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Literary Fiction
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Essays
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| Critics: |
A profound debut novel that explores complicated love, secrets, and familial misunderstandings from the celebrated octogenarian author of the "trail-blazing" (Oprah Daily) collection Cat Brushing.
It's the week of Dr. Agnes Stacey's only daughter's wedding, and each of the eleven attendees of the small family gathering is bringing their own simmering tensions to the event. Agnes' uncle, Professor Malcolm Miller, has harbored a family secret since her parents – his sister and brother in law – died in a car crash when she was a young girl. Dr. Joseph Bradshaw, who distantly married into the family, has nursed a secret obsession with Agnes since his brief stint as her therapist. Agnes herself will be returning to her ex-husband's home for the first time, just as she's trying to extricate herself from a potent love affair. Each of them has the tools to analyze the love lives of others, yet find themselves unable to recognize the love in their own lives. And though they've each muddled through painful years in emotional isolation, only Malcolm knows that the origins of their thwarted attachments all lie in the same English seaside town. Where better to lay bare the failures and secrets of one's advancing age than at an intimate celebration of love?
In this incisive and involving debut novel, Campbell parses the fraught inner lives of ordinary people doing their best to process the aftershocks of war, the parenting they do and don't receive, and the many different forms love can take in one family.
"Each character slowly comes to feel the force of loss, the way the past 'tends to leak into the present all the time,' and the deep mystery of love and connection. Campbell probes these complicated ideas in clear, shimmering prose, turning the characters' engagement with their psyches into something quite intoxicating ... A heady and heart-filled debut." —Kirkus Reviews
"The novel shifts between the points of view of Malcolm, Joe, and Agnes, but each of their voices sound confusingly similar, and they're all disposed to statements like 'Somewhere is the unalterable, irradicable truth and I need not fear it.' Only the most patient readers will want to enter the minds of these circular thinkers." —Publishers Weekly
"Admirers of Mary Wesley will appreciate this impressive debut by another late -looming writer. From its lovely cover to its character-driven plot, this poignant novel is warmly recommended." —Library Journal
Jane Campbell grew up in Southern Africa and studied English Language and Literature at Oxford. She has worked as a Group Analyst, teaching and training and lecturing internationally, for nearly forty years. Her debut collection, Cat Brushing, debuted in her 80th year, and was a New York Times Editor's Choice. She lives in Bermuda and Oxford, England.
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