The Home by Sarah Stovell

The Home is the story of three young girls in care. Hope, Lara, and Annie find themselves in a remote care home that is facing closure and they are the three sole residents.  All three have incredibly traumatic backgrounds and suffered abuse - physical, sexual and emotional. One is pregnant, one doesn’t speak - so scarred is she by her past, and two are engaged in a passionate relationship which tips into something darker.

The death of pregnant Hope starts the story off and this is one part psychological thriller/murder mystery. But to describe this book just as that would not do it justice. This is really an exploration of the abuse that far too many children suffer, something that is compounded by the underfunding of the state’s care and the harm heaped on the most vulnerable as a result of these failings. 

While The Home is fiction, it reminded me of all too many stories I came across in real life as a journalist for Channel 4 Dispatches. Years ago, I also read a nonfiction book by the award-winning Guardian journalist, Nick Davies. Dark Heart: The Shocking Truth About Hidden Britain was a groundbreaking exposé of the failings of the care system and the impact of poverty and deprivation on young minds, and Sarah Stovell’s novel fictionalises the same territory. The point is that she’s clearly done her research and not everyone reads, or likes, such heavy nonfiction as Nick Davies’ book or the films I made for Dispatches, and so novels that bring such situations to light are extremely important.

This isn’t to say that The Home is a heavy read, however. Stovell’s novel is heartrendingly, beautifully written, the author’s prose bringing to life the characters so that the reader really feels for them and connects with their experiences. But there’s no getting away from the fact that the themes of this novel make it a difficult and harrowing read.

If there’s one thing I did not like about this novel it is that the narrative changes from character to character, without any indication of who’s perspective we are viewing events from. You have to work it out yourself. While eventually, you get the knack of doing so, this style does take some getting used to and I struggled at the start. I understand why the author chose to do this: all three characters are damaged protagonists and so are unreliable to an extent. And once I was used to it, the technique worked. But I did find it confusing at the beginning.

That said, The Home is an engaging and important novel. It’s difficult to say that I enjoyed a novel like this, dealing with the themes and issues that it does, but I’m glad I read it, won’t forget it in a hurry, and certainly will read more from the author.

4 out of 5 stars