The Shell House

This is an ambitious and complex literary novel whose tone is set by the preface of a poem from Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings. It weaves two narratives. One concerns the life-changing experiences of Edmund, the young heir to a country estate, during the First World War. The other charts the developing artistic and emotional sensibilities of Greg, a modern sixth-former. Their worlds intersect at the now derelict country house, which would have been Edmund’s inheritance, had it not burnt down mysteriously at the time of his apparent death at the front.

The novel is part historical detective story, as Greg and his friend Faith gradually discover the truth of the fire and Edmund’s death. It is also a meditation on growing up in a world where there are no moral certainties.

Newbery is tackling a number of issues (class, sexuality and religious belief among them) and moving between past and present, with a variety of conflicting voices, including those recruited from Greg’s syllabus, like Hardy, Owen and Plath. Occasionally, the narrative frame creaks under the weight of these concerns and the symbolism that attaches to them, especially as most of these themes have been aired recently in similar guises in adult and young adult novels.

Whether present-day young people like Greg and Faith would be so exercised about religion is doubtful. Yet intelligent and questioning readers will recognise the intensity of their engagement with the great questions of love and death, particularly through art and literature. Newbery’s characters do convince us of how much all this matters, and there is excitement and apprehension in seeing how they work out their fates.