The last couple of pages of this novel broke my heart. I think it's because I'm a dad of young children. This is another Jackson Brodie novel, although to say it's about Jackson, is to say too much. Like any of the novels where he appears Atkinson populates it with a huge number of well fleshed out characters with their own hearts, minds and foibles. What makes her winding novels work (and they're not tightly plotted but live with the nature of her characters' decisions) are the people she is writing about. They care, they fail and they move through life like most of us; sometimes getting it, sometimes failing, sometimes reaching standards that we all know fall short of what we'd like to be.
Started Early is a hymn to Yorkshire and, having spent more than a decade living there, I share her delight with the places visited and the love shown to them - regardless of whether it's Harehills or Harewood. Her own love for the county is pretty evident, although her style of writing leaves sentimentality behind to reveal the kind of affection long married couples share - that of people who know the unpleasant aspects of their lovers but love them whole not in part.
If I have any criticism, it's that I would sometimes like more Brodie and a slightly tighter narrative, but I can forget that pretty easily as really I enjoy his grumpy company (he's a bit of an old woman really) and he's always finding reasons to hate trains.
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