and so I agreed to read it.
I had particularly enjoyed The Siege by Helen Dunmore and more recently, Exposure. In addition, she was scheduled to attend our up-coming Lit Fest (although in the end, she didn't make it).
I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. It was not so much a book about blackmail, as about the relationships that we make during our lives, how they affect us and how we respond to them.
I felt for the lead character, who was working as a district judge - a job she probably would not have pushed for, had her husband not lost his job and debts begun piling up.
She had to drag herself to work every day, where she would pass sentence on various cases, but notably, declaring people bankrupt, when all the time, her husband got closer to being in the same position. The irony of this appealed to me.
Then a past boyfriend erupted onto the scene, complicating an already difficult situation.
It was interesting how she responded to this, especially as he was no longer the sexy young man she'd known before. He also had some mental issues, which made him a bit of a 'loose cannon'.
For me, the resolution let the book down, but as a study of characters and interactions I enjoyed it.
Other books I've read by this author:
Burning Bright (4 stars)
Ice Cream - short stories (5 stars)
House of Orphans (3 stars)
The Siege (4 stars)
Exposure (4.5 stars)
February 26, 2022
3.5 stars, a well written and gripping read that just didn’t finish the way I’d expected… a bit unfair really because I’m not sure what I expected, certainly not a happy ending but perhaps a more believable one.
18yr old Simone does Camp America, meets a much older and traumatised Vietnam vet and falls in love with him. Fast forward 20 years and she is back in England married with 2 kids and huge money troubles. She moves the family to the wilds of somewhere (?) so that she can pursue her legal career and pay off her husband’s debts without him having to go bankrupt. Then she starts receiving letters and photos of her naked self from her American ex. She assumes he wants to blackmail her… then he turns up and things go very wrong. No longer tanned, taut and gorgeous, he believes she owes him something for just up and leaving him to his PTSD and eventual downward spiral. Actually he just wants her to move back to America with him, which is of course impossible. He accidentally gets killed while they’re together and she dumps his body at sea. Up until this part I was really enjoying the book, but the way she dealt with his accidental death irritated me and spoiled the book for me.
I know I have read one of hers before and seem to remember enjoying it so I may check her out again at some point.
18yr old Simone does Camp America, meets a much older and traumatised Vietnam vet and falls in love with him. Fast forward 20 years and she is back in England married with 2 kids and huge money troubles. She moves the family to the wilds of somewhere (?) so that she can pursue her legal career and pay off her husband’s debts without him having to go bankrupt. Then she starts receiving letters and photos of her naked self from her American ex. She assumes he wants to blackmail her… then he turns up and things go very wrong. No longer tanned, taut and gorgeous, he believes she owes him something for just up and leaving him to his PTSD and eventual downward spiral. Actually he just wants her to move back to America with him, which is of course impossible. He accidentally gets killed while they’re together and she dumps his body at sea. Up until this part I was really enjoying the book, but the way she dealt with his accidental death irritated me and spoiled the book for me.
I know I have read one of hers before and seem to remember enjoying it so I may check her out again at some point.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 2, 2011
Excellent, evocative story-telling, revealing how women tick - the restlessness we conceal beneath contentment, the growing strength and maturity beneath the weakness and fragility of aging flesh, how deeply we can love and shallowly - the different types of love from youthful lust to maternal love.
'I think you may have loved what embarassed me in myself. And you saw my hardness, which I didn't dare show to anyone else.' p. 250
'I have sucked him, bitten him, swallowed him, sunk into exhausted sweating sleep at his side. I've known the taste and smell of everything inch of his body' p. 136
'Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is not be there' P.188
'Then I understand why you are so angry,' she said evenly. 'It's always irritating when someone's right'. p. 286
'I think you may have loved what embarassed me in myself. And you saw my hardness, which I didn't dare show to anyone else.' p. 250
'I have sucked him, bitten him, swallowed him, sunk into exhausted sweating sleep at his side. I've known the taste and smell of everything inch of his body' p. 136
'Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is not be there' P.188
'Then I understand why you are so angry,' she said evenly. 'It's always irritating when someone's right'. p. 286
March 11, 2018
I have been a fan of Helen Dunmore for a number of years. I chose your blue-eyed boy because the intrigue of the blackmail drew me into the story. It mixed a chilling thriller with that of a domestic story common to our times of a mother struggling to raise her two sons and pay off the debts her husband has incurred through the loss of his business. The story feels quite personal at times as it begs the question can we ever escape from our past? The story became more chilling as I edged towards the end. It felt a different style to the other novels I had read by Dunmore, namely the siege and the betrayal. But the idea that our past lives and actions are the hardest to shake off was a feeling that remained with me as I reached the last page. It was certainly a thought-provoking read.
