Book Review: THE END OF LONELINESS by Benedict Wells

Title: The End of Loneliness

Author: Benedict Wells
Publisher: Penguin Books
Read: January 2019

Expected publication: out now

My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟

Book Description:

Jules Moreau’s childhood is shattered after the sudden death of his parents. Enrolled in boarding school where he and his siblings, Marty and Liz, are forced to live apart, the once vivacious and fearless Jules retreats inward, preferring to live within his memories--until he meets Alva, a kindred soul caught in her own grief. Fifteen years pass and the siblings remain strangers to one another, bound by tragedy and struggling to recover the family they once were. Jules, still adrift, is anchored only by his desires to be a writer and to reunite with Alva, who turned her back on their friendship on the precipice of it becoming more, but just as it seems they can make amends for time wasted, invisible forces--whether fate or chance--intervene.

A kaleidoscopic family saga told through the fractured lives of the three Moreau siblings alongside a faltering, recovering love story, The End of Loneliness is a stunning meditation on the power of our memories, of what can be lost and what can never be let go. With inimitable compassion and luminous, affecting prose, Benedict Wells contends with what it means to find a way through life, while never giving up hope you will find someone to go with you.

My musings:

Every now and then I like to step away from reading crime novels, and The End of Loneliness sounded just like the introspective, reflective novel I was craving at the time.

We meet a young Jules as his innocent childhood is shattered by the tragic death of his parents in a car accident, resulting in Jules and his three siblings getting sent off to boarding school. Each of the siblings deals with the tragedy in their own way. Liz, the eldest, adopts an air of confidence and a self-destructive streak that has an almost manic quality to it at times. Marty, the middle child, retreats into a world of logic that grounds him, early on meeting and marrying his soulmate. Jules, the youngest, is a dreamer who is saved from loneliness by his friendship with Alva, another child with a tragic family background. As the years go by, we get to follow the three siblings and their journey as seen through Jules’ eyes – there is tragedy and triumph, great love and great loss, and the ever present bond between them that ties them together as a family.

I also lost a parent as a child and spent a brief stint in a boarding school (the memories still make me shudder), so this book pressed quite a few emotional buttons for me. One line really stood out for me, which was when Liz remarks that the three are “the loneliest siblings in the world”. Wells describes the isolation that grief and despair brings so well, and I remember feeling exactly like this after the death of my mother. Whilst it was painful to relive those memories, it was also strangely cathartic, and it’s a rare book that can worm its way so deeply under my skin.

The End of Loneliness is a slow, character driven novel that follows one man’s journey from childhood tragedy to adulthood. Being used to fast-paced crime novels I found that the story lacked a bit of action for me at times, and I read it in a few instalments to be able to sit with it and absorb its atmosphere rather than rushing to the finish line as I would with my crime novels. There were some bleak moments, and some that really touched my heart. Wells does a great job in bringing out the emotional baggage of his characters and exploring the effects of their childhood trauma on their lives.

I was especially taken by the character of Liz, who really touched me. Despite her seemingly ebullient and outgoing nature, there is a self-destructive streak to her that was as fascinating as it was well observed, and my heart really broke for her. I would have loved to be able to read some chapters from the POVs of the other two siblings, Marty and Liz, to get a deeper feeling for their choices rather than seeing them solely through Jules’ eyes, but perhaps that would have taken some of the introspective character away that made this novel so powerful.

Summary:

All in all, the End of Loneliness is a melancholy, haunting tale about the effects of childhood trauma and loss on our lives and future choices. It is also a story of love, hope and redemption, and one that will tug on your heartstrings. Wells’ insightful observations drove this story for me and touched me deeply in ways that made me think about the characters long after I had turned the last page. 

Thank you to Edelweiss and Penguin Books for the free electronic copy of this novel and for giving me the opportunity to provide an honest review.