Maureen Fry and the Angel of The North, Early Morning Riser and The Marriage Portrait

 

A short but hugely emotional book with the same sadness that percolated through the other two in the trilogy. The grief Maureen and Harold share for their dead son is never far away. But in the author's hands the story is so poignant and beautifully written. In particular, Maureen seems silent, grumpy, offhand and difficult. She finds it impossible to share her feelings, even with Harold, so not an easy person. We share the angst that Maureen feels about her life, we understand all her faults, if they are faults, we cannot judge. "She had once joined a book club but she objected to the things they read and gave up".

Like Harold before, a journey, but this time by car ten years later, as Maureen sets off for Northumberland. You would think that this would be far more straightforward than Harold's walk. But no. Things do go wrong. But there is help along the way. Her arrival in the north is so familiar, we have walked Embleton Bay a couple of times, we remember the golf course. been inside Dunstanburgh Castle. But here it's the writing that is so superior. Thanks Rachel.

What a wonderful book, clever, literate, warm and most of all funny. Lots of laugh out loud moments. It's all about Jane, first as a young woman and her relationship with serial womaniser Duncan, then jumps in time as she becomes a mother and her children grow up. All the characters, friends and family are written with great heart. I actually had to stop writing down all the great witty stuff: "Sometimes (Jane) thought being with her mother was like crossing a desert: long hard stretches of burning sand that exhausted you, but every once in a while, you happened on an oasis of kindness".

Now I did think that I would be bored with those sections that dealt with Jane's teaching her class of very young children. Not at all, these are a mine of endless fun, including all those games I had never heard of. Chutes and ladders? Where are the snakes? Then her two children Glen and Patrice. They would make another great story.

Let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of Maggie O'Farrell. I have read and enjoyed all her books, some are among my favourite novels. I even went to the Hay Literature Festival to see her interviewed and queued for her to sign "I am, I am, I am". So this well received historical novel was a huge disappointment. The book is far too long for what story there is, half as long might have been OK, or even shorter. Was this hardly known very young Duchess from Italy in the sixteenth century a suitable subject? Or was the author describing an abusive relationship that might resonate today.

Lucrezia is thirteen when her father, the Duke of Florence, marries her off to the much, much older Duke of Ferrara. All so he can have an heir. He can be respectful and loving but also nasty and abusive: "When I ask something of you, I expect you to do it, without delay, without hesitation. Do you understand me?". This is not a nice story, it's uncomfortable reading and almost unrelentingly bleak. Married life is tedious in the extreme.

Having to pick something I liked, there is an excellent letter of betrothal from the Duke. Lucrezia meets the Duke's friend Leonello on a walk and at last there is a proper conversation of what is expected of her. And her interaction with the two apprentice painters is the best part of the book.

Of course the prose is top drawer, but the long, sometimes interminable descriptions and introspection feels only like padding. It seems that Lucrezia is in a prison and the Duke is her jailer. A seedy sordid tale of a bully and his too young bride. Oh Maggie!