Something in the Air is a brilliant adolescent coming-of-age novel with an apparent touch of the supernatural and authentic touches of the post-war period.

 There's a familiar, comfortable feeling of Peggy's problems being the same as for any teenager now - at home with her bossy older sister, her friends and teachers at her all girls' school, and her desire to break free and live a life like her aunt Stella's in London. Jan Mark accurately captures that adolescent feeling of everything mattering so much, and yet as it is the 1920s and men's and women's positions are all topsy-turvy, her anxieties about the future do seem to have that much greater import. However, after a visit to the dentist - or the 'Highland Butcher' - Peggy's worries become less familiar, as she can hear what sounds like Morse code in her head.

When Peggy confides in her aunt Stella and then goes to stay with her for the weekend, she learns more about adulthood than she'd expected. Though in the third person, Mark narrates it well from Peggy's perspective, nicely setting up Peggy's starry-eyed vision of Stella's life against her realisation that Stella is unhappy with her independent lifestyle, a by-product of the deaths in the war. While Peggy, at 14, hopes only to meet 'the One', a girlfriend who will share a flat while they become working women, Stella knows she has lost her one and her hopes for a married partnership. The portrayal of the different women (and there are few men, because of the war) offers a good cross-section of the different choices and changes facing society, such as war widows having to work, question of educating girls to university level, working-class women educating their children alongside the middle-classes, and of course the vote (still at age 30 or above). Peggy's frustration at how the girls and women she knows don't get on, unlike in Little Women or boarding-school stories, gives a refreshing realistic feel.

By the end of the book the noises in Peggy's head have stopped, and she's become very interested in the new wirelesses and fledging radio broadcasting. Mark's afterword offers a great personal explanation for the idea behind the book, but don't read it until you've read all of the story, as it will ruin the 'supernatural' aspect of the plot, particularly the visit to London.

2007-12-29