Fairness

Fairness is about Helen, the tiny, blonde, serious girl whom the narrator meets when they are both looking after children during a summer vacation in France. Her adventures in search of a morally satisfying life lead her into situations that are neither satisfying nor moral .This is the most recent and most ambitious novel in Ferdinand Mount's Chronicle of Modern Twilight series, which makes up the autobiography of Aldous (Gus) Cotton, the civil servant with breathing problems and sexual learning difficulties. It is also an erratic history of England in the second half of the twentieth century.Some of the characters from much acclaimed earlier novels bob up again. But this is Helen's story and few of those who tangle with her are ever quite the same afterwards. Caustic, innocent and irresistible, she is a female Candide for our time.