Henry Hyde – 5 stars
Roz Morris has a way of getting under your skin and, whilst this book might easily be mistaken at first glance for a jolly, perhaps even slightly superficial account of a London couple’s attempt to sell their house and buy another, don’t be fooled.
The author’s account of what became something of an ordeal, lasting many months (an ordeal known all too well by millions of British homeowners), is full of witty and intelligent insight into a process that follows arcane rules of camouflage and deception, orchestrated by perhaps the least trustworthy of professionals, the estate agents, motivated purely by the imperative to close the sale, whatever the potential cost – financially or emotionally – to the client.
But this storyline, full of the rush of hope followed, perhaps inevitably, by exasperation and disappointment, is really just the front door which opens onto a deeper and more meaningful exploration of what we mean by “home”. To say that we are moving house really doesn’t encapsulate the psychological or emotional wrench that relocation entails and it is here that Morris’ prose really sings as she plumbs the history and meaning of her abodes past, present and in the potential future.
I found myself smiling, chuckling and nodding along as she mined her memories from childhood, through her student days, on into adulthood as she found her roots and settled, finally, with her husband Dave (and a better suited creative couple it would be hard to imagine). But there were also passages that had me swallowing hard, with suddenly moist eyes, as with deft wordcraft she brought me face to face with feelings all too familiar of my own about places, people and things left behind that can never be revisited.
It is admirable that Morris has managed to reframe what would have been, to many, a nightmare journey of baffling frustration as a kind of adventure, in which the hero and heroine manage to rise above the game that everyone else is expecting them to play without demur. (And how apt, given that husband Dave is, in fact, a game designer.) I’m not at all sure that I would have emerged so apparently unscathed from a similar experience!
Turn Right At The Rainbow: A Diary of Househunting, Happenstance & Home is an unexpected delight that can be read in one long sitting, if you are so inclined. But, as with the Slow Food movement, it greatly rewards the reader who takes the time to ingest it in small bites and chew properly to extract the most from its carefully composed ingredients. Highly recommended.
Roz Morris, author 