Fiction is full of characters falling in and out of love. Less common, at least outside the realm of slushy romantic comedies, are novels in which lovers go their separate ways, voluntarily or otherwise, and later reunite to revive what they lost.
H.S. Cross’ new novel, “Amanda,” is about two individuals, Marion and Jamie, who seem destined to experience love a second time around, providing they can overcome their differences, share their secrets and banish their personal demons. The book charts a torrid affair and a period of separation, from both characters’ perspectives. Then Jamie embarks on a mission to find Marion again — but does she even want to be found?
In Cross’ first section, the focus is on Marion. It is the summer of 1926 and she has come to London to lie low and move on. But her past is not easy to forget.
Born in Galway, she eloped with a man, then left him when he turned abusive. She fled Ireland — “the whole magic-pocked landmass” — and ended up in Oxford, where she changed her identity, discovered a sense of purpose and started a relationship with student Jamie. Then, abruptly and inexplicably, she disappeared, breaking Jamie’s heart in the process.
The novel’s second section revolves around Jamie. He has his work cut out for him as headmaster at St. Stephen’s Academy, a failing school in “a haunted pocket of Yorkshire.” But he has more pressing problems. He is plagued by nightmares about the horrors he endured in the war; he is increasingly aware of an unbridgeable gulf between himself and his father; and he is at a loss without Marion — that is, until he learns from her friend that she is working as a governess in London.
The book gathers pace and builds in intensity in its third and final part. Alternating her characters’ viewpoints, Cross dangles the prospect of a reunion between Marion and Jamie while simultaneously creating obstacles in their paths.
Cross also creates obstacles for her reader. “Amanda” may seem like a conventional story of longing and loss. In fact, it is a more complex work. The narrative skips backward and forward in time. Characters adopt alter egos for themselves or invent nicknames for others. Marion, a “runagate” who has distanced herself from “Irish whisper circuits,” cannot escape the condemnatory voices of “the Talkers” in her head, and her inner turmoil occasionally manifests itself in clotted thought processes and disorientating exchanges.
In the end, Cross’ creative risks pay off. Her novel is both stimulating and affecting. There are welcome nods to the Michigan-born author’s previous novels, along with numerous literary references, including Jane Austen’s classic tale of rekindled passion, “Persuasion.”