The Park by Gail Schimmel

I have recently become a reviewer for Pan MacMillan South Africa. This is really exciting and I am so looking forward to working with them. As part of my first batch of books for review, I received Gail Schimmel’s new novel, ‘The Park’.

The story is told in first person narrative by the main character, Rebecca Prince. Rebecca and her husband, Sean, (who are white) have an adopted mixed race daughter, Amy. Rebecca starts taking little Amy to the park, where she befriends two other mothers with daughters around Amy’s age – Rose and Lilith. They soon become close friends and confidantes of one another, spending time at each other’s houses and sometimes Rebecca even looks after Ruby-Mae, Lilith’s daughter.

However, after some time, both Lilith’s and Rose’s behaviour becomes a bit strange, but for completely different reasons. Rebecca is then faced with a completely unconceivable situation, which she has to navigate along with her own stresses and troubles. She has to do this without the support of Rose and Lilith, on whom she relied heavily prior to the recent events.

As those of you who read this blog know, I am an avid supporter of South African writers. I was very excited that this book was written and published locally. I was even more pleased when the book turned out to be extremely well-written and enjoyable. I loved the world that Schimmel created and found myself thinking about what would happen next when I wasn’t reading the book – always a good sign.

The book also beautifully looks at the struggles of motherhood and, on top of that, being an adoptive mother. Rebecca’s character is honest and raw, and I really liked that. Schimmel also deal, albeit briefly, with issues of race and having an interracial family.

The only criticism that I have of this book is that it relies somewhat on the strength of Rebecca’s friendship with Rose to make certain points. However, I don’t feel that their friendship was sufficiently developed or explored for the reader to grasp the full effect of Rose’s actions on Rebecca.

All in all though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

My rating: 4.5*

Happy reading!

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