“The things you want you never get.”
Willy Chapman is The Sweet Shop Owner in Graham Swift’s carefully crafted novel. The book chronicles the events of a single day in Willie’s life as he goes about the same routine he has established and maintained for almost 40 years. As Willie performs the mundane tasks of opening his shop, stacking newspapers, and selling ice cream, he reminisces about his life. We see a man who has become his job by suppressing his personal desires and emotions. He functions and operates for others–his fragile wife, Helen (who suffers from psychosomatic asthma)–his selfish daughter, Dorrie (who is ashamed of her working class roots and can’t wait for her parents to die)–and the customers Willie serves who perhaps have a greater excuse for objectifying Chapman and labelling him as a money-driven shopkeeper “that cardboard cut-out behind the counter.”
But Willie is far more than a shopkeeper. Underneath his functional, calm and bland exterior, Willie is a man who has loved and sacrificed, but above all, Willie is a man who has faithfully–and doggedly–done his duty.
Through Willie’s memories, we see him pass from youth, through WWII, and middle age. As Willie goes through his work day, he remembers pivotal events–those who left for war, and those who did not return–and acquaintances such as the enterprising Hancock whose fortunes wax and wane and whose past involves an unpleasant secret.
This brilliant and elegant first novel by Graham Swift folds 40 years of memories into a single day in the life of a remarkable and yet perfectly ordinary man’s life. This is a book to be savoured, and one that I shall return to again.
