Voices in the Park

Twenty years ago Browne's picture book, A Walk in the Park, broke new ground with its depiction of class difference. In this extraordinary new picture book he revisits the park and presents the same events but this time from the different viewpoints of the four protagonists --- unhappy, downtrodden, middle class Charles, his snooty mother, friendly, sensitive, working class Smudge and her unemployed father. The families' respective dogs, Victoria and Albert (one of Browne's many felicitous touches), race round together 'like old friends'. Charles and Smudge's tentative contact as they play together is broken up by Charles's mother but they remain in one another's thoughts. The two parents ignore each other.

Browne presents us with a complex series of overlapping triangular relationships which, seen in turn through different eyes, raise profound questions about how we interact with each other, who is to be included or excluded in relationships and how we can tolerate not being the only one. His surreal style becomes an extension of his text, a visual comment on his characters' inner worlds. This extends to the different typefaces used in relation to each character --- Charles's so desperately thin and tentative.

For Charles's mother, the idea that her son might enjoy himself with Smudge is intolerable. Smudge's father appears sunk in depression. What then about their children? Browne leaves us much to chew over in this tour de force.