Sue was the mother of my very good friend Anna, whom I met at University in Norwich and spent a year with at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, as part of our degree in American and English Literature. I was lucky enough to meet Sue when she came out to visit Anna that year.
Interpreters is Sue's second novel, coming after The Cloths of Heaven, published in 2009. The novel is fictional but contains some highly autobiographical elements (confirmed to me by Anna- whose namesake in the book is a clever twist on Sue and Anna, resulting in Susanna). The narrative follows Julia Rosenthal, an anthropologist who has spent most of her life living in Africa. The book opens as she returns to her suburban childhood family home, the sight of which brings back memories of growing up in 1970s England with her handsome brother Max, after whom all her friends swoon, her successful surgeon father and her devoted mother. Yet, as is usually the case, behind the picture perfect portrait of a happy family lies hidden elements of alcoholism, depression and infidelity. Intertwined with this main narrative are Julia's recollections of her own daughter Susanna's childhood, as well as the transcript of another woman being interviewed and struggling to recall her traumatic childhood in wartime Germany. At the end of the novel it is revealed that this woman is in fact Julia's own mother who has carried the guilt of surviving the Nazi regime with her for all these years.
The book is a story of mothers and daughters, the fear of failure, abandonment and disappointment and asks whether we can ever really free ourselves of the past.
It was a highly enjoyable and fascinating read, questioning the universal themes of family legacy and identity that are applicable to anyone at anytime and are, in essence, what make us human.
Sue is an incredibly talented author and I look forward to reading her other work, which also includes several plays.
To learn more about the author have a look at Sue's blog http://sueeckstein.wordpress.com/
She has also written several articles for The Guardian about loosing her leg to a rare form of cancer http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/03/leg-amputated-sue-eckstein
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