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Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale

Friendly Fire, set in the late 1970s, is the story of Sophie, who is 14 years old at the start of the book. She does not have parents, and lives in a small, caring orphanage run by a childless couple with several other orphaned children of various ages. Her intelligence and her amazing memory help her achieve something which seemed nearly impossible – she won acceptance and a scholarship at Tatham’s, an ancient boarding school which, until recently, only admitted boys.

The story itself is a simple one about friendships, cliques, falling in love, heartbreak and growing up – simply put, about adolescence. Sophie falls in love with a classmate, but he doesn’t return her feelings. But this classmate, Lucas, is also an outsider at the school and he and Sophie become close friends. Lucas later falls for a teacher at the school, but is gently rejected when he makes his feelings known. What we find out later is that one of Sophie and Lucas’ close friends has been hiding an affair with the same teacher, and when this news gets out, it causes a scandal at the school ending with the teacher’s suicide.

During all of this, Sophie has a chance to mature as a person and come to deal with her own unique situation – having no family of her own. She ‘tries on’ a few families throughout the story. She starts with Lucas’ dysfunctional family - his sister is living a Bohemian life with her boyfriend and doesn’t speak to his career-driven parents, both of whom he calls by their first names rather than Mom and Dad. She also has a chance to spend time with other families, all with different personalities and problems. During these visits, she thinks about how her own family might have been and considers the good and bad things about being part of a family.

For me, the most interesting part of the book is the setting. The author based this book on his own experiences in the 1970s and based Tatham’s (Sophie’s school) on his own former school, Winchester College. Tatham’s was founded in the 14th century (as was Winchester) and retains many old buildings and rituals from that time. I enjoyed reading about how Sophie was selected to be on the team of students who rang the bells in the church tower, a tradition that dates back hundreds of years. The students climb up many stories to the top of the tall tower, stand next to the bell they were assigned to, and perform together by ringing the bells in the correct order to produce to right melody. This was not an easy task – the bells were very heavy and students had to be careful not to get hurt when pulling down on the ropes to ring them.

I also enjoyed following Sophie on her academic journey. In her years at the school, she develops a love of knowledge, and becomes very interested in the ancient Greek language. She loves learning Greek words, especially those that express ideas and concepts that cannot be easily translated into English. She is also pleased that her own name, Sophie, comes from the Greek word for knowledge. Sophie excels in academics during her time at the school, and it is knowledge, as much as anything (or anyone) else, that becomes her true love.

Glossary

abundant (adj.) - full of , more than enough

setting (n.) - location

cliques (n.) - exclusive group of people with common interest

 

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Have you ever fallen in love? How did it feel? 

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