Twice Goodbye

<p class=ql-align-justify>Leanne Kenyon is the love of Frankie McDowell's life someone he feels destined to be with forever a destiny affirmed in his mind by the birthdate they share: he senses that they are twinned in some way.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>With little more than a week to go until his - and Leanne's - fortieth birthday Frankie's need to be with Leanne is starting to consume him. However there are two major obstacles to the fulfilment of his desire: firstly he has been happily married to the steadfast and loyal Donna for fifteen years; and secondly he has no idea where Leanne might be having lost contact with her in tragic circumstances twenty years before.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In the face of opposition from his brother Irving who urges him to leave Leanne in the past where she belongs Frankie resolves to head north a long way north to Fleetpool the rundown seaside town where he and Leanne had been together (often living rough owing to Leanne's psychological problems) two decades before.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>For Frankie that period of his life though fraught with the necessity to survive on the mean streets of Fleetpool was the best of times a personal golden age and that sense of nostalgia is bound up with his love for Leanne a love of which he was barely aware until it was taken from him.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In short though he has prospered in life he has been haunted by Leanne's memory for two decades.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In Fleetpool then on a wing and a prayer trusting to luck Frankie exploits the few contacts still available to him and via Hebden Bridge Whitby Scarborough and back to Fleetpool on their fortieth birthday he finds Leanne who now owns a café on an idyllic spot on the coast a few miles north of the noise and clamour of Fleetpool.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Frankie and Leanne together again as both have long yearned to be find themselves with a decision to make.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>The story is populated with many colourful characters from Frankie's past and present people he encounters as he endeavours to track down Leanne; indeed the narrative is enriched by Frankie's ability to attract strangers folk who confide in him open up to him and through him seek solutions to their problems. In this way the reader is made to appreciate Frankie's warmth of heart and generosity of spirit.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>The story thus becomes driven as much by character as by plot.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>The narrative is broadly linear but shot through with reminiscences which shine a light on the present and suggest the future. Moreover each chapter has a theme (a person or a place or an idea or concept) which serves as a hook upon which to hang Frankie's first-person narration.</p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>Frankie's character is a complex interplay of publican (he co-owns and runs a pub with his wife) artist and academically trained philosopher and these different facets of his makeup enable him both to conceive original thoughts and to express them in an intelligible and coherent fashion. </p><p class=ql-align-justify></p><p class=ql-align-justify>The great unknown of the story is what happens to Frankie and Leanne after their reunion. The title of the book offers more than a hint.</p><p></p>