The title refers to the sense that love can bring two beings so
close that, together, they make a whole. In politician Richard
McAllister and actress Joanna Jermyn, Justin Cartwright has created
two engagingly vulnerable characters. In different ways and for
different reasons they are both subjected to trial by journalism,
their lives made public and their most private moments spread over
the front pages of the press. McAllister, a minister in a
government which, though unnamed, is clearly Blair's, twice exposes
the cabinet to unwelcome publicity: in his stabbing when he
remonstrates with a fascist yob at a football match and in his
affair with Joanna. With the sharpest possible scalpel Cartwright
probes the way government insists on telling the stories the way it
wants them to be told and, when it meets resistance, reneges on
friendship and loyalty. These are interesting ideas given
intelligent, thoughtful voice by a character who wanted to use
politics to do good and who finds that this is no longer possible.
McAllister hangs on to his integrity in the face of enormous
pressure as spin replaces idealism. Joanna must cope with scandal
and spite in a different way; persecuted by those with bigger egos
than herself, she still finds and shares beauty in acting. Her
misery and small failures when separated from McAllister are
portrayed most movingly. The plot is elegantly balanced between the
two lovers and remains totally gripping as they are kept apart by
expediency and wretched misunderstandings. In an affectionate aside
Cartwright has McAllister seeking reality and soothing himself by
tracing the history of an ancestor whose notes on the care of
horses were in use at Mafeking. The beautifully painted background
moves from South Africa to rural Oxfordshire and the more exotic
locations of filming. A tour de force. (Kirkus UK)
A novel about politics, the power of film, the nature of history
and, above all, about two people caught hopelessly in love, subject
to the stresses of fame and scandal, by Booker Prize nominated
author Justin Cartwright. Richard McAllister, a young minister in
the government, has temporarily left the Cabinet while recovering
from being stabbed by a thug at a football match. He has decided,
while recuperating, to go to South Africa to research a relative
and his account of the horse in the Boer War. While in Mafeking, he
is called back to London because his passionate affair with an
actress has become public knowledge. From that moment, the love
affair becomes almost impossibly fraught. The press hound them, the
government spin doctors try to suppress all news and Joanna's
husband becomes very vindictive. The lovers are parted, and Joanna
leaves for America.
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