'Up to that point Sarah Jane had enjoyed herself. There had been none of the expected arguments when she had laid down her plan of spending alternate Fridays with each of them... How long would it last, anyway? One week, maybe two, but only as long as it took Bill to find something else to do.'
At the heart of Moving on are two sets of triangular relationships. We first meet Bill, Pete and Sarah Jane in bed together. But as Bill's political and emotional obsessions dissolve that relationship, all three move on in the quest for their true selves, each wondering how far the old set-up was just a convenience.
Jazz drummer Jim is the only serious contender when Pete and Sarah Jane advertise for a replacement for Bill, and it gradually emerges that he is the second element of an older, parallel threesome, encompassing Annie and the revolutionary, equivocal City. The key to the novel is in the characters of the two women: Annie, with her beauty and various talents; Sarah Jane, who is just beginning to see herself as an individual.
Pennie Hedge's first novel tells an elliptical, teasing and fascinating story in which all the strands are finally drawn together, as the characters come to face their past, present and futures.
