The heroine of No Such Thing as Monday by Siân Hughes expertly removes laundry stains at the dry cleaners where she works, but it is the memories of her blemished past she can't erase. A poignant, darkly satirical story inspired by a medieval poem called "Cleanness," Hughes's second novel is set in the heart of contemporary, working-class England and is centered on her narrator's search for the sister who ran away from home in her teens.
Steffie Cartwright grew up near Birmingham, her childhood dominated by a violent bully of a father, Stan, who ran dogfights at the local pub. Her mother and older sister, Caroline, bore the brunt of Stan's cruelty while Steffie, his favorite, swallowed her confusion and learned not to peer too closely at the menacing "undercurrent" of family dysfunction, "like a river of dirty water running through our house, tainting everything." If her father declared Monday didn't exist, then "you learn[ed] not to mention Monday." In this same way, her sister was the battered child whose suffering Steffie ignored for her own survival.
Steffie is a chain-smoking, prickly, middle-aged woman when the novel opens. Stan has just died and this sets off in his daughter a much-delayed reckoning with shame and guilt over not helping Caroline when they were children. Even as she describes Stan's coarse cult of personality, Steffie is a master of deadpan humor, her narration spiked with liberal swearing. She borrows a dry cleaning customer's outfit for the funeral, only for it to be recognized as belonging to the registrar presiding over her father's service. Mishaps like these are inevitable--Steffie just can't help herself--and make for entertaining drama.
Hughes (Pearl) is a poet and Booker Prize-nominated novelist from Cheshire, England. She offers a tender portrayal of Steffie's complexities, both the aching vulnerability of a child who doesn't know "which way was up" and her tough exterior as an adult. It's only by finding Caroline and seeking forgiveness from her that Steffie can dismantle her father's horrible legacy. To this end, Steffie steals a posh coat and sets off north in search of a sister who may not want to be found.
As it examines the long-term effects of growing up in a divided household where love and hate so easily coexist, No Such Thing as Monday celebrates its heroine's complicated road to redemption even as she accepts that some memories, like old stains, don't ever disappear. --Shahina Piyarali
Shelf Talker: Set in contemporary working-class England, this poignant, darkly satirical drama centers on a woman's search for the sister who ran away from home in her teens.