Paradise Lodge

September 19, 2016
If Cassandra from Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle was a teenager in the 1970s working at a Leicestershire nursing home, she would be just like Lizzie Vogel, the narrator of Stibbe’s latest. Lizzie, a schoolgirl who just wants to make enough money to buy Linco Beer shampoo, takes a job as an auxiliary nurse at Paradise Lodge, an old folks’ home as close to death as some of its residents. Her grades suffer as she almost single-handedly runs the home while the supposed adults in charge take advantage of her earnestness. The matron expects her to miss class to fill in shifts, the owner abandons all thought of laundry, and the trained nurses leave her in charge of patients. Even though she’s only 15, Lizzie cares deeply about both the other staff and the residents, many of whom could have easily become caricatures but instead are as richly drawn as the dilapidated manor house in which they live. Stibbe (Man at the Helm) manages to make Lizzie sincere and naïve without being syrupy or precious, and creates a story that helps readers understand human nature a little better.