First Aid

by Janet Davey

From the author of the acclaimed English Correspondence comes this story of fraught relationships, of a woman caring for her teenage daughter, son and toddler. It is a story of how everyone would like to escape the ties that bind, and begin afresh.

225 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2004

Reviews

[David Staniforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are 800 plus page novels that fly as quick as a novella, and there are novellas that feel more like an 800 plus page novel. This was a novella that felt like a massive novel, as the text kind of needed a constant unravelling.

Don't get me wrong, it had some great writing in those pages, it's just that it never really went any where, and it never went there slowly.

As writers we are often told to show and not tell. This novella was all show and very little tell, which just goes to show that you shouldn't always stick rigidly to given advice.

I quite liked the premise, the characterisation and dialogue were great, but a page turner it is not.

[M M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Patricia Duncker led me to Janet Davey's First Aid. Why? you ask. Well, lads and ladies, it's because Duncker blurbed on Davey's book: "Beautifully written and perfectly judged with some unforgettable moments - it's like a depth charge - very understated, very subtle." Impressive, you agree? The book describes a few days in the life of Jo, a somewhat scatterbrained mother of three who retreats to her grandparents' house in London after she is suddenly attacked by her lover, with whom she until then appears to have had a happy relationship. The eldest of her children, a sixteen year-old girl, runs off; we follow her point of view for a bit. Meanwhile, Jo is suffocating at her grandparents' and worried about her two younger children, the youngest a toddler. We follow her point of view for a bit - it is so gauzy, so ephemeral, it's as though her mind is scarcely present. Jo - as far as I can make out - has stopped thinking; her reactions to daily events appear as reflexes from an independent limbic system, while her consciousness has veers between panic and futile intention. Why did the lover lash out? Why is the love of one's family so claustrophobic? Why are the relations between mothers and daughters so fraught, so taut and yet so brittle?

[Krissy]

I tried to read this, I really did. But for some reason, I just wasn't that crazy about it. Maybe it just seems so unbelievable, that a mother would just let her daughter jump off of a train and not even try to stop her, just continue on her way like nothing happened. I really didn't get very far into it, only a few pages, so I am going to go back and at least give an honest effort to not judge it before I read it. I hate not finishing a book, even if I really hate it (even though it is a waste of time.) So hopefully I will be able to get through it enough to change this review.

[Krystal]

I started this book today. So far, it is just okay. It actually goes back and forth, which I really can't stand when authors do that. Occasionally it is okay with some authors and I can follow along just fine. With this book, I think I'm reading about what is currently happening and then I realize afterwards that I'm reading about the past, and then in the next paragraph or so I'm back to the present again! Well, maybe not that soon, but still. I will finish the book and hope that it gets better as far as the flow of past and present. As for the story, it is alright so far.

[Nicholas George · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does a dysfunctional family -- plagued by divorce, betrayals, lies and distrust -- become functional? That is the question behind thousands of novels, yet Davey approaches it in an intriguing (and very effective) way, probing around the corners of the story, allowing just enough glimpses of the characters for us to know them if not fully understand them (just as they don't truly know one another). There are still loose ends at the end, but we get enough of a resolution to believe this family will be all right.

[Katie Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

very real. very true to life characters, no "romanticizing" people

[Bookmaniac70 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this short but elegant and well-written family story.