The Dark and Cloudy Skies by Jenny Maxwell: Review

I first read this a number of years ago, and it made quite an impression on me, to the point where I spent some years trying unsuccessfully to remember the title and author. (The closest I got for a while was "It was a dark and stormy night", which was obviously incorrect.) Anyway I finally figured it out, found it was on Kindle (hurrah!) and settled down for a re-read. Turned out I didn't remember much about it at all, but I enjoyed it just as much second time round.

It was published in 2001, apparently, but feels a bit earlier, perhaps only because the main character and her sister are called Joan and Sheila - not names I would usually associate with young women in 2001. Even in the 80s and 90s when I grew up, I didn't know anyone of my own age called Joan and Sheila, although no doubt some existed.

Joan Ferguson, known to her supermarket workmates as “Dozey Joan”, isn’t too good at reading and writing, or at standing up for herself. She’s good at thinking, though, and trying to make sense of the often confusing world around her.

When Joan is kidnapped at knifepoint by a mentally ill young man, who has incorporated her into his delusion of the “Dark Universe”, the experience is hugely and lastingly traumatic, but the world created by Nicholas Parry is also strangely compelling. In his disordered mind, Joan is not Dozey Joan, but the Empress of the Dark Universe, a figure to be worshipped. (Unfortunately, he wanted to kill her to get her back there.)

Joan’s ordeal is awful, but it’s a small part of the book. The really important part is what happens in her life afterwards.

We see everything through Joan’s eyes and it’s enthralling. Her voice is distinctive, engaging and believable. Joan doesn’t understand some things - sometimes that makes her angry - but other things she understands very well indeed. Joan’s always been told, and believed, that she’s stupid. As a result, people have written her off. But it becomes apparent that there’s much more to Joan than meets the eye.

An excellent read with an unusual and likeable protagonist. A book which deserves a wider readership than it has probably had.