Published: 2000, Headline Publishing Group
Genre: Fiction
Themes: Family, mental health, loyalty, bereavement
My rating (out of 5): ❤❤❤❤
Imagine you wrote a gripping multi-generational family story, and just as you were about to set off to the publisher with the hard-copy, the wind took your pages and scattered them all across the street. You hastily pick everything up and head to your appointment intending to put the pages in order during the cab journey, but on the way you realise: This works.
Well, I'm sure that's not what happened at all, but that's what reading this book feels like. You start almost at the end, then you bounce back about twenty years, then just over the page you are back to present time in a whole new setting. The narrator can change several times within one chapter, and there are no headings to give you a steer, so there will be no skim-reading here. Maggie O'Farrell wants your full attention, and she gets it, because the random order does work.
Alice was a difficult child, and even as a baby, a random stranger described her as looking like a changeling. She is physically different from her blond sisters as she has thick dark hair, and in further contrast, she has a brooding nature that drives her inexorably to unpredictable actions that go far beyond childhood pranks. She frequently clashes angrily with her mother, who is equally self-centred, but she can always be calmed by her paternal Scottish grandmother who is traditionally steadfast and consistent.
The grandmother, Elspeth, invited her son Ben and his new wife Ann to live in her home after her husband died, and she deals with everyone in accordance with her strong moral values. Her sense of loyalty ensures that the family copes with everything that befalls them, and in truth, she is the only likable woman in the book.
Both Alice and her mother have the capacity to attract men and hold them entranced to the point of obsession. They both start relationships abrasively and you do wonder what the men see in them, but maybe that's the trick - keep them wanting more.
In some ways Alice is a strong woman who stands up for what she wants, and generally gets it, but on another level she is rude and bossy and frequently teeters on the brink of madness. Her sisters and friends are unfailingly loyal to her although she does nothing but take advantage of their good natures and causes them all sorts of problems as she drags them into one crisis after another.
Despite Ann and Alice being unpleasant characters, the plot line works well and the jumbled time-line makes having a sneak peak at the ending pointless, because you get tantalising glimpses of it all the way through. Right from the first chapter odd things happen that are not explained, so you keep reading, frantically trying to get the answers. Each section is another piece of the puzzle (which turns out to be a love story by the way), but just be prepared to wait a while until you can start joining bits together.
This is a cleverly constructed and well-written book that will keep your interest from beginning to end.
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