Sudden Rain: A Novel Book

I love the late 60s and 70s for movies so thought that this book would capture my imagination, being written in that same time period. And almost as soon as I began reading, I could see this novel as a movie, with Glen Ford playing the Tom Fallon role, possibly Anne Bancroft playing his bitter wife Nedith... there'd be a spot in there for Jon Voight and possibly Jane Fonda. As an ensemble piece, there could be a role for Barbra Streisand, Shirley MacLaine, Burt Reynolds, Christopher Walken. Oh they're all there in my head, the cast of this novel being played by those fabulous 1970s actors, and in those fabulous 1970s houses, restaurants and cars.

This novel positively reeked of its time period. What with people smoking on aeroplanes (and everywhere else), standing in sweltering phone boxes to talk to one another, and a the dialogue being full of "fierce" and "fantastic" to describe everything from bushfires to getting high.

The story revolves around several people and couples, all on some kind of brink of despair, grief, or cataclysmic change in their lives. Those storylines are pretty interesting, even if the choices the characters make beggar belief at times. They're all a product of their time, all very existential and enlightened with a bit of Kramer vs Kramer and Ordinary People thrown in.

The storylines are all left open at the end of the novel (I actually wrote 'movie' there - that's how much this novel has turned into a film in my mind!) - nothing is resolved and we, the reader, are left to imagine how the various plot lines finish up. Does the divorce go through? Do they get back together? Do they ever discover who killed her?

Yes you read that right. In amongst the open and unfinished storylines, there's some wild cards in there, such as a murder in the canyons. Why this person is murdered remains a mystery, the entire sequence is well-told but bizarre.

And in amongst these wild encounters, including fabulous sex in grimey highway motels, there's the humdrum of everyday life that we encounter - coffee being made in the mornings, newspapers being picked up, children being dropped off, lunches being served, beds made.

This is a novel I found slightly difficult to rate because I really liked it on some levels, but on others I found it inane and silly. So it see-sawed between a 2 or even a 1, then a 4 and possibly even a 5 at moments. Which is why I came to settle on a 3. Highly enjoyable in places, stands up to some scrutiny of character and plot but not all, well placed in its historical context, but with some gaping holes.