The Lightning Tree

By Emily Woof

United Kingdom circa the 1980s—Ursula and Jerry find themselves surrounded by hip hairdos and dominating parents. The future looks bleak if they do not change their lives dramatically. Both are itching to escape their current lives and engage with the wider world.
 
Ursula’s work as a teacher takes her far away to India to instruct disabled children, while Jerry accepts a scholarship to Magdalen College—but only to “highlight the absurdity of privilege.”
 
Their written exchanges are deep, political, and full of irony. All the while, Jerry stays committed to Ursula in mind but not in body, questioning their relationship and the nature of their love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Europa Editions
• Release date: Jul 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781609453428

Reviews for The Lightning Tree

[bodachliath · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another tricky one to review, because I am not entirely sure how I feel about it. Emily Woof is clearly a talented writer who deserves to be better known, and much of this book covers ground that is very familiar to those of us who grew up in 80s Britain. Framed by a conventional love story, the rest of the book covers a lot of ground, part rites of passages story telling the parallel stories of Ursula and Jerry, two children of very different Newcastle backgrounds, whose love story is constantly frustrated by their incompatible expectations and by the sometimes malign influence of Ursula's grandmother "Ganny Mary", whose background in Padiham, a Lancashire milltown overlooked by Pendle Hill (the one famous for its witches) is explored in some detail. Some of the descriptions, particularly of 80s left wing politics are accurate and often funny, and there are some very striking passages, but the whole is a little uneven and I found my attention wavering at times.