In her debut novel, Man At The Helm (2014), author Nina Stibbe introduces readers to her nine-year-old protagonist, Lizzie Vogel. In her third offering (her first book was a memoir, Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life, in 2003) Paradise Lodge, Lizzie makes another appearance, this time as a 15-year-old.
Like her previous novel, Paradise Lodge is set in Britain’s rural Leicestershire in the 1970s. Lizzie is bored at school – like most teenagers, she finds school a waste of time as she has decided early on she has no academic ambitions – and her family is dysfunctional. Due to her father’s affair, Lizzie and her siblings witnessed her parents’ marriage crumbling. With her mother left to fend for herself and her three children, money in the Vogel household is very scarce. The only thing Mrs Vogel allows Lizzie to buy is “econo coffee”.
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