Tremain, Rose

(British, 1943– )

To read a Tremain novel is to be moved through a process; she will make you see something one way and then move you to see it differently. Start with the short stories in The Colonel's Daughter (1984) to appreciate her ability to change perspective. Restoration (1989) sweeps you through the turbulence of the seventeenth century. Sacred Country (1993) moves to rural Norfolk in the 1950s and explores what it feels like to grow up knowing your body is the wrong gender. The Way I Found Her (1997) is written from the point of view of a precocious 13-year-old boy on holiday in Paris, enjoying his first taste of independence and its consequences. The real treat in a Tremain novel is the sensuous description of food, of landscape, of period, experienced through the distinct consciousness of the main character.

Jane Gardam, Jane Rogers, Michèle Roberts  RV