The Everlasting Sunday, a dark and captivating tale, is an impressive read as Robert Lukins’ debut novel. The story is set in 1962 during the coldest recorded winter in England, known as the Big Freeze. A 17-year-old boy, Radford, navigates his new life alongside other delinquents within the walls of Goodwin Manor, “a place for boys who had been found by trouble” (Lukins 19). The Everlasting Sunday is a story of friendship and survival.
The novel begins as Radford makes the long journey to Goodwin Manor. As Radford crosses the threshold of the great arched doorway he is thrown into disarray. Teddy oversees the Manor and the boys loosely. Radford soon realizes that there are no real rules in the Goodwin Manor; Teddy’s focus is “only to keep [the boys] alive” (Lukins 48). Along with the other boys in the Manor, Teddy is central character who holds the boys together and teaches them to look out for one another. With his questionable technique of teaching, his bursts of energy, bouts of depression, and protectiveness, Teddy gives off the impression that he may have once been a troubled boy himself.
According to one of the boys, West, “it takes two things to end up at the Manor: a reason and a final straw” (Lukins 74). The reason, he explains, is whatever is fundamentally wrong with you deep down. A person may or may not know what their reason is. And the final straw is a life changing event, “[s]ome big old rock that you chuck off the cliff that means the people around you can’t be around you anymore” (Lukins 74). Although everyone is aware of this at the Manor, no one asks or talks about what got them put there. There is a common understanding that everyone there has spent their “final straw”. It’s as if the Goodwin Manor is a chance for these delinquents to leave their past at the door and live on without it constantly looming over their heads. Each of the boys gets that and respects each other’s silence. Throughout the book, the boys – for the most part – act as any collection of boys anywhere do. They sneak off, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and share secrets. Through their silence and secrets, the boys form a deep but highly combustible bond with one another.
One other main character starring in The Everlasting Sunday is Winter. The season is personified throughout the novel and bears a vengeful presence. It watches, plots against its “trespassers”, and always returns (Lukins 120). Winter is comparable to the violence inside each of the boys; it’s what keeps them off of the streets and confined in the Manor. The storm is what separated the boys from the rest of the world. It was their prison, not the Goodwin Manor.
In The Everlasting Sunday, Robert Lukins describes vividly an account of carefree naiveness of children murdered by violence, darkness, and tragedy. Each character and detail is painted meticulously and memorably. The Everlasting Sunday is a wonderfully written catastrophe.
Lukins, Robert. The Everlasting Sunday. St. Lucia, Queensland, Australia, University of Queensland Press, 2018.