Johnathan Maunders reviews Virginia Moffat’s latest novel
Johnathan Maunders reviews Virginia Moffat’s latest novel
From the outside, Echo Hall could be any country estate but its rooms and corridors are drenched in the tales of generations of war, pacifism and family secrets.
Virginia Moffat’s Echo Hall explores the stories that lie within, uncovering secrets that have acted to both cement and divide the Flint family throughout the twentieth century. The novel opens with Ruth, a wavering anti-war campaigner, newly married and pregnant. Her husband, Adam, is the heir to Echo Hall and the couple soon find themselves living within its claustrophobic walls.
As Ruth begins to doubt the strength of her marriage, she begins to uncloak a wave of distant family secrets; secrets that have contributed to the bitter coldness that inhibits the house. In doing so, Ruth unlocks the stories of Elsie, Jack and Daniel, exploring a complex web of emotions and relationships ravaged by the spectre of war, mystery and regret. Moreover, this discovery leads back to the previous generation, a previous generation equally scarred by love, sorrow and war, forming the piercing melancholy that binds the house and Flint family. As Ruth unmasks the family’s long-buried past she begins to face up to her own reality, leading her to conclusions regarding her husband and her beliefs.
Moffat artfully explores the strength of one’s ideology and how it relates to those that surround us. Within her writing, she skilfully investigates the way a century of war has acted to both entangle and ravage successive generations, condemning families and individuals to lives of sorrow and regret. The novel’s strength lies in its ability to generate believable characters that expertly demonstrate the fragile tenderness within us all, while seamlessly drowning these characters in the thunderous murk that follows in war’s path.
As 2016 marks one-hundred years since the midpoint of the First World War as well as marking 15 years of continuous British military intervention in the Middle East, the novel is a compelling reminder of how war devastates families, generation after generation.
Virginia Moffat is currently crowdfunding her novel ‘Echo Hall’ (longlisted for 2015 Bridport First Novel Prize, and 2015 Retreats West Winter Opening Chapter Competition). You can pledge to support it here: https://unbound.co.uk/books/echo-hall
**Special Discount Code for StWC Readers**: stopthewar16
