Over

by Margaret Forster

Don and Louise's eighteen-year-old daughter Miranda has died in a sailing accident. While Louise takes steps to move on with her life, Don cannot come to terms with the chain of events that led to her death. Instead, he is determined to bring someone to account. The surviving children handle the loss of their sister better than their parents, but what they can't handle is their family being torn apart...

Taut, heartbreaking and immensely moving, Over is a novel about love and loss, grief and hope, pain and resolution, and about what happens to human beings when tragedy strikes like lightening.

Genres: Fiction, Family, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 22, 2007

About the author

Margaret Forster was educated at the Carlisle and County High School for Girls. From here she won an Open Scholarship to Somerville College, Oxford where in 1960 she was awarded an honours degree in History.

From 1963 Margaret Forster worked as a novelist, biographer and freelance literary critic, contributing regularly to book programmes on television, to Radio 4 and various newpapers and magazines.

Forster was married to the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies. They lived in London. and in the Lake District. They had three children, Caitlin, Jake and Flora.

Reviews

[Norah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Margaret Forster writes fiction that is convincingly, disturbingly real, rooted in the experiences of ordinary lives. As in Carol Shields’s Unless, this novel takes a heartbreaking look at a mother’s anguish.

Over is a novel about what happens after a tragedy in a family. Not the tragedy itself but its aftermath; what’s left when the tide recedes and it’s over. A daughter has died, suddenly, shockingly, and the different ways in which her parents respond to the tragedy, and how this affects the other siblings, is at the heart of things. The sad story is narrated by the mother, Louise, who is trying to hold herself together and get on with life, trying to understand not “what happened,” but what has happened to them all in the wake of the accident. Only gradually do we learn some of the details of the tragedy — a storm blew up, a yacht capsized, but the body was never found. Louise’s husband cannot come to terms with the lack of knowledge and uncertainty and becomes obsessive in his quest for a reason and someone to blame. His wife just wants to come to terms with it. She moves out of the home and goes back to work. Their other children can’t deal with the way their parents are tearing the family and each other apart.

With characteristic subtlety, Forster holds back the essential truth till the end, when we realize that Louise is not as reliable as her matter-of-fact narration suggests. Her determination to deal with grief in her own way, and her refusal to be defined by tragedy has its dangers and this is where the real tragedy lies.

[Mariagriffiths66 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't dislike this book enough to stop reading it but to be honest I did not care at all what happened. I did not feel anything for the characters and felt no emotion from the writing even though it is a novel about grief. I felt it was written in a very off hand way. I hated all the parts when the main character was teaching and I was glad when I was finished it!

[○°☆ carlita ☆°○ · Rating 2 out of 5]

probably a not too unrealistic portrait of a grieving family, but I really couldn't stand them a lot of the time, my god

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

How do you continue to live when your 18 year old daughter dies in a tragic accident? Do you move on eventually or become so obsessed with what happened that you can't let go of the accident? Don and Louis handle the death of Miranda in very different ways; Louise wants to go forward and be happy (in a fashion) again, while Don lives, breathes, and totally immerses himself in what could have or should have happened on the boat. The title Over refers to many different layers of the narrative. When do you consider your self over a death? When is your mourning period over? Can you ever get over such tragedy? Is life as you know it over? Is your family life over? Is your relationship with your spouse over because you cannot see everything in the same way anymore? A very thought provoking book, ultimately we have to go forward no matter what has happened as the other choice is a downhill spiral of destruction.

[Jane Payne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel in reviewing books I’m more critical *** for this one although it is a really good book Margaret Forster is one of my favourite authors and I have read all her books She never disappoints and her characters are always well written but this book although enjoyable lacks the “pull” of some of her books.
That said it’s an enjoyable read
The one I recommend is The Travels of Maudie Tipstaff one of my all time favourites.

[DubaiReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bereavement.

This was the first book I'd read by the prolific Ms Forster, and I have to confess, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. The author has a beautiful use of words that just carries you along, gradually absorbing the facts as they are presented and simultaneously empathising with the struggles of the bereaved family. To be honest, not a lot happens, but I respect that the author therefore had the sense to make this a fairly short book (200 pgs), not putting us through unnecessary verbosity.

