The Bookseller to the Stars Review: "Midnight Cactus" by Bella Pollen (Release Date: May 19th)

I was discussing with Another Non London-Born Bookseller to the Stars the other day about the Samuel Johnson quote:

"Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

We had both recently feeling exhausted and constricted with life in the city with one of us to the point of sheer frustration and sorrow. We were discussing whether perhaps Johnson had meant tired of life (in general, almost suicidal terms) or whether he was referring to human life.

I go back to this conversation and this time as I read through local author, Bella Pollen's new book and I think that this is something she too understands or has certainly wondered the same, as I believe all londoner's do dream of an escape when they tut and balk at the amount of personal space that they have on public transport, even in their precious queues at Starbucks.

Alice Coleman desired such an escape. From life or her life, labels, bullshit and guffawing at dinner parties, not to mention the claustrophobia of this beloved city I have also chosen to call my home.

I frustrate and anger myself when people come to blows on the Northern Line platforms over the last inch of space that is available in the already overcrowded tube carriage.

I ponder the absurdity of this as I sit in my nice comfy seat on the train reading "Midnight Cactus", albeit with an elbow in my ribs and a broadsheet page flapping at the side of my head. The two men, bloodied, raise up to their feet on the platform and curse as the doors close on them and the people by the door get to breathe out that little bit more.

Alice decides to leave her marriage to Richard behind with the angered men with their bruised egos and the countless bins in the street overflowing with takeaway coffeecups and takes her children, Jack and Emily, both under 10s to an abandoned Arizona mining town on the Mexican border, where her and her husband own a property.

She describes this decison as "a whim" and a "desire for escape she could no longer ignore" which initially does not sit right with me and gnaws away at me in the form of my nagging mother's voice throughout the reading of the book.

How dare she take her kids away from her father etc etc...

Not a reason she would accept to move a young family so far away from their home in any case, she would say.

In fact, I am expect some salacious detail about his infidelity to justify the actions of Alice but it does not come. You have to sympathise with their situation towards the end of the book though.

So they arrive in Arizona and Alice soons finds herself sympathising with the local caretaker, Duval who has embroidled himself in aiding the nearby desperate Mexicans to solace and a better life due to his own personal quest. A local landowner grows suspicious and along with the Border Patrol makes life increasingly harder for Duval and Alice's family the property it resides on.

It's a wonderful story laced with a humanitarian message and a mother's sympathy throughout. "Midnight Cactus" is more character driven than the interloping stories of last effort "Hunting Unicorns", but the change in style and the addition of a number of flashbacks do not dimish that in Bella's book what we all adore.

The humanity is no more evident than in her relationship with children, who are adorable.

Dialogue this cute and well scripted can only be taken from real life experience or watching a marathon of "Kids Say The Funniest Things"

"It's a ghost town, there are no shops in ghost towns..."

"Why?"

"Ghosts don't have any money..."

"Why not?"

"Because they don't have chores."

She picks up on the rural American quirks and near bigotry and describes a place in this more tolerant century where locals still refer to Arabs as "those 9-11 type people" and display a sense of double standards when people feel like they should help but as Alice points out a number of times, they don't.

It's not just the americans that get the satrical treatment though.

She cleverly picks up on the odd cultural differences and Britishness of our race, even to a point where when things get really dangerous and the family have to leave, they argue in that typical quintessential way about who sits where in the car.

These observations are what make this such a heart warming read and will make you chuckle throughout.

Even on packed tubes when everyone else is unhappy and desiring an escape, I didn't want the book to end and desiring an escape of my own.


Bella Pollen and Candida Crewe will be at The Bookseller to the Stars on June 27th