The book is saturated by the sense of secrecy (“We nudged the truth out of the way with our elbows / And waded through heavy silence”). The sparse words reveal the artistry in every phrase.
Like Crossan’s previous verse novels, Toffee is divided into short pieces, a page or two in length each of these is as satisfying as a smoothed piece of seaglass, strung together to create a spectrum of pain and consolation. As she grows closer to Marla, however, she becomes less inclined to keep the deception alive, beginning to search, instead, for the shape of her true self. When Marla greets Allison as Toffee, a friend from her past, Allison willingly accepts the role.
Stranded in a Cornish seaside town, she takes refuge in the garden of an apparently abandoned house – and discovers that Marla, an elderly woman with dementia, still lives there. Allison has run away from her abusive father, hoping to find his ex-fiancee, Kelly-Anne, who cared for her in a way he never could.
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