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Prior Regrets
A BOOK TWENTY FIVE YEARS IN THE MAKING.....A STORY TOLD ACROSS TWO DECADES......
Described as "beautiful, evocative writing" and "an enchanting tale" Prior Regrets tells the story of Mark Prior and Lauren Tesairi, and their attempts to navigate the hectic streets of Jerusalem, the varied characters who call North London home, and shared memories, faded by time.
Eighteen years after their last contact, a lonely goodbye in a crumbling hostel, Lauren's unexpected message resurrected long dormant memories for Mark. At first he could barely recall their three heady months together; young backpackers, discovering Jerusalem and each other through a haze of Sinai hash, Arabic blues and na�ve, youthful ambitions. But the secrets she revealed when they reconnected, secrets hidden for two decades, brought them all back, the dreams, the innocence, and the regrets. Now, despite a contented life with a wife and two sons, could he recapture that time? And could he change her bleak future?'
Described as "beautiful, evocative writing" and "an enchanting tale" Prior Regrets tells the story of Mark Prior and Lauren Tesairi, and their attempts to navigate the hectic streets of Jerusalem, the varied characters who call North London home, and shared memories, faded by time.
Eighteen years after their last contact, a lonely goodbye in a crumbling hostel, Lauren's unexpected message resurrected long dormant memories for Mark. At first he could barely recall their three heady months together; young backpackers, discovering Jerusalem and each other through a haze of Sinai hash, Arabic blues and na�ve, youthful ambitions. But the secrets she revealed when they reconnected, secrets hidden for two decades, brought them all back, the dreams, the innocence, and the regrets. Now, despite a contented life with a wife and two sons, could he recapture that time? And could he change her bleak future?'
282 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 13, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 29, 2021
3★
“But who doesn’t do something crazy at twenty-two? he thought. It was so long ago, so much had happened since that it seemed like someone else’s life, not an earlier time in his.”
Mark is a maths teacher who had a great time backpacking around the world, finishing up in Israel for several weeks – a crazy time when he was twenty-two. Now, eighteen years later, he’s back in London, happy, married, with two young sons.
He’s a bit of a numbers geek who likes to make decisions by scoring the pros and cons of taking different actions. He’s always done so, although I’m not sure I understood how he decided which consequence to choose and how many points to score it. But I was happy that it made him happy, and I’ve certainly never found a better method of weighing up the options.
While he was in Israel, he met and fell for a lovely young American idealist, Lauren, who was committed to helping the situation there. She spoke both Hebrew and Arabic and was based in the Arab part of Jerusalem, so most of the subsidiary characters are Arabs rather than Jews. Israelis are portrayed mostly as the soldiers who are ever-present. Lauren also knew the best places to eat and drink and get ‘Sinai hash’.
“He recalled the dreams he and Lauren both had of working in international aid, or as they put it at the time, saving the world. But half the backpackers he met then had the same aspiration. And the other half were too stoned to care.”
Yes, it was a freewheeling time while he was on vacation. There are several graphic sex scenes and a lot of discussion about hash-smoking – more than necessary. I did enjoy the food (mmm…) and the setting. The history is somewhat dumped into dialogue, and I found myself skimming.
Lauren was not on vacation – she was working. She was the one who added a lot of information about the charities and NGOS trying to help with the peace-keeping efforts. Eventually, she talked Mark into volunteering.
“‘I heard about this fabulous charity that brings Israeli and Palestinian children together,’ Lauren stated after they’d ordered. ‘They’re looking for volunteer chaperones.’
. . .
‘They get kids together, between twelve and eighteen years old, and give them an opportunity to see how each other lives. They visit schools, play soccer, go to the movies, whatever.’”
This past part of the story is interspersed with Mark’s present life. We follow only Mark, not Lauren, and we get to know his delightful wife and boys. He adores them all. He’s got a good career and he’s highly regarded in his field.
Then, he gets a card from Lauren, eighteen years since they last communicated, and he can’t help wondering if she’s still involved in peace-keeping and if so, how do his life choices stack up against hers? What if? Should he have stayed?
The author draws some good contrasts between backpacker Mark and family man Mark, and between the two settings, England and Israel. He introduces some interesting twists, and dilemmas, which would pull anyone in two directions, I think.
There are a number of anomalies, things that don't match, like Mark's Jewishness (or not). It's like continuity in a film. If the shirt the hero is wearing changes colour in the middle of the scene, we notice it and are jarred out of the story. That happened to me too often.
