- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt (Sep 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0151003637
- ISBN-13: 978-0151003631
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 16.3 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,309,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
A portrait of a troubled middle-class family: from the eccentric grandmother who gives up everything to go and live in a ruin on Exmoor, to her successful but anxious children (lawyers, politicians and advertising men) and the drug-taking grandchildren.
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Begin on a midsummer evening. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Freda Haxby is an eccentric, elderly writer who moves out of the family home to set herself up miles from her children and their families in an old ramshackle establishment on Exmoor. When she meets a suspicious death all their middle class lives come under scrutiny. I do not feel that this is Drabble's best work as the characters do not come alive and as a murder mystery the plot seems rather sparse.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Disappointing. Drabble the social commentator wins out over Drabble the novelist, in this tale of elderly, eccentric writer Freda Haxby who turns her back on her family and their expectations to live out her days in a crumbling mansion on the coast. The characters are little more than mouthpieces for a broad span of educated, middle-class opinion and like Freda herself, never manage to come alive or engage the reader's sympathies. One leaves them to their fate without a backward glance.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
After the first slightly indigestable chapter, the story about Frieda Haxby and her three selfish successful children really gets going. And what a story it is! The story is full of wonderful descriptions of characters and place. The characters are so well drawn that they remain with you. The social commentary is like reading a modern day Charles Dickens and in fact Drabble makes a nod at this herself when comparing Patsy to Mrs Jellerby (a character in Bleak House). The narrator technique takes a little getting used to, but ultimately it works and gives the book a broad cinematic sweep. The passages about Exmoor and the wild and rugged coast where Frieda lives at Ashcombe, are vivid and realistic. I could almost smell the moor, the bracken and the sea. Anyone who knows this part of the world will know that Drabble's description is 100% accurate.
The plot is beautifully controlled and doesn't disappoint. Frieda Haxby's peculiar will - or should I say wills - tests each of her grown-up children to the limit and pushes a couple of her grandchildren 'over the edge' too. The family dynamics are powerful and real. I won't say more as it will spoil it. Look out for that magical passage with brave chaste Emily and the hunted hind towards the end. Lyrical stuff. What does it all mean? I'm not entirely sure, but I loved it.
The plot is beautifully controlled and doesn't disappoint. Frieda Haxby's peculiar will - or should I say wills - tests each of her grown-up children to the limit and pushes a couple of her grandchildren 'over the edge' too. The family dynamics are powerful and real. I won't say more as it will spoil it. Look out for that magical passage with brave chaste Emily and the hunted hind towards the end. Lyrical stuff. What does it all mean? I'm not entirely sure, but I loved it.
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