Children's Literature: 'When you reach for the stars in dreams, you can find yourself with a fistful of sparkle." This sentence, from the second chapter of Siobhán Parkinson's absorbing and sophisticated novel, identifies the images - stars and dreams - which dominate her narrative.
In their search for the former and in their frequent articulation of the latter, her young characters live through their early adolescence, their experiences presented against a background of cleverly chosen quotations from Romeo and Juliet. These quotations, starting with Lady Capulet's comparison of young Paris to a "fair volume" and a "precious book of love", contribute a further motif to the novel, in the form of a web of literary allusion, resulting in frequent speculation about the relatedness - or otherwise - of literature and life.
One of the earliest - and wittiest - manifestations of this particular concern occurs in a conversation between the twin sisters, Lydia and Julia Quinn, whose story provides the contemporary dimension of Parkinson's novel.
The topic is what might be called twin fiction, a genre in which they themselves, of course, are now participants and one which assumes special significance when Lydia presents Julia with yet a further example, a book entitled The Curiosity Tree. This novel, which Parkinson creates for us within the framework of her "own" work of fiction, returns us to an Ireland of some 2,000 years ago, when another pair of twins, Sun'va and Eva, find their lives transformed by the arrival of Roman ships and, more specifically, of a handsome young soldier called Flavius.
This ambitious and complex structure affords Parkinson the opportunity to interweave parallel - and occasionally diverging - themes and settings. In her contemporary world, the parallel Flavius figure becomes Tito, one of a number of African asylum- seekers who set up home beside the Quinns: the twins' response to him, to his strikingly good looks and to the sadness of his story involves considerable adjustment of focus and emphasis. All of this is integrated into the normal process of "growing up", of sorting out relationships with parents and peers and, of great psychological interest here, of emerging from twin status to individual identity. Parkinson's ability to depict the edgy sharpness of this teenage experience and expression is one of the novel's most entertaining features. In summary, this is a stylish, witty and accomplished novel, one which more than fulfils the promise of Lady Capulet's "golden story".
Robert Dunbar lectures in English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Rathmines, Dublin
The Love Bean. By Siobhán Parkinson. The O'Brien Press, 187pp. €6.95
Robert Dunbar