The Invisible Ones

St Just Monday Morning Reading Group 30th March 2020.

The invisible ones. Stef Penney.

Generally the reading group enjoyed this book, finding it 'gripping', a 'page turner', and 'a good read'. An interesting story with a lot of twists and turns, the characters well rounded, good pace, atmosphere and dialogue. We liked reading about the gypsy community, and we (mostly) appreciated the split narrative.

Adverse criticisms were that one or two readers thought it took a long time to get going, and some found that it flagged towards the end. Most did agree that it was quite well structured as a whole. Some were dissatisfied with the ending, and a comparison was suggested with Patrick Gale in this respect.

Regarding the plot, some people picked up clues about Ivo's gender, and others were taken by surprise about it. There seemed to be quite a lot of variation between readers about how the clues were perceived.

As far as the descriptions of the gypsy community and gypsy life were concerned, everyone did seem to find this interesting, though none of us knew very much about the subject beforehand. One reader thought, however, that the depiction of the gypsy community 'lacked some depth', and another raised the question of whether the narrative constituted cultural appropriation – was it the author's story to write, or shouldn't it, perhaps, have been told by a member of the gypsy community?

Several people commented that they liked the character of JJ, and his attempts to fit himself into the community – one person thought, though, that he 'lost credibility' as the story progressed. The character of Tene, the senior Janko, was also found interesting, as he had obviously made himself a niche in life and seemed well off, but was illiterate.

As compared with Stef Penney's other book that this group read, The tenderness of wolves, opinion was divided as to which was the 'better' book, but on balance, possibly this one was easier to connect with. One reader would like it to be the beginning of a series, with other mysteries for Ray to solve.

This book was read during March 2020 and the national lockdown because of the Covid-19 virus, and so the discussion was not 'live' as usual, but took place via a Facebook group, email and telephone conversations.