Reviews for Family Album

The average rating for Family Album based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-09-28 00:00:00 Sean Ellis In this stunning portrait of family life, Penelope Lively delves below the surface, making the ordinary quite extraordinary. She introduces you in depth to some characters, a few will be a snapshot seen via opinion but you will come to realize you have an insight into everyone in this messy three adult, six children household who live at the shabbily majestic Allersmead. Lively bestows upon you portions of family life, opinions and remembrances of the siblings, their parents and the au pair. Allersmead, that shabby Edwardian mansion, is the setting for the household of writer Charles, housewife and mother Alison, the au pair Ingrid and "explosive Paul, precocious Gina, pretty Sandra, adventurous Kate, clever Roger and flighty Clare". From the blurb: "Beneath the postcard sheen, however, this picture is clouded by a distant father, inexplicable outbursts and long suppressed secrets that no-one dares mention. For years, Alison has protected her illusion of domestic perfection but as they return to their former home, they confront the effects of the past choices on their current adult lives." Don't be fooled into thinking this novel should fall under the ChickLit banner; it is not: Family Album is an intelligent and revealing drama. Lively has a wonderful economy of words, a talent for getting to the heart of the matter and is never cruel; all the while leading us to review our own lives and family relationships. "...when Sandra returns to Allersmead today, she seems to be visiting some historic site which is entirely strange, entirely surprising at yet another level infinitely familiar." "Allersmead was always self sufficient; it is indeed diminished now, with the children gone, but it remains the unit it always was. And it is populated by all those winsome ghosts - perpetually happy, harmonious, the ideal family: they sing on the swings, they dig in the sandbox; the nursery gramophone croons away upstairs 'the farmer wants a wife'… By the novel's conclusion, Lively has propelled me into evaluating my own 'Family Album'. Whether you have siblings or not, you are drawn into surveying your own family life, from snatches of childhood memories to adult persuasions. Penelope Lively is the award winning author of a vast number of novels including the Booker prize winning Moon Tiger (which I recommend most highly). My evaluation of the insightful Family Album: 4★.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-01-21 00:00:00 Ian Wellsby A little uneven perhaps, but this is a perceptive and rather moving study of family dynamics. The book starts with Gina, a journalist and her new partner as she introduces him to her parents and their home for the first time. Gina's family is large, unconventional and dysfunctional - her parents are Charles, a writer who spends most of his time alone in his study, and Alison, a traditional housewife, and Gina is the second of six children. Also living with the parents are Ingrid, once an au pair but now a permanent part of the family, and her oldest brother Paul, who drifts between various casual jobs. The focus of the book shifts between these nine characters, though Gina is the principal protagonist, but the house and the family are at its heart, and Lively explores how it, and the open secrets they never discuss, affect her cast. A very enjoyable read.