May 31, 2022
A nostalgic psychological thriller that focuses in on an intricate combination of financial pressure, difficult family situation and psychological blackmail.
The fact that the protagonist is a local judge sitting in judgement of the affairs of others when their lives have broken down lends itself a depth of character that might be missed otherwise. The role of the American blackmailer, Michael, who plays on her nostalgia, alongside the foreboding background of the marshes, is compelling. This builds to a surprising ending that took me back but slightly underwhelmed in its impact.
For me this was slightly too slow, with too many flashbacks and the characters didn’t completely resonate. However, it is well written and enjoyable.
The fact that the protagonist is a local judge sitting in judgement of the affairs of others when their lives have broken down lends itself a depth of character that might be missed otherwise. The role of the American blackmailer, Michael, who plays on her nostalgia, alongside the foreboding background of the marshes, is compelling. This builds to a surprising ending that took me back but slightly underwhelmed in its impact.
For me this was slightly too slow, with too many flashbacks and the characters didn’t completely resonate. However, it is well written and enjoyable.
October 14, 2017
felt I should read some Dunmore as she recently died and is highly rated. picked this one up in Oxfam because it seemed to have a strong plot. the premise of your past catching up with you is interesting but I got frustrated with her. why wouldn't the protagonist just have told her husband? and all the stuff on the beach at the end was totally improbable. felt like an itv drama where you shout at the screen as the heroine makes increasingly stupid choices.
November 19, 2017
I have awarded three stars as I love Dunmore's lyrical prose. This slight and somewhat contrived novel is threaded through with luminous prose mostly describing the sea, the sky and the marshes near the house where our heroine Simone lives. The past comes back over an ocean to haunt Simone and is just as summarily dealt with as is her old boyfriend who follows her to England
March 21, 2020
Abridged for radio 4 . Plot unbelievable . Likewise characters , mainly because of plot . Some good prose. I get that she was losing the question about judgement , never black and white , versions of stories and how powerful that can be but the finale was so out of character that I actually laughed in disbelief.
December 4, 2022
I really didn't like this book. Disappointing after the brilliant 'The Seige' and 'The Betrayal '. I found it boring, too self-consciously descriptive and not at all believable.
May 21, 2023
An enjoyable read with a bizarre unfinished ending
September 19, 2019
This had me pretty much hooked from the off. The writing was beautifully evocative, the desolate coast & bleak beauty of the area Simone had bought her family to & her love for children was so descriptive.
The story also goes back 20 years, to the years before Simone's marriage when she spent a summer in the US & first meets Michael. Again the prose was so effective, even when describing cooking a simple outdoor meal you can almost smell the food & feel the breeze on your skin.
But throughout this a sense of unease was prickling at me, aware that something was going to happen that would have knock on effects 20 years down the line...... & was I reading more than there was into the relationships between the young Simone & the two friends?
Well it wasn't hard to guess as to what road this story was going to go down, though to be fair things didn't go quite as I thought they would. Sadly once the older Simone had met with her blackmailer the tension I'd felt building up just seemed to dissipate, with the characters acting rather unconvincingly to my mind, and it petering out to a rather mediocre ending.
A good read - even if I was disappointed with the final chapters - & it can't but make you wonder if something..or someone...in your dim & distant past will come back to haunt you one day......
