‘First Love’ by Gwendoline Riley   (2017) –  167 pages

Not many writers can write so genuinely about failure in intimate relationships across generations as Gwendoline Riley does in her novels. ‘First Love’ is an account of the sometimes affectionate, often toxic, marriage of Neve and Edwyn.

Along the way we get Neve’s background with her parents in Gwendoline Riley’s usual disjointed abrupt style. Don’t expect any time or place continuity or unnecessary filler in her novels. We are told things briefly on a need to know basis.

Neve’s mother divorced her father when Neve was six. The father was a restless bully who after their mother divorced him took out his aggressions verbally on his kids during their scheduled Saturday visits as well as on anyone else who got in his way.

Some of the same pattern later occurred in Neve’s marriage when Edwyn makes nasty comments regarding her life. Edwyn may be jealous of Neve’s success as a writer.

Meanwhile Neve’s mother, after her children left home, has gone about her divorced life by joining clubs and maintaining a frenetic social life, She did have another lover, Rodger, but he’s gone now.

“You know I’ve been making this list, well, you don’t know, but I have, of things he does that I don’t like, or, you know, not very nice things, and it ran to three pages in the end so I did show him that.”

When her mother comes to visit the grown up Neve, her mother reads about another old entertainer being charged with sexual assault and says,

“An archive picture showed the accused in a red jumper, grinning and doing an OK sign. Next to it was a shot of him on the court steps sour faced. My mother didn’t see the point in any of this. Back in the Seventies every girl was gripped, groped, and raped, said she lifting her chin, her accent getting coarser (you heard it on the rs).”

By the end of her mother’s visit, Neve is plainly relieved to see her go.

Gwendoline Riley certainly doesn’t sugarcoat Edwyn’s nasty interactions with Neve, and we readers wonder if Neve should get out now. The title ‘First Love’ can be considered ironic.

Now I have read two novels by Gwendoline Riley, ‘My Phantoms’ and ‘First Love’. Although I somewhat prefer ‘My Phantoms’, ‘First Love’ is also a strong exceptional read.

Grade:    A