It’s confession time. I’ve never seen Brief Encounter.
It was on telly over Christmas, as it happens, and I ignored it in favour of a book -- something that turned out to be a mistake on two counts. The first was that the book I chose wasn’t great (I didn’t bother reviewing it so don’t ask me what it was) and the second was that if I’d watched it, Deborah Swift’s Past Encounters, one of whose plot lines is the making of the film, might have meant a bit more to me.
But it doesn’t matter. Even for a Brief Encounters virgin, Past Encounters was a fabulous, uplifting read. It tells the stories of Peter and Rhonda, trapped in a childless and unhappy ten-year marriage, and how Rhonda uncovers the horrors of Peter’s wartime story while coming to terms with her own lost love. You don’t need to know the original Encounter. Swift’s book stands up just fine on its own.
From beginning to end, I loved it. When Peter is taken prisoner early in the war Rhonda, not knowing if he’s alive or dead, finds herself trapped in an over-hasty engagement from which she fears she may never be released. Working extra shifts as a caterer on the set of Brief Encounter (filmed in Carnforth) she falls in love with Matthew, one of the production managers. It’s no spoiler to say that this romance ends unhappily with Matthew’s untimely death, because the real story is how her marriage to Peter unravels and how the discovery of his many secrets changes both their lives.
The period detail is terrific, the characterisation realistic, and the story itself by turns harrowing and poignant. Swift doesn’t shrink from showing the darker sides of human nature, but the book is, ultimately, uplifting. A wonderful read.
Thanks to Netgalley and Sapere Books for a copy of this book, in return for an honest review.
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