Before the Swallows Come Back

I've just finished reading an absolutely heart-filling and lyrical novel by Fiona Curnow, called Before the Swallows Come Back. 

Reading Before the Swallows Come Back by Fiona Curnow feels like forest bathing on a stiflingly hot day, or being borne up in the gloss and buoyancy of a river running clean and clear. This is total immersion in the natural world. All this as background to a storyline that’s epic in scale and characters rendered so intensely that hours go by before you realise you really should pull yourself out of their world and back into your own. What a mesmerising treat!

The two central figures are Tommy and Charlotte. At the start of the story, they are on the cusp of puberty, two innocents from very different worlds whose chance encounter on a riverbank far from town becomes life-changing. For now, their lives are stable. Not perfect, but physically and emotionally secure. Tommy, the son of a travelling family and someone for whom outsiders are frightening, introduces Charlotte to the freedoms of living a more nature-led life, teaching her about river-pearls and how to negotiate the dangers of a body of water, what plants she can forage, how to weave twigs into art and basketry and larger branches into practical structures to support canvas for sleeping outdoors. For her part, Charlotte – who lives alone in a cottage with her seriously ill father – shows Tommy that not all those who live conventional lives distrust, fear and decry travellers. They pass the days of an idyllic summer together before everything changes.

Fiona Curnow has crafted an immense story, and an incredibly rich one. The plot is straightforward: these two young people are separately afflicted by crises – catastrophes – that rock the foundations of their lives. Over the course of a few years, they must learn to negotiate change. Serious change. They must learn self-reliance. Separated by hundreds of miles, each holds on to the memories of that summer spent together at the river before the swallows came back as a salve while they dream of being reunited. Along the way, they encounter more than their share of cruelty, but this is a story where good far outweighs bad. Good men like Dougie, the estate manager, a practical man who abhors the wilful destruction of habitat on the estate across the river, and who has big ambitions about rewilding. Waifs and strays like young Em, who on the face of it is chipper and feisty, brash enough to steal a woman’s purse while she’s distracted, but who clings to Charlotte in the sleeping bag at night. Tommy, Charlotte, Em and others may live a different life – an unconventional one – but this novel shows they are not ‘other’: they have the same needs and yearnings and good heart as those who live in the system. This book is peopled with three-dimensional characters, with their flaws and faults, but also their earnestness and deep longings for happiness, their intense sorrows and fears.

I thoroughly enjoyed it and recommend it wholeheartedly for the way it deals with social issues and also for that delicious immersion in the natural world. I’d say it’s a book for adults and for young people from the age of about fourteen. If you enjoyed Mick Kitson’s Sal, you’ll love Fiona Curnow’s Before the Swallows Come Back. Click on the links or image of the book cover to go to the sales page. Thank you so much, Fiona, for writing this story.

 

Before the Swallows Come Back - Excerpt from Chapter 32

As the storm raged outside and night fell, Sandy told story after story of his life on the road. The people he had met. ‘You’ll ken them, aye?’ The places he had been to. ‘Och, you must have been there an aw.’ Thankfully, it seemed that no answer was necessary. He played some tunes, sang some songs. There was barely a tune left in his gravely old voice but that didn’t matter. The meaning was there, and Tommy could imagine well enough what the voice would have been like when it held. When it was younger.

Tommy just sat and listened, hummed along to a tune, laughed at some silly adventure. Gasped at near misses. It was like being home. Like belonging. Stories were like that. They held you. Wrapped you up in them. Took you with them. Kept you alive.

When he awoke in the morning all was quiet. The storm had passed on by. The forest around sighing. Dappled sunlight playing with the window, flickering against the wall, dancing on the floor. But he was alone. No old man. No candles. Nothing but him and his animals.

Author Fiona Curnow

Author Fiona Curnow

Fiona is a Scottish writer who spent fifteen years teaching in international schools, before becoming ill and having to return home. Not one to remain idle, she turned to the Open University where she studied creative writing, completing both courses with distinction, and discovering a new passion. She has since written five books and finds it difficult to be content without a work in progress. That escape into a world of her own making is something very special! Before the Swallows Come Back was sparked by a meeting she had with a Tinker family many years ago, in rural Perthshire. They invited her to sit by their fire, outside their bender, and listen to stories. It was fascinating, inspirational and never left her.

You can keep up with the reception for Fiona's novel via her blog tour, or by following her on Twitter and Instagram.

Fiona has also published under the name FJ Curlew. You can read my previous blog post about her writing here.