This
delicately told debut novel follows the story of two seemingly
unrelated Londoners: Daniel, a homeless man who subsists in soup
kitchens and fashions bits of brightly colored trash into flowers;
and Alice, a young compulsive traveler recovering from the death of
her father. What links the pair isn't clear, save for similar lists
that they create at the beginning of each chapter, which touch on
their separate struggles with loneliness. For example, consider
Alice's "Ten things about my father's house," which
includes (1) "The front door sticks," (9) "If you
stare at the wallpaper in utility room for long enough, the pattern
starts to look like hundreds of tiny people standing on hundreds of
tiny islands," and (10) "It's not somewhere I've ever
really felt at home." Compare those to some of the items on
Daniel's "Ten Jobs I've held down for more than a month,"
which includes (3) "Labourer, southeast London," and (9)
Office cleaner, White City, London. I remember all those photographs
of children and wives and husbands Blu-Tacked to the edges of the
computer screens." Alice's story is particularly riveting as she
reels from the loss of her last living parent (her mother is already
dead), the loss of her only real love (an Indian man, who is
forbidden to marry her) and her difficult relationship with her two
older sisters. Hers, in fact, could be a novel on its
own—except that it's the mystery of how Daniel fits into
her life that makes
Ten
Things I've Learnt About Love so
compelling and, ultimately (in a way we will not ruin by revealing),
so moving.
