The Zebra And Lord Jones by Anna Vaught

 

The Zebra and Lord Jones by Anna Vaught.

Published 27th September 2023 by Renard Press.

From the cover of the book:

A listless aristocrat, Lord Jones, finds himself in London during the Blitz, attending to insurance matters. A zebra and her foal, having escaped from the London Zoo during a bombing, cross his path, and he decides to take them back to his estate in Pembrokeshire. 

Little loved by his fascist-sympathiser parents, something in Lord Jones softens, and he realises he is lost, just like these zebras. The arrival of the zebras sparks a new lease of life on the Pembrokeshire estate, and it is not only Lord Jones but the families his dynasty has displaced that benefit from the transformation. 

Full of heart and mischief, The Zebra and Lord Jones is a hopeful exploration of class, wealth and privilege, grief, colonialism, the landscape, the wars that men make, the families we find for ourselves, and why one lonely man stole a zebra in September 1940 – or perhaps why she stole him.

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Autumn, 1940. Lord Robert Ashburn, hereafter referred to as Lord Jones, is in London attending to the property affairs of his aristocratic family. As the Blitz rains death all around, he finds himself confronted with the sight of a zebra and her foal on the streets of Knightsbridge, who have escaped from their damaged enclosure at London Zoo. An unfathomable moment of connection sparks between the zebra, Mother, and Lord Jones, and in an uncharacteristic act of rebellion be decides to steal her and her foal, Sweetie, and take them to his family's estate in Pembrokeshire.

The arrival of these exotic animals at Cresswell Manor in rural Wales sparks a transformation in the lives of those who live there, and Lord Jones is consumed with a sense of purpose that he has never felt before. As he distances himself from the cold family that treat him with disdain, he finds himself growing closer to Cresswell's fierce, independent housekeeper Anwen Llewelyn - while the wise and magical zebra look on...

Like all of Anna Vaught's spellbinding fictional novels and short story collections, The Zebra and Lord Jones is one that is difficult to do justice to in a short review, as the beauty of her writing really has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. In simple terms, this is a boy-meets-girl story by way of a fateful episode with two zebras amidst the streets of a London on fire, but in the telling it brings in so much more. 

Vaught takes the factual escape of a zebra in London during the Blitz, and family tales from her own past, using them as the inspiration to embroider a story which encapsulates love, loss and the golden threads of hope into the lives of a cast of characters who you come to hold dear, while touching on an ambitious array of subjects. At the centre of the story is Lord Jones, a downtrodden and sickly heir of Fascist sympathiser parents, who represent the very worst of the British aristocracy at this period in history. Lord Jones is desperately unhappy with this life, despite the privileges he enjoys, but the very fact that he is love-starved by the parents he despairs of opens him up to a host of wondrous possibilities when two very special equids cross his path. 

As the threads of Lord Jones' tale unfurl, the warp and weft of the tapestry Vaught began stitching in London fills in with other characters in need of hope in their lives. Anwen the majestic housekeeper is the most interesting of the bunch, with her refusal to bow to authority and her keen sense of what is right; but there are a host of others like Ernest the evacuee; Mr Talbot the zookeeper and his colleagues in Dresden and Lisbon: the lovely community around Cresswell; a surprise appearance by Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia; and too many animals to mention, advocated for by the wise and all-seeing zebra.

Everything combines in a delicious mix of historical fiction and magical realism redolent with themes of family, class, human frailty, and the terrible toll of war, packed with humour and heart. There is an ebb and flow to the novel that catches you up in a slow-burn fever, tying you irrevocably to the fate of the characters. I loved Vaught's little asides throughout the book, and the delightfully comic back and forth of Operation Zebra, both of which really reminded me of the work of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The way she shines a light on the treatment of animals during World War II too is particularly heart-wrenching and thought provoking in equal measure.

This is a book for those of you that enjoy giving yourselves over to a character led piece which blurs the boundaries between hard-edge story and the seductive pull of a fairy tale. It is everything I adore about Vaught's writing. If you have yet to discover her magic for yourself, then you are in for a treat, and this is a fabulous place to start.

The Zebra and Lord Jones is available to by now in paperback. You can support indie publishing by buying direct from Renard Press HERE.

Thank you to Renard Press for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author: 

Anna Vaught is an English teacher, Creative Writing teacher, mentor, editor and author of several books, including Saving Lucia, Famished, Ravished and These Envoys of Beauty. 

Her short creative works and features have been widely published, and she has written for the national press and has had a column with The Bookseller and Mslexia. In 2022 Anna launched The Curae, a new literary prize for carers. Anna is also a guest university lecturer, a tutor for Jericho Writers, and volunteers with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. 

She is the mother of three sons, comes from a large Welsh family and lives in Wiltshire. The Zebra and Lord Jones is her third novel and seventh book.