Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce

I give this one a rare 10 out of 10. In Miss Benson’s Beetle, Rachel Joyce gives her readers the full bouquet – a unique story, a small cast of quirky, loveable characters, great satire, laugh-out-loud moments and sad truths. A storytelling masterpiece, it is, without a doubt, my read of the year.

From the author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce’s latest offering once again manages to draw the reader into another ‘unlikely’ narrative involving a dour middle-aged woman who wakes up one day and sets out to achieve the unachievable. I treasure the way in which Joyce beautifully captures the value of female friendship through an outlandish tale of the unexpected. It’s about courage, tenacity and the unwavering belief in achieving a goal.

Set just after World War II, in 1950, the story kicks off with Margery Benson who one day abruptly decides to quit her teaching job and walk out of the school with a stolen pair of boots to embark on an ambitious journey to fulfil her life-long dream: to find the golden beetle that she learned about from her scientist father as a young child. To achieve this quest, she must travel to the other side of the world to search for a beetle that may or may not exist.

Along with her unlikely assistant, Enid Pretty – a quirky, uneducated young lass, dressed in an outrageous pink outfit and high heels – they set out together on a reckless trip to New Caledonia. The journey involves a boat trip across oceans; run-ins with customs; a stalker; an untamed wilderness and many other hilarious – and often dangerous – adventures that exceed every expectation. All told against the backdrop of a world still in the throes of the war’s devastating aftermath.

Against all odds the two women form a firm and lasting friendship that defies all boundaries, and as they venture into the unknown to track down an obscure, perhaps non-existent beetle, they end up discovering themselves.

I was so totally enthralled by the characters, and so swept up in the excitement of their adventure, the intense heartbreak and drama, the triumph and tragedy, that I felt quite bereft when I read the last page and closed the book on the loveable cast that I had become so enamoured of. Indeed, I envy those who are yet to read it…