A Book A Week - Week 48: A Modern Family

This week's book:
   A Modern Family  by Socrates Adams

Grade:  A-

Lots of interesting fiction coming out of England and Ireland lately, and this one is no exception.

Much like City of Bohane, I can guarantee you have not read this kind of novel before.  Much like The Panopticon, this novel is uniquely British.
   Pink Floyd - requoting Thoreau - said 'hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way' and this novel is all about that hanging on.  I liked it.

The story is about an upper-class English family, and how they don't really function much like a family at all.  The father is a television presenter - he is the only one never given a real name* - who hates his job but isn't really smart enough or motivated enough to do anything else.  His wife, Prudence, used to be a television producer but hasn't worked for over a decade.  She feels she should be closer to her family than she is, but she takes none of the responsibility for their failures.  The daughter, Ellen, is disconnected from everyone but her friend Tracy, who she thinks she may be in love with.  The son, Bobby, sells pages out of dirty magazines in school to feed his World of Warcraft habit.  He can't really hold a conversation with anyone and never looks anyone in the eye.

A pretty disreputable lot, right?  Surprisingly, at least it surprised me, the author makes then very sympathetic.  I know in my head I should hate them all, I should be disgusted by the way they limp through their privileged lives, accomplishing nothing.  Feeling nothing.  But I can't help but hope for the best for them.  I want it all to turn out okay.
    I don't think I'm giving anything away by saying it doesn't.

This novel is short, 122 pages on my iPad, which is good, but also necessary.  I don't think this kind of format could sustain a much longer narrative.  It's written in third-person omniscient point of view, which is very, very, very hard to pull off even remotely well, let alone convincingly.  The author makes it shine.  You feel the family's disconnectedness, you hurt for them when they're not able to hurt for themselves, and you want to grab each of them and shake some sense into them in practically every scene.

I said earlier that you have not read a novel like this.  I'd like to amend that to 'you have not read a modern novel like this.'  The more I think about it, the more this resembles a novel of manners, done up in Twenty-First Century clothes, with modern problems and sensibilities.
  I think, like a novel of manners - think 'Pride and Prejudice' - the lack of any clear objective might put some people off.  Particularly Americans, who prefer a prize to aim for.  But I also think that, like a novel of manners, the journey is the point here, not the destination.  It's a peek into the lives of people the author clearly pities, and wishes would do better by themselves and their relatives, but who, for social and cultural reasons, aren't able to get past their own circumstances.

If you prefer plots with a 'football,' that is, a thing that the characters are after, like a Maltese Falcon or revenge or a new home, you may not like this book.  If you like plots that wrap up and characters who grow, you might not like this book, but then again you might.  If you like reading something new, you will absolutely like this book. 

* given the character's job and colleagues, it's pretty clear he's supposed to be James May.  If you don't know him, look him up. 

Next week:
  A Single Man   by Christopher Isherwood
Another book not in my genre comfort zone.  But it's set in 1960s LA, which is always good for mood and tone.