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Grady Harp is an Amazon Top 10 Reviewer
The Tree with no Branches, the title of Ella Race’s fine little novel, refers to the Family Tree, the concept of the known origins of a family being the trunk and the various children born to the initial couple forming the first branches which then spread out as each family child continues the growth of the tree. But what, Race asks, of the childless members of the family?
Does their fruitless branch mean the end of their influence/existence when they die? The manner in which Race poses this age-old conundrum forms the basis of her deftly woven tale of life in England in the 1960s.
Leila, a child of a poor couple, serves as the main character. She is from a family with traditions and history despite the fact they are without means. Leila is sent to Northern England stay with her mother’s more monetarily fortunate sister - Aunt Dotty and her solicitor husband Fred.
In their more gracious home Leila becomes used to the better things in life, yet there is one aspect of the home that is missing: Dotty and Fred are childless, a situation that grows into a schism in their relationship, each blaming the other for the barren marriage. Leila’s visits over time witness Dotty’s obsession with having children, Fred’s desperate need for a family, the dissolution of the household, the eventual divorce, and the consequences that befall both Dotty and Fred.
Dotty becomes an alcoholic bitter woman who feels that no one will tend her grave once she passes. Leila grows up watching the differences between her parents ‘branches’ and the ‘branchless’ dead-end lives of her Aunt and Uncle and in her observations finds a life of her own that reflects and appreciates the spectrum of life’s trials, be they monetary or emotional.
Ella Race may be a new novelist but her style is well developed: she is facile with writing observations of nature and with creating credible characters. Time passes in this novel and some of the sequences are memory and some are actively happening: there are times when Race fails to makes this clear and the story tends to meander into paths that are not additive. But her gift with words is so exceptional that these minor flaws are barely noticeable. There is significant evidence in this first novel that Ella Race is an author from whom we will be receiving more works!
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