The Girls From Alexandria by Carol Cooper

 

The Girls From Alexandria by Carol Cooper.

Published 1st April 2021 by Agora Books.

From the cover of the book:

‘Memories are fragile when you are seventy years old. I can’t afford to lose any more of them, not when 
remembering the past might help with the here and now.’

Nadia needs help. Help getting out of her hospital bed. Help taking her pills. One thing she doesn’t need help with is remembering her sister. But she does need help finding her.

Alone and abandoned in a London hospital, 70-year-old Nadia is facing the rest of her life spent in a care home unless she can contact her sister Simone... who’s been missing for 50 years.

Despite being told she’s ‘confused’ and not quite understanding how wi-fi works, Nadia is determined to find Simone. So with only cryptic postcards and her own jumbled memories to go on, Nadia must race against her own fading faculties and find her sister before she herself is forgotten.

Set against the lush and glamorous backdrop of 20th century Alexandria, Carol Cooper’s The Girls from Alexandria is equal parts contemporary mystery and historical fiction: a re-coming of age story about family, identity, and homeland.

*******************************************

What a fascinating mix of coming of age story, historical fiction and family mystery The Girls From Alexandria turned out to be!

Our story begins with seventy-year-old Nadia in hospital with a mysterious illness. Widowed and childless, she seems destined to spend her twilight years in a care home unless she can contact her sister Simone... a sister who has been missing since 1967... a sister that no one really believes exists.

Nadia may be frail and confused, but she is determined to track down Simone, and following the clues left behind on the postcards Simone has sent to her over the years (each one bearing a cryptic message) and raking up reminiscences from her own failing memory her quest begins in earnest.

The story follows a pattern that swaps between Nadia's search for her sister during her stay in hospital, and flashbacks from her past starting with her childhood in Alexandria in 1952, until we have the pieces we need to find the answers to more than one mystery.

In many ways this is a story of two halves, revolving as it does between the more sedate pace of what is happening in the present, and the vivid retelling of pertinent and emotive episodes from Nadia's past. This does bring an unusual mix of slow and fast as the story progresses, which some might find difficult, but I rather enjoyed the way the present bleeds into the past and back again in a dreamlike way as Nadia drags up the memories that spring from her refection on Simone's enigmatic messages.

Carol Cooper covers quite a lot of ground in this novel. The glimpses into Nadia's past are particularly revealing, especially those of her childhood in Egypt and her married life. I really enjoyed the description of the cultural melting pot 1950's Alexandria, and the way Cooper takes us through recent Egyptian history was a fascinating look at how political upheaval and regime change can affect ones notion of 'home'. In addition, Cooper does a fabulous job of showing what it is like to grow up in a culture where women dance to the tune of the men of the household, however abhorrent or controlling the behaviour of these males may be. There is also a nice vein of dark humour and irony that peeks its head above the parapet from time to time to lighten the mood - particularly in evidence in Nadia's observations about her time in hospital, and around some of her childhood memories.

The Girl's From Alexandria is an intriguing book, cleverly wrapping a lot of themes up in its story of two sisters divided by a shocking event - childhood, marriage, the bonds of family, home, identity and unresolved trauma all come under the microscope of Carol Cooper, and there is a nice thread around medical issues too, where her own background as a doctor shines through. It's worth noting that there are some difficult scenes in this book in relation to miscarriage and sexual abuse, and I did find some of Nadia's husband's comments about his patients troubling, but these subjects are integral to the story and all serve to make up the captivating whole.

But my absolute favourite thing about this novel is the way Cooper uses it as a very unusual coming of age tale. Throughout the story Nadia sees herself as the 'younger sister', even though Simone has not been in her life for 50 years - always as Naive Nadia in the shadow of Sophisticated Simone. It is not until the mystery of Simone's disappearance, and the truth behind her own sad tale are both solved that Nadia finally finds the courage to step out of that shadow and truly be herself - at the ripe old age of 70! Bravo!

The Girls from Alexandria is available to buy now in e-book, and from 29th April 2021 in paperback, from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Peyton Stableford for providing me with a copy of this book in return for an honest review and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Carol Cooper is a doctor, journalist, and author. Born in London, she was only a few months old when her cosmopolitan family took her to live in Egypt. She returned to the UK at eighteen and went to Cambridge University where she studied medicine and her fellow students. On her path to a career in general practice, she worked at supermarket checkouts, typed manuscripts in Russian, and spent years as a hospital doctor.

Following a string of popular health books as well as an award- winning medical textbook, Carol turned to writing fiction. Her first two novels were contemporary tales set in London. Ever a believer in writing what you know, she mined the rich material of her childhood for The Girls from Alexandria.

Carol lives with her husband in Cambridge and Hampstead. She has three grownup sons and three
stepchildren.