A Keeper of Sheep - William Carpenter

I picked this one up in the Oxfam bookshop because of the intriguing title, and didn't put it down again because of the even more intriguing name of the main character: "Penguin Solstice".

This is a gentle book about harsh subjects, which is largely a coming-of-age story about a radical know-it-all young woman learning to relate to other people as she becomes drawn into the life of a composer dying of AIDS. She starts the story with a strong belief in following her conscience at all costs, which initially leads her to attempt to burn down a frat house where a woman was raped. To some extent her later experiences strengthen her convictions - she finds herself once again struggling against those in a position of power as she defends her neighbour's right to stay within their small community and fights to prevent the environmental destruction threatened by calls to spray pesticide on the local marshland. However, she is also forced to appreciate that there can be more than one side to a story, and that often there is no clear-cut "right" choice that can be made without painful consequences.

I liked this book - I liked the calm clarity of the writing and the nuanced characterisation, and I liked the value it put on humanity, truth, and art. Somehow I didn't quite love it though, although I'm not entirely sure why - perhaps because so many of the relationships described in the book are tentative or incomplete in some way.