The book is narrated by Louise, whose 18 year-old daughter, Miranda has drowned in a sailing accident. The whole family is devastated but each family member reacts differently. To my mind, Louise's reaction was the one I most related to, while her husband was driven to research parts of boats and engine mechanisms in a bid to find someone to blame. His extreme, obsessive reaction drives a wedge between himself and his family. Miranda's twin sister and their younger brother each deal with the loss individually, though I was surprised that the twin's reaction wasn't more extreme.

It is Margaret Forster's description of the emotions and psychology of loss that are the strength of the book. I loved her subtleties and perceptions:
"When Lynne left, her energy always left with her, and I collapsed again". (Pg 21)

Only the ending left me a little dissatisfied. As I had related to Louise, I felt the pressure she was under at the end, I'm not sure I'd have been so accommodating. I will say no more.

[Angie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me - we read this at my book group and there was a 4 to 1 against the novel sadly for my friend who loves it - just goes to show we all have different expectations and preferences for our reads. The premise of the story is quite interesting - a woman picking up the pieces of her life in middle age following the death of her daughter in a boating accident - but it is quite impersonal and dreary at best. I felt nothing, no sypmathy for the main character, her remaining children and estranged husband. Quite frustrating in fact that she doesn't just 'lose it' and get pent up emotion out - she is quite a passive character and I really felt nothing for her and this was the main reason I didn't enjoy this book. It made me want to scream - at least it was mercifully short. (Sorry Lucy....)

[Gudrun · Rating 4 out of 5]

a very compelling account of grief and how a family copes with it.
I enjoyed Forster's story of how Don and Lou and their two children coped with the tragic accident which cost the life of one of their children/siblings. It very much reminded me of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:
"All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way".
In Over, each family member is unhappy in their own way and their coping strategy is also a very individual one.

[Denise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointed with this book. I found the main character unreadable and therefore didn't warm to her, and couldn't really sympathise with her situation. The husband and other children felt two dimensional and I found the whole thing a drag. Wouldn't have finished if it hadn't been a book group read. Turgid.

[Norman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suffered a recent bereavement and didn't realise this book was about that subject. Perhaps it was more poignant as a result and I like Forster's writing anyway, but I suspect this book would be a useful tool as it covers the madness and separation that occurs between us, the bereaved and the world and each other! memories, hatred, myth, friendships are all in there

[Merry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A family grieving is an important subject to explore.

She is an assured and accomplished writer - what a relief after reading a few duds lately! - I look forward to reading more of her work.

[Donna Irwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. A moving portrayal from a mothers point of view of a family torn apart by tragedy and trying to move on, or not, as the case may be. Beautifully written.

[Ethel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raw emotions. Turmoil in relationships. Realities recognised. Enjoyed and recognised many of the conflict situations.

[Kiwiflora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always found Margaret Forster to be an expert on the ordinariness of the ordinary lives of people. Which is what makes her writing and her stories so relatable - we all have ordinary stuff going on. In her writing of grief, in this novel, things are no different. The family she is writing about could be any family. Its members living lives the best way they can, when something totally catastrophic and unexpected happens, instantly changing the family forever. What do you do when your unit of functioning is reduced from 5 to 4? When all the relationships and dynamics you have forged over 18 years and more just vaporises? Grief is something that we don't do well in Western society. What we are learning is that there is no tried and true formula, everyone has a different response to a death, and there is no right or wrong way of dealing with it. Which makes things perilously difficult for those left behind. This family loses a daughter in an accident. The father can't move on, taking on the fanatical and obsessive task of finding blame; the mother has to continue going to school every day in her job as a teacher of new entrants, some of whom are horrible. The twin sister of the deceased escapes to volunteer work in the Africa, the younger teenage brother shuts down. Narrated from the mother's point of view, she also has to make her own escape. Grief can take years to resolve, and the lovely thing about this story is that a tentative pathway is found where the family may be able to heal together.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A totally compelling book. How we all see, react to and remember the same facts in our lives in different ways, how those reactions affect others and how we can never go back to where we were before, however much we might want to and however painful that is.

