🛩Set during the build up to the Second World War. Rosie’s #Bookreview of As Little As Nothing by Pamela Mulloy.

As Little As Nothing by Pamela Mulloy

3.5 stars

As Little As Nothing is historical fiction set during the build up to the Second World War. The story alternates between four main characters: Miriam, who dreams of flying aeroplanes, and Edmund, the village shopkeeper and Miriam’s garden-loving husband. Then there is Audrey, a women who lives in a caravan and is campaigning to legalise abortion, and her nephew Frank, an engineer.

The book opens with a plane crash; Frank and Miriam rush to the scene and help rescue Peter the pilot. Once he has recovered, Peter offers to take Miriam flying. Later Frank teaches her to fly a plane herself in the Gypsy Moth he has been rebuilding, and together they plan to take part in a race.

With chapters from four characters, there was a lot going on in this book and I found myself wishing that we could spend more time with fewer storylines. The drifting back and forth slowed the book down and I never had enough time to connect to any of the characters. I was really interested in the early aviator aspect, but that side of the story was overwhelmed with the abortion angle. This is a slow-paced story with plenty of lyrical lines, but I’m afraid that it didn’t capture my attention as much as I had hoped.

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Book description

On the eve of the Second World War outside a village in England, four people rush to an airplane crash and change their lives forever

In the tumultuous year before war breaks out, a plane crashes on a country lane and four people are brought together in the aftermath. Miriam is recovering from another miscarriage and learns to fly as an escape from the disappointments in her life. Audrey is a middle-aged, upper-class activist who has shunned her society, travels the UK lecturing on reproductive rights, lives in a Gypsy caravan, and whose daily ritual includes a swim in a nearby river.

It is Audrey’s nephew, Frank, who teaches Miriam to fly. A club foot and his suppressed homosexuality have made him reluctant to engage with anyone other than his aunt. But as he succumbs to his attraction to the crashed pilot and convinces Miriam to co-pilot an air race from London to Manchester, and as Audrey confronts her past, ghosts must be laid to rest.

With the war looming, As Little as Nothing beautifully explores resilience, the strength of new bonds, and the various ways we reinvent ourselves.