This is a debut novel, and I thank the author for the copy for review. He’s got plenty of talent and I’d love to see what he does next. I hope it includes getting a good literary editor to smooth out the bumps. A fresh pair of eyes would be well worth it!
“But who doesn’t do something crazy at twenty-two? he thought. It was so long ago, so much had happened since that it seemed like someone else’s life, not an earlier time in his.”
Mark is a maths teacher who had a great time backpacking around the world, finishing up in Israel for several weeks – a crazy time when he was twenty-two. Now, eighteen years later, he’s back in London, happy, married, with two young sons.
He’s a bit of a numbers geek who likes to make decisions by scoring the pros and cons of taking different actions. He’s always done so, although I’m not sure I understood how he decided which consequence to choose and how many points to score it. But I was happy that it made him happy, and I’ve certainly never found a better method of weighing up the options.
While he was in Israel, he met and fell for a lovely young American idealist, Lauren, who was committed to helping the situation there. She spoke both Hebrew and Arabic and was based in the Arab part of Jerusalem, so most of the subsidiary characters are Arabs rather than Jews. Israelis are portrayed mostly as the soldiers who are ever-present. Lauren also knew the best places to eat and drink and get ‘Sinai hash’.
“He recalled the dreams he and Lauren both had of working in international aid, or as they put it at the time, saving the world. But half the backpackers he met then had the same aspiration. And the other half were too stoned to care.”
Yes, it was a freewheeling time while he was on vacation. There are several graphic sex scenes and a lot of discussion about hash-smoking – more than necessary. I did enjoy the food (mmm…) and the setting. The history is somewhat dumped into dialogue, and I found myself skimming.
Lauren was not on vacation – she was working. She was the one who added a lot of information about the charities and NGOS trying to help with the peace-keeping efforts. Eventually, she talked Mark into volunteering.
“‘I heard about this fabulous charity that brings Israeli and Palestinian children together,’ Lauren stated after they’d ordered. ‘They’re looking for volunteer chaperones.’
. . .
‘They get kids together, between twelve and eighteen years old, and give them an opportunity to see how each other lives. They visit schools, play soccer, go to the movies, whatever.’”
This past part of the story is interspersed with Mark’s present life. We follow only Mark, not Lauren, and we get to know his delightful wife and boys. He adores them all. He’s got a good career and he’s highly regarded in his field.
Then, he gets a card from Lauren, eighteen years since they last communicated, and he can’t help wondering if she’s still involved in peace-keeping and if so, how do his life choices stack up against hers? What if? Should he have stayed?
The author draws some good contrasts between backpacker Mark and family man Mark, and between the two settings, England and Israel. He introduces some interesting twists, and dilemmas, which would pull anyone in two directions, I think.
There are a number of anomalies, things that don't match, like Mark's Jewishness (or not). It's like continuity in a film. If the shirt the hero is wearing changes colour in the middle of the scene, we notice it and are jarred out of the story. That happened to me too often.
This is a debut novel, and I thank the author for the copy for review. He’s got plenty of talent and I’d love to see what he does next. I hope it includes getting a good literary editor to smooth out the bumps. A fresh pair of eyes would be well worth it!
May 6, 2021
4.5★s
Prior Regrets is the first novel by Australian author, Paul Starr. It may be December, but the envelope bearing a Palestinian stamp that the school secretary hands him isn’t a Christmas card. Now the Head of Mathematics at Islington High School, Mark Prior is instantly transported by the enclosed postcard to an unforgettable three months in Jerusalem, eighteen years earlier.
Then Lauren Polkinghorne, now Lauren Tesaira, is inviting return contact, even suggesting catching up when she is next in London. Yet Mark makes a conscious decision not to reply. But circumstances some four months later see him headed to a conference in Tel Aviv, so he drops Lauren an email, and receives a friendly reply. Julia Prior knows her husband had a girlfriend in Israel almost two decades earlier, but is perhaps unaware of the intensity of their short-lived love affair, and Mark doesn’t mention this renewed contact with Lauren.
When Mark learns about what Lauren has done with her life, he is plagued by an “incessant, gnawing sense of ‘what-if’” but what Lauren reveals when they meet really puts his thoughts into a spin…
Starr’s evocative prose certainly puts the reader into the era and the setting, be it mid-eighties Jerusalem or London in 2004. He gives his characters some wise words and insightful observations: on revisiting a place after a long time “The only place where things stand still is in our memory”; and “…small decisions, the ones that seem incidental at the time, are often the most important of our lives.”
