I did enjoy Maggie O Farrell’s This Must Be The Place, but I’m not sure I agree with the reviewers who have said it is her best book yet. I will probably always compare everything she writes to her masterpiece (in my view) After You’d Gone.
In this, her latest, the story trips and slides in and out of time frames, first and third person, with many narrators and tenses which shows a deftness of writing and takes a huge skill to pull off. But unlike in The Glorious Heresies by Lisa Mc Inerney where I didn't mind this writing tactic at all, I did feel a little lost here at times and detached emotionally.
That said, this book is well worth reading if only for the exploration of the relationship issues, and the characters; I especially liked Claudette, an actress who walks out on fame and success and into a marriage that affords her a certain kind of freedom, simplicity and a more natural life.
