It would be unfair – not to say inaccurate – to call John Ironmonger’s work ‘whimsy’; it is far from that. Perhaps ‘fable’ might be better. Yet there are times when the latter may stray dangerously close to the former, and there was a short period in the middle of The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild when I feared it had done so.
Perhaps this was due to the structure of the book at a certain point, or a kind of inevitability inherent in it where you knew what was coming. Or even the repetition of theme – necessary for the book’s very existence, or course!
Don’t get me wrong, I like Ironmonger’s work (ever since The Whale at the End of the World), and will certainly return to it again. If you haven’t already sone so, you should consider it…
Ian Gouge - Writer 