Astonishing Splashes of Colour

Astonishingly good evocation of adult children navigating childhood trauma - doing their best to adhere to a standard of "normal" for which they have no context. In particular, Morrall illuminates how completely insane behavior appears logical to the person engaging in it - beautifully done.

This is the kind of book I could read a thousand times over. This is the style of writing I most identify with. Astonishing Splashes of Colour is so intimate and in-your-face I feel as if Morrall's main character, Kitty, is leaning in to tell me deep and dark secrets, stories of embarrassing moments, and airing her dirty laundry with a wave of her hand and an air of factual nonchalance. She makes me squirm with her frankness, her vulnerability.

Kitty is a thirty-something with something to hide. Her past has as many demons and devils as it does angels. Losing her mother at three years old, the knowledge of an older sister who ran away from home, the fact having four brothers who not only are disconnected from one another but only show more pretend to be connected to her, the frustrations of having a father who loses himself in painting and has episodes of pouting, the confusion of having an excessively neat husband who lives across the hall in a separate apartment, the heartbreak of a miscarriage Kitty insists on waiting for after school...then there are the colors. Kitty has the uncanny ability to see human emotion, human circumstance as a myriad of color. Her world is not black and white sane, but rather a rainbow of mental chaos. As if all this wasn't enough everything turns out different from what one would expect. I couldn't put it down... show less

Great book. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I thought the ending wasn't quite right - a little too dramatic and "traditional" in a book which in many ways stands out as different. That said, this definitely rates as one of my best reads so far this year. As bizarre as this family is, I can imagine these events actually occurring, and I am interested in the way the main character gradually shifts from being somewhat strange to downright 'abnormal', raising the question of what really is 'normal'. I tend to subscribe to the view that 'madness' is largely a normal response to a mad situation, and in many ways that seems to be the thesis of this book. I also liked the way Morrall wove the 'splashes of colour' theme through show more the book. It's an interesting take on the world, to see things in terms of colours of not just objects but moods etc. I think I'll try to get hold of one of Morrall's subsequent works to see if she's a one-hit-wonder in terms of the sorts of books that I like. show less

This is the story of Kitty Wellington, who is suffering from a breakdown following a miscarriage. Kitty is a wonderful character, and as I watched her make a series of bad decisions, I came to care very much about her.

Along the way, we find out more about Kitty's past and her family: why her father and four brothers seem so reluctant to talk about their mother, who died when Kitty was three. And why Kitty lives next door to her husband, James, who suffers from his own mental and physical challenges. I came to love James as much as I cared about Kitty.

Clare Morrall has written a great family story. The plot is plausible, but not predictable, and the book brings things to a conclusion without tying everything up too neatly and I didn't show more think it was contrived in any way. show less

Kitty Wellington is at home in Britain's culture; it's her spectacularly dysfunctional family and a personal tragedy that bring her grief. Dangerously unstable after a miscarriage and her resulting inability to conceive again, Kitty sees other people and her environment in auras of color. A device brilliantly effective at times, this serves to establish Kitty's febrile, fantastical imagination. For three years, Kitty has lived in a flat next door to her loving, ineffectual husband, whose own problems (a limp; an obsession with order; a fear of unfamiliar places) render him similarly incapable of dealing with the world. But Morrall gradually reveals the real cause of Kitty's anguish: her lack of identity. Brought up helter-skelter by her show more irascible, eccentric artist father and four older brothers, Kitty has no memory of her mother, who died when she was three. Even in her most depressed moments, however, Kitty has wit and intelligence, even as her childlike impulsiveness and failure to foresee the consequences of her acts lead her to initiate a double kidnapping. Morrall artfully reveals the true story of Kitty's family in a suspenseful plot that unfolds like layers of an onion, meanwhile providing a convincing portrait of a woman striving for emotional survival. show less

Astonishing Splashes of Colour shows how one woman, Kitty, deals with loss and her mysterious childhood built from lies. Morral continuously relates life to colors. At times I'd stop and think "oh, that was a clever way to describe that." In a way it pulled me away from the story rather than strengthen the story and characters. However, it didn't happen too often and I felt such sympathy for Kitty.

Focuses on a motherless child/childless mother from a big but emotionally distant family. References to Peter Pan make a rather crass analogy.

She is also a synaesthete (though oddly that thread fizzles out as the plot becomes more interesting), and has very little social/self awareness of the consequences of her actions on others.

You never really understand any of the characters - and especially not why James loves her. Perhaps that is a deliberate parallel with how little any of the characters know and understand each other, but it makes an unsatisfying and superficial read.

Not a bad book, but certainly undeserving of its place on the Booker Prize shortlist.