Cuckoo in the Nest is told from the viewpoint of 14-year-old uber intelligent, poet-in-waiting Jackie Chadwick. This is the voice of a young girl whose world is falling apart. Her mother has died from cancer, her father, an alcoholic is rude and at times physically abusive. So much so, Jackie ends up at A&E.
He was face down on the bed, his bulky frame vanquished by the drink: on his face and off his face at the same time. He had his shirt on but no trousers, only grey Y-fronts. The usual late afternoon uniform. At first, I thought he was awake, but then he snored, suddenly, like an engine being revved.
Jackie’s teachers though are observant and determined that Jackie will be looked after despite the girl’s protestations and inform Social Services, after which she is allocated a Social Worker.
After Jackie’s father sprains her wrist which sees her in A&E, and more subsequent violence, her move into care is brought forward. She arrives at the very new (first-timers) foster family’s house and life continues to unravel. Not only has she lost her home – though in this instance at least she still goes to the same school – but her father’s troubles are not over. After a stint in re-hab he falls off the wagon completely and ends up arrested and imprisoned.
Meanwhile, at the Wall House with its new brightly painted yellow room, there are a new set of problems. Their daughter, Amanda has an eating disorder that nobody, apart from Jackie seems to notice.
Amanda puzzled me. She was tall and slender and yet seemed to eat constantly. How do you stay so slim? I asked her one evening, a few days after I’d moved in. She was snaffling her way through a box of Black Magic that Uncle Nick had won in a raffle at school and she’d eaten all the soft centres before deciding to offer them round.
Amanda makes it very clear she is very put out by this ‘cuckoo in the nest’ girl who’s the same age, she had been expecting a cute little three year old. Rude Amanda who is up to all sorts once she is out of the house including stealing, smoking and drinking (the irony is not lost on readers with care experience). The foster family all have secrets. Bridget, who compulsively cleans and plays happy families, is quite shocked when Jackie wants to clean her own room. Nick, a teacher, hides in his man-shed in the garden restoring bicycles but is interested in Jackie’s poetry and eventually they form an uneasy alliance.
‘I would like,’ he said. ‘It’s very lovely so far.’
I read. ‘A kind of winter took you over
with his curious spiteful fingers
mapping you, laying down snow on snow
in your bones so you grew heavy with it.
He lay down with you, whispering numbness until he made you fly as quiet as birds
into his winter heart that folds you now,
tight and gone where sun cannot find you.’
Jackie’s poetry leaves the reader breathless, it’s where all her feelings really lie. The long, hot, and if you were there, unforgettable summer of 1976 creates its own tension mirroring the family unravelling. As Amanda, Bridget and Nick spiral out of control, Jackie’s nervous habit of picking spots on her head becomes worse. As the novel reaches its climax you can feel the heat rising, it’s impossible to find any shade, impossible to hide.
Well-written, the ‘foster’ child, Jackie is a funny, sarcastic, and loyal heroine. One that will hopefully knock Tracy Beaker off her perch (it is time) – Cuckoo in the Nest would make a brilliant film or tv series especially capturing the music and fashions of the time. This is a gentle and realistic novel, well told and full of humour and at times pathos. I admired the sarcasm, chuckled a lot and by the denouement was ringing out my hanky.
Fran Hill is a 60-year-old self-employed English teacher and writer with two previous books, a memoir and a self-published novella. This is her first full-length work of fiction. She has written extensively for the Times Educational Supplement and lives in Warwickshire with her gardener husband. She has two grandchildren.
Fran was fostered as a teenager and says ‘from my own experience and from years teaching English to vulnerable children, I know how easy it is to make assumptions about ‘disadvantaged’ teenagers. I wanted, through Jackie’s story, to show the incredible strength of many foster children and what they can contribute to their new family.’
Thank you to Legend Press and Fran Hill for the review copy.
Follow Fran on Twitter: @franhill123
Orphans & Care Experience in Literature 