Through Louise, writing a kind of diary to compose her thoughts about her own and her family's reactions over the three years after one of her daughters is drowned, we are drawn into her feelings, the behaviour of her husband and surviving children, and into the relationships among them. It moves easily and convincingly through time and I found all the characters completely credible.

The writing is deceptively understated, never dramatic, and leaves enough room in what is unsaid for the reader to feel.

[Kate Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book. Character-driven is my favourite kind of book and this one certainly is. The writing is clever — just the right balance of emotion, detachment, poetics and creative description. There are some absolutely beautiful lines in this book, such as when memories are being described.

This novel is profoundly sad, but not so much that you can’t bear to read it, to persist with it. It’s a strange kind of emotive page-turner and unlike anything I’ve read. Part diary-entry, part regular narrative, the author had me flying through this rollercoaster of grief.

[Marion Roux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heart-felt and moving about how a family, but especially a mother, copes with, and tries to get over the traumatic death of a much loved daughter and twin sister. The book is about how things, feelings, needs etc change "afterwards". And about the resolve to accept, move forwards and begin to live again in new concepts of family and love.
The book is thought-provoking in that none of us know how we would react in the same situation.

[Judith Falkner · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read the blurb about this book it didn’t appeal to me. The aftermath of a tragic accident in which an 18 yr old girl dies is not a subject I thought I’d enjoy reading about. But I found the book to be utterly absorbing and hard to put down.
I liked the way small details of the accident are gradually revealed. And how the unreasonable behaviour of one main character gradually transfers to the other. There can be no happy ending following such a devastating incident but the book ends with hope and that is good enough for me.

[Pamela Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Study of loss and family change.

Re read this after a recent personal family loss. Not a cheery book but it felt honest and real. Have always found Forsters' writing to be emotionally intelligent, describing small but important aspects of relationships and personalities like few other wriers. I would recommend this book to anyone struggling with others to survive traumatic grief.

[Tansy Hepton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoy isn't the right word for a book on this topic, but I thought it conveyed the aftermath of a tragedy well and how there are so many different ways of coping with grief. It is entirely from the mother's viewpoint, which is both a strength and a weakness - I was interested in how the surviving children were really feeling and we only saw that from the mother's perspective. But I found it a compelling read and loved the depth of it.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing portrayal of loss. Who can understand how it must feel to lose a child? I don't think there are any words in the English language that would come close to describing the utter devastation. And yet, Margaret Forster has created characters who display some of the madness. Hopefully it's as close as I'll ever get to experiencing the real thing.

[Anica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a real page turner and a quick read. It is so well written that you would think the author had really experienced the situation she was in. The subject matter is sad but interesting how a mother can get on with her own life after losing a child and moving on from her marriage. I know Margaret Forster has written many books but this is my first one but probably won't be my last.

[Zoe Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75 stars. This book had no story, no direction - it was just a meander driven by the traumatised thoughts of a grieving mother. It had no clear ending. And yet, that is exactly how it should be. It was beautifully written, and I truly appreciated the exploration of the different ways we grieve, and how the loss of a loved one affects all our relationships.

[Basia Korzeniowska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very powerful and poignant study of emotions after the death of a just-adult child - family dynamics quietly implode - who or what is to blame? No-one, everyone. Will things improve with time? Who knows?

[Lynn Hutchinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book detailing the difficulties of a family following the sudden accidental death of a daughter/sister. Good insights into the different responses by the individuals involved.

[Annette Kane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Competent writing

[Suzanna Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Painful reading and very honest on the loss of a child and a subsequent family breakup.

[Ray Zhou · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is so sad that I read it slowly. "We can only start over again, endure the memories, wait for the pain to lessen. As it has, already. We don't want more pain, more grief." (200)

[Daniela Ferro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the author's writing, it really made me connect to the story.

[Carol · Rating 1 out of 5]

Relentlessly dreary.