Family Gathering

Family Gathering / Elizabeth Cadell
Friendly Air Publishing, 2018, c1979.
308 p.

I found this book in audio format via my library, and thought I'd check it out -- I've read two books by Cadell before - I quite liked the first and was meh on the second! This one was pretty good though I found there were a number of flaws for a modern reader. It reminds me a bit of the wackiness of a Wodehouse or Waugh novel, in its depiction of an aristocratic country family a bit down on its financial luck but full of eccentrics. 

Natalie Rome is 42 but in this book that is solidly middle aged. She's timid and quiet, but somehow she meets the dashing William and marries him. She's heading to his family seat, Romescourt, to wait for him to return from his deployment. The idea is that she'll stay with his family and find a house for them to live in nearby while she waits. But Natalie has a daughter, Helen, who is a crisp businesswoman in her 20s who loves the city and order. 

Natalie arrives to great chaos; she's picked up from the train station by the spacey Lucille (her new stepdaughter), meets her mother-in-law (a caricature of a country aristocrat who dresses oddly, gardens, talks extremely loudly and doesn't really listen to anyone else, and of course controls life at Romescourt), her father-in-law who loves gardening and doesn't talk much at all, and her new stepson Jeremy, who is also an artist and is presented as quite a catch (spoiler: I couldn't stand him). 

I was enjoying the first half to two thirds of this book - Romescourt and its surrounding houses are a delight, and Lady Rome is a hoot - every time someone does something she doesn't understand, she comments "I don't think they're quite right in the head". I listened to this one on audio, and the reader was hilarious with her characterizations, especially of Lady Rome. 

However, I did find that the story dragged near the end and there were too many crisis points, both with  Lucille's multiple engagments (she's so passive she can't say no) and with the forced romance between Helen and Jeremy. Helen is a confident city girl but is presented as a bossy harridan who needs taking down a peg, and Jeremy is the one to do it -- his behaviour is awful, he's a total jerk, and I didn't believe that Helen would be attracted to him in any way. But they pair up at the end anyhow, maybe because Natalie wants it so much? Definitely of an earlier time. 

So there were some great set pieces in this book and some really amusing characters and moments. But there were also some cringey bits that are very dated and unpalatable to this reader. A mixed bag, but listening to Lady Rome in the first half made this pick worth it ;)