NEW RELEASES
brother after his recent pasting in the media for asking for a government bailout for Virgin Atlantic.
One journalist called him “a wizened tycoon worth £4bn begging for £500m of taxpayers’ cash”.
She says: “It was mean and misplaced. The wizened tycoon has been incredibly loyal to his family and friends and more. But he was such an easy target. He’s put himself in front of the press a lot and when people are down, it’s easy to kick them. He acknowledges his communication wasn’t right.
“But he wasn’t asking for a personal loan. It was just to keep (Virgin) going, because it employs a lot of people and is expensive to mothball. His companies have all paid tax in the countries they do business from. He’s got extraordinary spirit and he’ll push on.”
As will she, clearly. Her children, their partners and her two-year-old grandson have all just gone back to London having been “in splendid isolation” with her. She believes the young are being made to suffer at the expense of the elderly and favours the Swedish model.
“We can’t just all wait around for a vaccine, we’ve got to get going again. A lot of people who’ve been dying would have died by the end of the year, so the ‘number of deaths’ is not the relevant figure. What’s more important is that more people should have it. Young people are being severely damaged and sacrificed for our generation. They should all be out working, not locked up.”
For all the glitz, I say, she seems to have suffered a lot, but the stoical Branson will have none of it.
“I’ve had a fabulous life and I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me,” she laughs. “A n d there’s still lots more ahead!”
One Hundred Summers: A Family Story by Vanessa Branson, Mensch, £22.70, is published on May 21
By Sophie Mackintosh, Penguin, £7.99
Review by Jemma Crew
In Sophie Mackintosh’s second novel, a paper slip allocated in a compulsory lottery determines the fate of hundreds of girls every day.
White means you will become a mother, a blue ticket deals you the illusion of freedom.
Dare to muddy the waters between these trajectories and you will be banished, like Calla, granted a 12-hour headstart before the eerie emissaries begin their hunt.
Illicitly pregnant, having gouged out her enforced birth control, she lurches north with the vague hope of crossing the border to safety, forging alliances with other women along the way.
Told with ragged prose that catches the breath, Calla’s journey articulates the irrepressible desires and wounds that can lie deep within and is marked by a claustrophobia that never stops pressing in from the margins.
This unsettling reimagining of the anxieties and pressures around motherhood lays bare the alienation that comes when your body is not truly yours.
By Hazel Barkworth, Headline Review, £16.99
A teenage girl goes missing in Hazel Barkworth’s fascinating if sometimes flawed first novel.
It is not missing 15-yearold Lily who is the centre of the story, though, which is largely a journey into the frustrated and obsessive mind of teacher Rachel, whose daughter, Mia, is one of Lily’s friends.
Rachel’s relationship with her daughter is becoming increasingly strained during a heatwave, as Mia develops into a young woman with a mind of her own.
Mia’s father, Tim, is working away from home and Rachel misses her husband, envies her daughter and longs for something she lost which was never really a good fit anyway.
Barkworth’s characters aren’t always developed enough for the reader to care about them fully, although they’re never two-dimensional, and the location is unusually, but perhaps deliberately, vague.
It’s an interesting character study, though.
And it seems like a novel that would be worth another read.