183. The Railwayman’s Wife

Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Ashley Hay

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

288 pages, published April 5, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

 

Summary

Set in post World War II 1948 in the small Australian town of Thirroul, The Railwayman’s Wife follows the intersecting lives of three individuals.  Anikka Lachlan is a widow who is left to raise her daughter alone when her husband Mac is killed in a railway accident.  Roy McKinnon is a poet who has lost hope after the war, but finds poetry again when he falls for Anikka.  Frank Draper is a doctor who is weighed down by guilt of those he couldn’t save.

 

Quotes 

“There’s some comfort in seeing things go on; birds keep singing, buses keep running. But if you want those things to continue, perhaps you have to accept that the other kinds of things, unhappier, even horrific ones, will continue too. And that’s harder.”

 

“The oceans and the skies…and the sun coming up each new day. That’s all there is, I think. That’s all that matters to think on.”

 

“That is marriage, he thought, remaking yourself in someone else’s image. And who knew where the truth of it began or would end?”

 

“Such fascinating things, libraries.  She closes her eyes.  She could walk inside and step into a murder, a love story, a complete account of somebody else’s life, or mutiny on the high seas. Such potential; such adventure—there’s a shimmer of malfeasance in trying other ways of being.”

 

“How would you start to write a poem? How would you put together a series of words for its first line—how would you know which words to choose? When you read a poem, every word seemed so perfect that it had to have been predestined—well, a good poem.”

 

My Take

The Railwayman’s Wife is a beautifully written, poetic novel about loss, grief, and trying to move on with your life by Australian writer Ashley Hay.  The part of the novel that I enjoyed the most was a lovely and enchanting poem entitled “Lost World” which was specifically written for this book by Australian poet Stephen Edgar.  I’ve tried in vain to find it on-line so that I could post it with this review.  If you want to check it out, you will just have to read this recommended book.