For some reason I wasn’t sure I would like this book all that much, which only goes to prove that prejudging things is never a good idea. Of course I was completely wrong; I enjoyed it enormously, gobbling it up with almost a tear and often a great big smile.
Lost and Found is the story of two lost people, Carol and Albert, strangers to one another, there is no earthly reason for their lives to cross. Carol is thirty eight, unhappily married to Bob and mother to a daughter she doesn’t really like or understand. Secretly yearning for a man she knew years earlier, at war with both her mother and her daughter, Carol seems to hate much of what she sees around her. Albert is a sixty five year old post office worker, living with his cat Gloria, and the memory of his wife who died forty years earlier. Filled with dread at the thought of his approaching retirement, Albert feels the world has no more use for him. As if to demonstrate this, Albert is put to work his last few weeks in the undeliverable mail office.
“There are a few seconds of stilted silence, Darren’s management training obviously never having prepared for moments like this.
Her forces another smile, ‘Albert, if you’ll follow me…’
He leads Albert away from the main work area, the building becoming quieter with every step.
They finally enter a small room full of dusty mail sacks. Up near the ceiling is one small window, the glass dirty and barred, the view of nothing but grey, wet sky.
‘The undeliverable mail,’ says Albert. ‘This lot’s nothing but rubbish.’
‘No, Albert, this is a …a Mail Redirection Facility.’ He says it without a hint of irony, even though the only redirection from here is to the nearest bonfire. ‘I thought you could spend your final weeks keeping on top of things’
Meanwhile Carol feels like walking away from her life, escaping to Athens. She feels she had wasted her life, married to wrong man, living the wrong life. However her husband is going through a crisis, the timing couldn’t really be worse. Carol’s friend Helen tells her to write a letter, a letter to the universe – get everything off her chest, and count her blessings. So Carol does, she writes a letter putting a smiley face on the outside of the envelope in place of an address. It is into Albert’s hands that Carol’s letter drops, and Albert reads it. Carol’s letters begin to give Albert’s life some purpose, and the writing of them begins to help Carol sort out her feelings about a lot of things that she really needs to deal with.
Albert is a character not dissimilar to Harold Fry in Rachel Joyce’s successful novel The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry – but I liked him rather more than poor old Harold. I adored Albert I have to say, his grief and loneliness is really touching, and felt very real. Sitting in front of a muted television for company and talking to his cat and his dead wife, who wouldn’t feel for this lost soul?
Lost and found is a good engrossing read, written with humour and suffused with some really poignant moments. The loneliness of unhappy or wasted lives, the need to connect with someone, with anyone is at the heart of this novel. I think many people will fall for Albert and Gloria, I must say I didn’t like Carol much – her years of unhappiness have taken their toll, so she is a character it is still possible to sympathise with.
This is author Tom Winter’s first novel, I am grateful to Corsair for sending it, and I suspect it will be a novel that does very well.
Thanks Ali. Another of your interesting finds. Shall certainly check out this unusual twist on the message in a bottle theme.
Thank you : )
That looks like a really interesting read and shows it’s good to try things you’re not immediately sure about!
It is always good to be pleasently surprised.
I liked this book too, still need to write my review. Glad to read how much you enjoyed it too.
I reviewed this today, too. And I also loved it. I think, Like Harold Fry, this is the sort of novel that many people will enjoy.
Yes I anticipate it doing well.
[…] few months ago I read a review copy of a debut novel which I enjoyed enormously. Lost and Found by Tom winter came out in February. Today the paperback edition is published and the lovely people […]
[…] so enjoyed Tom Winter’s first novel Lost and Found, I was looking forward to reading Arms Wide Open, and I was certainly not disappointed. Tom Winter […]