Our Precious Lulu [Hardcover]

 

 

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Anne Fine has given me immense reading pleasure over the years and so I was magnetically pulled towards this her latest novel.

Firmly back in "Telling Liddy" territory Telling Liddy as immediately we are launched without mercy into a tight, over wrought family drama that made me dizzy with the intense back and forth dialogue. Again sisters feature, together with the telling of secrets, rewriting of family history and fanning of flames by a spouse. The theme of good fortune, in the way of baby making going to the undeserving is topical and involving. As is the realistic insecurity over work and income.

It is tricky to pick a way through the mixed motives. Who are we to believe? I soon thought that way too much was being asked of Geraldine. The amateur psychological dissection/discussions that Geraldine and Robert have about Lulu and her stepmother Jane with their planned remedial manipulation confused and bothered me. Robert and Geraldine, both scientists, appear to have an overly claustrophobic, supportive relationship, their families having lived next door from childhood, all the children went to school together. This solidly married couple are also working closely in the same laboratory. Because you only hear conversations it is harder to work out which of the whole family group really deserves your sympathy and backing. Robert and Geraldine are an excellent example of how a couple can work each other up, building a head of steam over issues that an outsider could find farcical. Alert to nuances of each other's behaviour, they are a finely tuned couple, Robert, loving and observant, is unusually involved with his wife's emotional life I felt; not so common in a man. As always there can be two sides to a family story and Anne Fine demonstrates this with her usual verve and razor sharp skill of observation.

However by the time I had raced through to page 80 I realised, with sadness and disappointment that I wasn't actually enjoying this much as I'd hoped. The writing seemed hectic and unnecessarily fraught. It was rather hurried and exhausting to follow. So I slowed myself down a bit and stopped trying so hard see what what happening. There is much kindly humour to enjoy with the character of Puffer the cat who belongs to Geraldine and Robert (and others!) lightening the atmosphere a bit, redressing the balance. Robert himself is always delightfully witty.

There are many great conversations with Jane, the step mother of Lulu and mother of Geraldine; they are masterpieces of sarcasm disguising deep hurt, pain going back a long way with attempts by her natural daughter to break though the thickets of self deception practiced by her mother. The landscape begins to shift. Layers are peeled back when Geraldine begins to revise her views of her father's departure from their lives. Finding her true place in the family order becomes easier as the scales begin to fall from her eyes. The fierce and speedy writing is taking you to a destination.

Jane, is so really well drawn, she is busily smoothing over the hurtful past and refusing to allow herself to be drawn into the destructively dangerous competitive relationship between Lulu and Geraldine. Jane has so far enjoyed the benefit of being allowed to act as a bystander but gradually she finds herself having to take sides. I loved that part and found the dilemmas of loyalties being tested fascinating.

In the character of Precious Lulu we see a young woman who may well be pushing her luck just that bit too far. In danger of being hoist by her own petard and thinking that she can go on behaving the way she always has, there is excitement in the air until the last satisfying paragraph, will rough justice be meted out?

I agree with much of what the previous reviewer has said. I too wondered whether Lulu was really as black as she was being painted - she is never given a chance to give her point of view. The closest she came was where she commented on how hard it was to live with Geraldine's academic success when growing up - which would be understandable.

Geraldine and Robert's relationship is incredibly close; they had never really been apart from when they were about 15 and now both lived and worked together. Geraldine comments that they don't have many friends because they have each other. Again this would be hard for someone like Lulu to take, being with a "smug couple" when your own love life is a disaster.

None of which excuses the appalling way Lulu behaves, if the way Geraldine portrays it is accurate!

The book was an easy read and the characters well drawn. I did predict the twist at the end but was not disatisfied with it. And to be honest, it was all a bit depressing.

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