Mary George of Allnorthover Lavinia Greenlaw Flamingo, 320pp, £6.99 ISBN 0007105959
Not satisfied with considerable success as an award-winning poet, Lavinia Greenlaw's first novel focuses on the eponymous Mary George, a teenager trapped in a sleepy southern village where smoking dope and listening to punk rock are the only forms of release. When Tom Hepple sees her walk on water, she becomes part of village folklore, and is forced to endure the pains of sex, family, friendship, bad haircuts and even worse music amid rumours of her departed father's role in the intrigue surrounding the newly built reservoir.
The appeal of the novel lies in Greenlaw's attention to detail. She constructs a believable, if occasionally repetitive, setting - a place where "everything belonged, and had belonged for centuries", bringing both a charming and a sinister side to mundane Middle England. Her characters are numerous yet thoughtfully created, but in "a small place where it was possible for paths to cross without trace", too many of the events can seem inconsequential, preventing the book from looking beneath the surface for too long. A finely written, keenly observed book that, sadly, never dares to offend.
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