Missing Words
by Loree Westron
Missing Words by Loree Westron is one of the latest novellas in the Fairlight Moderns series. I have noted elsewhere how the authors featured by Fairlight Books tend to experiment with content and form, showing that the novella genre is still ripe for exploration. In this regard Westron’s book is something of an exception, because it eschews structural originality in favour of a poignant family drama, delivered in a gentle and understated way.
The novella is set in the 1980s, against the backdrop of the tug-of-war between Thatcher and the unions. The protagonist is Jenny, a mail sorter, who, as the only female worker at the postal depot, faces casual, everyday sexism and the threat of imminent unemployment. Meanwhile, life at home seems to be falling apart – her husband is out of work, her younger daughter died two years previously, and her other daughter, Charlotte, is drifting away from Jenny and making some difficult, and sometimes dubious, life choices. An unusual occurrence jolts Jenny out of the daily hog. One day, she notices a postcard with an incomplete address, with a heartfelt message from a young man to a woman who might soon be leaving him forever. By right, the postcard should go into the lost letter bin, but on impulse, and risking her job, Jenny decides to keep the postcard and trace the recipient herself, although she has little to go on except for the name of a street in the Isle of Wight. The novella follow’s the protagonist’s trips to the island in her quest to reunite the lovers. Somewhat predictably, this turns into the Jenny’s own journey as she confronts memories from her past and reassesses her dreams for the future.
Lost Words
does not have many narrative thrills and frills. However, Westron delivers a good story, backed
by attention to period detail. Even
though the political situation of the eighties is not the main theme of the novella,
workers’ pains and struggles of the time are well brought out. At the same
time, the novella evokes a sense of nostalgia through the bucolic descriptions
of Jenny cycling around the Isle of Wight. A well-crafted and touching read.
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