Review: The Sweet Shop Owner

How little you know how you’ve kept my balance.
It’s what’s not said that makes this book so extraordinary. The emotions never articulated, the feelings, deeply felt, but never expressed. So many missed opportunities to connect. I found this novel profoundly sad, and a little too close to home - I saw my parent’s marriage poignantly reflected in The Sweet Shop Owner. For a first novel, written by a man barely into his thirties, it is a testament to Swift’s emotional maturity.
If the word love is never spoken, does it mean there isn’t any love?

• Review
• Graham Swift