While Starr’s protagonist is certainly a flawed individual (the arrogance, and possibly naivety, of his belief that only he can provide a solution, is nothing short of breathtaking), he is clearly a man of conscience and integrity who doesn’t lightly abandon strongly held principles. Mark freely admits that his maths background causes him to approach any decision in a rational, algorithmic manner, so it is interesting to watch him trying to reconcile his guilt with what he justifies as a charitable act.
Lauren’s values are more difficult to judge as the whole story is from Mark’s perspective. Mark’s dilemma also poses questions about rights and responsibilities in marriage, betrayal of trust, and sovereignty over one’s body. This would make an excellent book club read: plenty of contentious issues to be (probably hotly) discussed.
The reader shouldn’t expect action/drama: the story moves at the moderate pace of ordinary people living ordinary lives; the plot doesn’t necessarily go straight where the reader might predict; and the ending is refreshingly realistic. But it will stay in the reader’s thoughts long after the final page is turned. Let this gorgeous Art Deco style cover draw you into an intriguing and thought-provoking tale: you won’t regret it.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by the author.
Prior Regrets is the first novel by Australian author, Paul Starr. It may be December, but the envelope bearing a Palestinian stamp that the school secretary hands him isn’t a Christmas card. Now the Head of Mathematics at Islington High School, Mark Prior is instantly transported by the enclosed postcard to an unforgettable three months in Jerusalem, eighteen years earlier.
Then Lauren Polkinghorne, now Lauren Tesaira, is inviting return contact, even suggesting catching up when she is next in London. Yet Mark makes a conscious decision not to reply. But circumstances some four months later see him headed to a conference in Tel Aviv, so he drops Lauren an email, and receives a friendly reply. Julia Prior knows her husband had a girlfriend in Israel almost two decades earlier, but is perhaps unaware of the intensity of their short-lived love affair, and Mark doesn’t mention this renewed contact with Lauren.
When Mark learns about what Lauren has done with her life, he is plagued by an “incessant, gnawing sense of ‘what-if’” but what Lauren reveals when they meet really puts his thoughts into a spin…
Starr’s evocative prose certainly puts the reader into the era and the setting, be it mid-eighties Jerusalem or London in 2004. He gives his characters some wise words and insightful observations: on revisiting a place after a long time “The only place where things stand still is in our memory”; and “…small decisions, the ones that seem incidental at the time, are often the most important of our lives.”
While Starr’s protagonist is certainly a flawed individual (the arrogance, and possibly naivety, of his belief that only he can provide a solution, is nothing short of breathtaking), he is clearly a man of conscience and integrity who doesn’t lightly abandon strongly held principles. Mark freely admits that his maths background causes him to approach any decision in a rational, algorithmic manner, so it is interesting to watch him trying to reconcile his guilt with what he justifies as a charitable act.
Lauren’s values are more difficult to judge as the whole story is from Mark’s perspective. Mark’s dilemma also poses questions about rights and responsibilities in marriage, betrayal of trust, and sovereignty over one’s body. This would make an excellent book club read: plenty of contentious issues to be (probably hotly) discussed.
The reader shouldn’t expect action/drama: the story moves at the moderate pace of ordinary people living ordinary lives; the plot doesn’t necessarily go straight where the reader might predict; and the ending is refreshingly realistic. But it will stay in the reader’s thoughts long after the final page is turned. Let this gorgeous Art Deco style cover draw you into an intriguing and thought-provoking tale: you won’t regret it.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by the author.
June 3, 2021
Paul has done a great job of his first novel; a long time in the making by all accounts. It is an easy read that is more philosophical than mathematical or political. The story describes a dilemma and how good intentions can easily go awry.
I found the pace about right with plenty to keep me interested and the story quite captivating with some good twists and turns. There was nothing much about Israeli politics except how difficult it is for all involved.
All in all a good book with perhaps a 4.5 star rating. There was one small editing error that I picked up and in no way did it detract from my reading.
I found the pace about right with plenty to keep me interested and the story quite captivating with some good twists and turns. There was nothing much about Israeli politics except how difficult it is for all involved.
All in all a good book with perhaps a 4.5 star rating. There was one small editing error that I picked up and in no way did it detract from my reading.
September 13, 2024
hold on we got paul
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews