Martyn Bedford, Twenty Questions for Gloria, Walker Books, 1 April 2016, 299pp., $19.99 (pbk), ISBN 9731406363531
Gloria is fifteen and feeling a bit jaded. Her brother has left home to go to the university and her parents seem to be too busy for her. Into her life comes a mysterious boy, Uman, completely different from anyone she’s met before. Gradually she becomes more and more friendly with him and more entranced by his rule-breaking attitude. Eventually the pair hatch a plot to run away; the book is structured around a police interview with Gloria after she has returned from a fifteen-day absence. Some of the book is constructed as a transcript of the police interview, while the majority is first-person narrative of Gloria’s recollections of what happened.
The book is partly about perceptions as Gloria tries hard to convince the police and her family that Uman did not kidnap her, she was not a victim and indeed was a willing participant. In her narrated story, we travel with Gloria on her journey and come to understand both her and Uman and learn of his tragic background. Some of the narration is hurtful for her mother as Gloria recounts her unhappiness at home but it is cathartic for them both and the future of their relationship is likely to be healthier. In their travels, which provide many challenges, Gloria comes to a number of realisations about herself too. This is, in part, a psychological study of adolescence and the ennui that teenagers sometimes feel. For Gloria, on her return, nothing can ever be quite the same again, something which her best friend Tierney finds hard to understand and which, the reader senses, will ultimately lead to a natural end of their friendship.
Characterisation is strong both with the main characters and those who circle around them. D.I. Ryan, who questions Gloria, seems unnecessarily unsympathetic but then we come to understand that she is trying to get to what she believes is the truth and feels that Gloria has been ‘brainwashed’ by Uman. Uman’s grandmother is so unexpected and so unlike what Gloria and the reader expect from this ‘posh’ and formerly privileged boy. Privilege, however, is no protection from tragedy. Gloria’s mother is clearly not the uncaring person Gloria thinks she is and we are given insights into that as we picture her sitting to the side of the interview room hearing the distressing things Gloria uses the opportunity to say. That is not to say that Gloria herself is an unlikeable character; she is complex and nuanced and finds, during their ‘adventure’, that she has inner resources of which she was unaware.
Ultimately, of course, their travels (and travails) must come to an end. Their parting is deeply distressing although the reader feels that there is a kind of Romeo and Juliet aspect to their relationship which means a parting is inevitable. There is a twist to the end, however, which opens up new prospects for Gloria.
This is a subtle and moving book, with great insights into the psyche of its characters. Gloria and Uman will live on in the reader’s mind long after the book has been closed.
Reviewed by Margot Hillel