Book review: A Long Petal of the Sea, by Isabel Allende

A Long Petal of the Sea, admirably translated from the Spanish by Nick Caister and Amanda Hopkinson, is an agreeably old-fashioned novel. There is nothing clever or tricksy about it, and, though it is set mostly in Chile, there is no pretentious and tiresome magic realism. Instead we have an easy-flowing narrative and credible characters. It’s the kind of novel that used to be more common than it is now, reminding me of good, if for the most part forgotten, novelists of the mid-20th century such as RC Hutchinson and Thomas Armstrong.