2007-03-06 A literary treat

This is a novel about three women, but it's not chick lit. It's a novel about politics - past and present - but it's not a thriller. It's also a novel about Wales, the Welsh and the Welsh language, but its most memorable character is a Scot. And she's well into her nineties, which is one in the eye for those who think a book about anyone older than youthful middle age must be boring.
Boring it's not. But then, action-packed it's not either. To anyone familiar with the work of Stevie Davies, this is the latest in a series of character-based, beautifully-observed, and finely-crafted novels. To anyone unfamiliar with her work, it's as good a place as any to start.
As ever, Davies resists the temptation to write the sort of novel that shouts out TV or film deal (though it must have been tempting after the TV adaptation of Web of Belonging), or even to write the sort of book you'll find in huge heaps at the front of the big bookshop chains. In fact, if past experience is anything to go by, you'll be lucky to find it in those stores at all.
But if you like your reading to be thoughtful, insightful, and indeed delightful, you'll love this. The Eyrie is about three central characters living in a block of flats of that name, and Dora, the amazonian elderly lifelong Scottish communist and Spanish Civil War veteran, is the leader of them, at the centre of what action there is. I recently read CJ Sansom's Winter In Madrid and, if this is any recommendation, the two books taken together have made me determined to read more about the Spanish Civil War.
Highly recommended. And on second thoughts, maybe Dora would make a great TV or film character - but who would be big enough (or old enough) to play her?