Hearts and Minds - Rosy Thornton

Much like Gifted by Nikita Lalwani, Hearts and Minds is a book which, if I had seen it in a bookshop, I wouldn’t have even picked up. The cover is all pinks and pastels, with florid script and, just for good measure, a dove soaring across the top with a heart in its mouth. In short, it screams “chick lit”, and that for me is a Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect Another Commitment Phobic Sub-Mr Darcy. I wouldn’t have even have thought to glance at the blurb to see what it was about.

Thank God, then, for author Rosy Thornton, who emailed me a while ago and offered to send me a copy. She gave me a run down of the storyline, which peaked my interest, and so I accepted with glee. It arrived shortly thereafter and, I confess, my heart did fall when I set eyes on the dove with the heart in its mouth, but I by then knew enough of what it was about to remove the dust jacket and start from a lovely plain red (and very nicely produced) hardback. No flowers here, oh no. Also, Rosy T has a dog called W.G. Snuffy Walden (so it says on her website) and frankly any friend of The West Wing is a friend of mine.

Hearts and Minds is proof positive that you should never judge a book by its cover. Set in the academic world of St Radegund’s College, Cambridge, a new Master comes to take the reins after the retirement of the formidable Dame Emily. Transitions of this kind are always fraught with difficulties, but to make matters more complicated than usual, James Rycarte is taking over the helm of an all-female college, and some members of staff (and of the student body) are less than happy with a man being installed in the top job. Senior Tutor Martha Pearce, though, only wants what is best for her college, and while in an ideal world she would have wanted a woman in the post, if Rycarte is the best person for the job then so be it and let’s get down to business. After all, Martha’s domestic life is falling apart around her ears thanks to a lethargic poet-husband and a daughter who is spiralling into depression, has dropped out of school, and is rejecting the academic world of her mother so strongly that she won’t even ride her bicycle in Cambridge because it is too much of a signifier for the student world.

Add into the mix a restless student body, the initiation rituals of the St Radegund’s “Tigresses” – a collective of the very coolest girls that not just anyone can join, a subsiding library, and the offer of a sizable donation from a friend of Rycarte’s that will only stand if the college admits said friend’s daughter, and you have a very entertaining, very funny, but above all very intelligent novel that is part campus-novel, and part coming of age tale. It also offers rare insight into the politics and mechanics of academic life at Oxbridge made all the more realistic when you know that Rosy Thornton herself is a real life Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. You can sense the frustration with bureaucracy, admin, and archaic University laws that seem to be designed absolutely to get in the way of the teaching and research that the academics came there to do in the first place.

It’s a great book, and I’m going to be lending it to Academic Friend straight away. After all, she is taking up a Junior Research Fellowship at Cambridge later this year, and I wouldn’t want her to rock up at her college in September ill-prepared! :o)

I recommend Hearts and Minds to all. But I still don’t know why there’s a dove with a heart in its mouth on the cover.

Comments

[Academic Friend]

oooo...can't wait! i too shall be removing the dust jacket.

[chartroose]

Hey, Dorothy over at her blog -- "Of Books and Bicycles" is reading this, and she's really enjoying it as well.

Another for my dratted TBR list. You must stop writing these great reviews immediately!

[Kirsty]

Aha! But it would be a worthy addition to the pile Chartroose!

[Myrthe]

I have read several positive reviews of this book already. Ravenous Reader at Bookstack also read it a while ago. I've added it to my wishlist.