Sarah Fairbairn reviews a ‘blistering’ debut novel about a Walthamstow woman facing divorce

Esther is lost. Her marriage is finished, having crashed down around her ears with the news of a devastating betrayal. She frets over her relationship with her ex, with her daughter, and – most inescapably – with her own body as she tries to sort through her feelings of rage and impotence. 

She walks, as she writes in the journal she is keeping, in the marshes and along the canal. “But I cannot disappear”, she reflects, because she can see the Overground train rushing by on its way to Walthamstow Central. “There is the pylon. There are the wires…There are the families and the couples and the people on their own”.

How do you put yourself back together when the story you have told yourself about your life turns out to be only part of the truth? How do you push yourself into the future when taking that step will mean abandoning, changing or rejecting everything that has made you feel safe and comfortable? 

The story is gripping because it is so ordinary. It doesn’t reach for spectacle but unflinchingly documents the kind of slow unravelling that is probably familiar to all of us; the kind of desperation and uncertainty that is all the more devastating because normal life mercilessly carries on around it. 

There are some great single scenes and motifs that recur throughout – the narrator returns again and again to a police station where she learns she has unwittingly been part of a major crime – but the real magic of the book is in its descriptions of being stuck in a moment of disbelief, of not knowing who you are or how you will make yourself whole again.

This debut novel is accurately described on its back cover blurb as “blistering”. 

Miriam Robinson explores grief, anger, family legacies, the history of humankind and the mysteries of motherhood with a clear voice that cuts through the confusion of her main character.

If you’re looking for a holiday read that you can’t wait to pull out of your bag every day then grab yourself a copy when it comes out on 3^rd  August. 

‘And Notre Dame is Burning’ is available from all good book stores now

No news is bad news 

Independent news outlets like ours – reporting for the community without rich backers – are under threat of closure, turning British towns into news deserts. 

The audiences they serve know less, understand less, and can do less. 

If our coverage has helped you understand our community a little bit better, please consider supporting us with a monthly, yearly or one-off donation. 

Choose the news. Don’t lose the news.

Monthly direct debit 

Annual direct debit

£5 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else, £10 per month supporters get a digital copy of each month’s paper before anyone else and a print copy posted to them each month.  £50 annual supporters get a digital copy of each month's paper before anyone else.

More information on supporting us monthly or annually 

More Information about donations