Hearts and Minds

In Hearts and Minds, Rosy Thornton takes us into the heart of academia, with a warm, witty and wise tale from a fictitious Cambridge college.

James Rycarte, a former BBC correspondent-turned-top-executive, is the newly appointed Head of the all-female St Radegund's College - a position formerly held exclusively by women, most recently his sainted predecessor, Dame Emily, in whose flounced floral chambers James now finds himself ensconced. It's all rather bewildering for a man whose previous connection with academic life ended when he graduated more than three decades ago. From the start, it's clear that he's not going to have an easy ride in his new job. His appointment is still strenuously opposed by some determined members of the college hierarchy, chief among them the imposing Dr Ros Clarke, 'a woman who knew her own mind . . . She would have him out by the end of Full Easter Term'.

Considerably more sympathetic to James's position and determined to help him make a go of it is the Senior Tutor of St Radegund's, Martha Pearce. Fortysomething, dedicated and serious, Martha is constantly beset by guilt - 'professional, familial and horticultural' - a juggler between family and career, but no overstated fictional archetype. Her dilemmas are handled by Thornton with huge sensitivity, and while it is easy to empathise with Martha, the very qualities which make her such a lovely character can at times make the reader yearn to take her to one side and give her a teeny bit of a shake.

As well as having a new Master to settle in, student unrest and rent strikes to deal with, plus her own career to worry about (her tenure as Senior Tutor runs out at the end of the year), Martha has problems at home. Her poet husband is on a long and apparently aimless 'sabbatical' and seems mainly interested in drinking wine and taking himself off to Italy at inconvenient junctures. Then there's her mother, who is showing the first scary signs of dementia. Meanwhile Martha's 17-year-old daughter, Lucia, has removed herself from school and, protesting that she wants to 'write', seems instead to be sliding into inertia and depression. The minefield of mother and daughter interaction is delicately trodden, as is Martha's bewilderment at the crisis which has crept up on her marriage by stealth.

These intimacies are offset by the larger world of college life, involving a large cast of well-drawn, wholly believable characters, and this is what helps to make Hearts and Minds such a 'comfortable' read. There's something very nineteenth-century about it. I wouldn't say it's 'cosy', exactly, but it's definitely a novel one can sit back and sort of expand into in a wholly satisfying way.

Not that the book doesn't have its thought-provoking and heart-wrenching moments. It tackles some very pertinent contemporary issues in education as well as the tangle of moral dilemmas raised by the offer of a much-needed donation of funds to the college, which doesn't come entirely free of strings. The library is crumbling and there's pressure to offer financial assistance to impoverished potential students, but there are those (like Ros Clarke) who will not countenance the injection of such potentially tainted cash under any circumstances. Points of principle swarm and clash.

Thornton shows a finely nuanced appreciation of the private inner tussles between altruism, self-interest and political principle in all of the players, and how these manifest themselves when it comes to arguing individual corners and casting votes. If we didn't already know, I think we could guess from these scenes from the inner workings of the college that this book is written by an 'insider'.

While James and Martha very much take centre stage, there are lots of little wry and amusing sub-plots being played out at the same time - the girls' drinking club with strange initiation rituals; the uptight secretary and the saga of the kettle; Dame Emily's tastes in interior design; the love life of Darren the Dean; the archaic rituals of formal college dining; and, of course (this being Cambridge) various incidents involving bicycles.

But the great joy of this book for me was getting to know James Rycarte and Martha Pearce. They are the most absolutely believable characters. They're so real you feel you could just hug them. In fact, I keep thinking that I have hugged them! I was very sorry to part company with them at the end - there's a real sense that they are still out there, living and breathing and moving on with their lives, despite the fact that it's several weeks since I turned the final page.

You'll have got the general idea, by now that I enjoyed this book enormously and would warmly recommend it as a good traditional kind of read that will stay in the mind and leave you wanting more. You can find out more about the author (who is - surprise! - a Cambridge academic) and read more reviews of Hearts & Minds on her website.

My copy of Hearts & Minds arrived courtesy of BookRabbit.

And that would be that, were it not for one major quibble I have with this book. [Rant alert, rant alert.] And it is a quibble, I hasten to add, which has absolutely nothing to do with the author or with the novel itself. Those of a nervous disposition please leave the room now.

I think we all know now (if we didn't know before the age-banding crisis) that book covers (especially of fiction) are very much the preserve of publishers these days. Authors can count themselves lucky to be allowed any say in the matter at all. Covers are part of Marketing, and Marketing, as we all know, is everything.

What does the cover of this book say to you? If 'chick-lit' didn't spring immediately into your mind I'd be very surprised indeed.

Such unsubtle 'genre branding' might (I suppose) increase supermarket sales but to attempt to 'guide' regular book buyers who browse in 'real' bookshops (or indeed online) in this way is, in my view, a mistake and can only limit sales, not increase them. Readers of good, thoughtful fiction appreciate good, thoughtful covers on their books.

To me, this cover, with its pastel shades and whimsical hearts and flowers and dove shrieks 'light, fluffy, inconsequential holiday reading for women only'.

I do so resent the current assumption by publishers that every book has to be squished into a 'genre' for a bit of easy niche-marketing. It's dumbing down in every sense. But the worst of it is, that in this case the publishers have quite literally got it wrong. They have simply picked the wrong 'genre'! I seriously doubt that the twentysomething woman looking for light and sexy beach-read would get very far with this. What can they have been thinking of?

To be perfectly honest, I would never have picked up this book if I'd seen it in a bookshop. And if that exposes me as some kind of literary snob, then so be it. This cover completely belies the nature of the novel and in my view does a huge disservice both to the author and to potential buyers - especially to potential male buyers, whom I simply can't imagine would entertain the idea that a book with a cover like this could possibly be of any interest to them. By deciding to 'go girly' the publishers have alienated this book's entire potential male audience and reinforced that tired old assumption that books by women can only be for women. What nonsense! This is an intelligent book about people, for people.

So, chaps, please buy it online (or get a willing woman to buy it for you in a shop), carefully affix the manly cover of your choice (or plain brown paper) over the top of the silly one it comes with, then read and enjoy.