The story also goes back 20 years, to the years before Simone's marriage when she spent a summer in the US & first meets Michael. Again the prose was so effective, even when describing cooking a simple outdoor meal you can almost smell the food & feel the breeze on your skin.
But throughout this a sense of unease was prickling at me, aware that something was going to happen that would have knock on effects 20 years down the line...... & was I reading more than there was into the relationships between the young Simone & the two friends?
Well it wasn't hard to guess as to what road this story was going to go down, though to be fair things didn't go quite as I thought they would. Sadly once the older Simone had met with her blackmailer the tension I'd felt building up just seemed to dissipate, with the characters acting rather unconvincingly to my mind, and it petering out to a rather mediocre ending.
A good read - even if I was disappointed with the final chapters - & it can't but make you wonder if something..or someone...in your dim & distant past will come back to haunt you one day......
February 4, 2025
I realised a few pages in that I’d read Your Blue-Eyed Boy before but I’d forgotten just how good it was - the depth of description, the lyrical prose, the murkiness that lies beneath the thin veneer of everyday lives.
The narrative switches between the short but intense time 18 year old Londoner Simone, a summer camp councillor, and 28 year old local Michael, a Vietnam war veteran and boat builder, spent together on the New England coast and 20 years later where Simone has become a district judge and moved from London with her husband and two young sons to a rundown cottage on a remote swampy shoreline. The past and present collide when Simone receives a letter postmarked New York.
You can hear the crashing of the waves, feel the driving rain lashing against your face, taste the buttery, fresh fish barbequed on the beach, smell the acrid scent of fear, see right through the camera lens.
The bubbles of mental health, bankruptcy and breakdown, loss and abandonment, guilt and responsibility, obsession and blackmail break the surface and explode with life-changing consequences.
Sad and disturbing, beautifully written and thought-provoking, Your Blue-Eyed boy is not one to be forgotten.
The narrative switches between the short but intense time 18 year old Londoner Simone, a summer camp councillor, and 28 year old local Michael, a Vietnam war veteran and boat builder, spent together on the New England coast and 20 years later where Simone has become a district judge and moved from London with her husband and two young sons to a rundown cottage on a remote swampy shoreline. The past and present collide when Simone receives a letter postmarked New York.
You can hear the crashing of the waves, feel the driving rain lashing against your face, taste the buttery, fresh fish barbequed on the beach, smell the acrid scent of fear, see right through the camera lens.
The bubbles of mental health, bankruptcy and breakdown, loss and abandonment, guilt and responsibility, obsession and blackmail break the surface and explode with life-changing consequences.
Sad and disturbing, beautifully written and thought-provoking, Your Blue-Eyed boy is not one to be forgotten.
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January 30, 2023Yet another brilliant novel from Helen Dunmore
38 year old Simone is abruptly brought back to her 18-year-old self, with the return of an old lover, Michael, whom she had met in the USA whilst working at a children's camp. Now married, with two young children, deep in debt with her husband out of work, his architect practice having failed, the family now live in a remote coastal area along side a beach in Eastern England. Michael reappears with revealing photos of the time the pair were part of a threesome, with Calvin, now long dead.
Simone has taken a job as a district judge. The novel develops into an intriguing tale of Michael trying to blacklmail Simone back into his life.
With her sharp observation skills and beautiful poetic language, Dunmore, a very fine writer, handles the rather dark subject matter skillfully and well. So much so, when I came to the final chapters, I could not put the book down! Superb.
38 year old Simone is abruptly brought back to her 18-year-old self, with the return of an old lover, Michael, whom she had met in the USA whilst working at a children's camp. Now married, with two young children, deep in debt with her husband out of work, his architect practice having failed, the family now live in a remote coastal area along side a beach in Eastern England. Michael reappears with revealing photos of the time the pair were part of a threesome, with Calvin, now long dead.
Simone has taken a job as a district judge. The novel develops into an intriguing tale of Michael trying to blacklmail Simone back into his life.
With her sharp observation skills and beautiful poetic language, Dunmore, a very fine writer, handles the rather dark subject matter skillfully and well. So much so, when I came to the final chapters, I could not put the book down! Superb.
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