Despite the fact that some of the science is baffling, ("sequencing the genome of homovannesiensis") this is a terrific novel. Set in the future, Seth is the product of some highly unethical engineering headed by billionaire and rogue scientist Lukas Parn. Talissa Adam thinks, as a surrogate, that she is simply carrying the baby for another couple that will fund her research. Little does she know.
We follow Seth as he grows up with his family. He goes to school where, although a little different to the other children, that is nothing really remarkable. The conversation the parents have with his teacher a the end of term is brilliantly subtle and superbly written. Fast forward to Seth at university and one of the oldest colleges. He hardly attends lectures but has some odd ability. In time something leaks about his background. Talissa comes back into the story, her later relationship with Seth (and his parents) is quite remarkable.
I'm afraid this was not my kind of book. Possibly a novel for readers much younger than me, maybe the language seeming how they must communicate. There was very little subtlety in the prose, but lots of swearing to compensate. The narrator was the most awful person that you could imagine. Fortunately I know no-one remotely like her. And it does the book absolutely no favours.
"Don't we all want a friend who won't challenge our superiority". That's June Hayward moaning about her successful "friend" Athena Linn. Well, that doesn't last long. One reviewer says it's "a lackluster examination of plagiarism, privilege and cultural appropriation that is too assured in it's own rightness". So is this a satire that just ploughs relentlessly forward to an ending that is even worse than what went before? I have no idea.
In 2012 our book club read "Moon Tiger" by this author. We were all very impressed by the novel and in my blog posting of 1st November I left a note to read another of Penelope Lively's books. It has taken me over thirteen years to do that, and only because an article in the Sunday Times on the 14th June included this book in "what to read if you loved Tom Lake". That is a new novel by Ann Patchett, a favourite author and just ordered today. The others listed were books I had read: Elizabeth Strout's "Olive Kitteridge" (27th September 2016), Anne Tyler's "Breathing Lessons" (27th January 2015) and Tessa Hadley's "The Past" (12th September 2016). The only one I had not read was Rose Tremain's "Absolutely and Forever" despite all those others of hers on my shelf.
Back to "Family Album" set in Allersmead, the large aging family home of the Harpers. Six, yes six, children. It took me a while to work out who was who as the story switches back and forth in time. The parents are Alison and Charles, children Paul, Gina, Sandra, Katie, Roger and Clare. We find out all about their childhood and later lives. Not forgetting Ingrid, a live in help for their mother. The descriptions of the lives of this family are sometimes amusing, sometimes fractious, always interesting. Charles is an academic author of some well received works, but has trained himself to keep in his study and deaf to the goings on in the house.
Each child is introduced in later life as they arrive for a family party, a silver wedding. But mostly the first half is about childhood such as a holiday in Crackington Haven. Later, with the children grown, there are little gems with Paul back at Allersmead, always the black sheep of the family. There are wonderful sections for each of the family, with those parts that involve Gina that are just fabulous. Even Ingrid gets her own story. However, I had forgotten that Lively is such a great writer, I enjoyed dawdling over a paragraph wondering how you get to write this well. Poles apart from a book like "Yellowface".
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