Family Album [Audiobook, MP3 Audio] [Audio CD]

Penelope Lively (Author), Anna Bentinck (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2009

All Alison ever wanted was a blissful childhood for her six children, with summers at the beach and birthday parties on the lawn at their family home. Together with Ingrid, the family au pair, she has worked hard to create a real "old-fashioned family life." But beneath its postcard sheen, the picture is clouded by a distant father, Alison's inexplicable emotional outbursts, and long-repressed secrets that no one dares mention. For years, Alison's adult children have protected her illusion of domestic perfection-but as each child confronts the effects of past choices on their current adult lives, it becomes evident that each must face the truth.Penelope Lively's novels of history, memory, and character have earned her a loyal legion of fans. Like Ian McEwan's Atonement, this novel is a measured, thoughtful look at how events of the past, both small and large, seen and unseen, deeply inform character and the present. Quietly provocative and disturbing, Family Album is a highly nuanced work that showcases a master of her craft.

--This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Employing her trademark skill at honing detail and dialogue, Lively (Moon Tiger) delivers a vigorous new novel revolving around a house outside of London, the sprawling Edwardian homestead of Allersmead, and the family of six children who grew up there. By degrees—in shifting POVs and time periods cutting from the 1970s until the present—Lively introduces the prodigious Harper family. There's Alison, the frazzled matriarch, who married young and pregnant, and persuaded her historian husband to buy Allersmead; distracted father Charles, who writes recherché tomes in his study and can't remember what ages his children are; and the children, who range from the wayward eldest and mother's favorite, Paul, to the youngest, Clare, whose parentage involves a family secret concerning Ingrid, the Scandinavian au pair. Lively adeptly focuses on the second-oldest, Gina, a foreign journalist who planned her life to stay far away from home until, at age 39, fellow journalist Philip goads her to contemplate settling down for the first time. With its bountiful characters and exhaustive time traveling, Lively's vivisection of a nuclear family displays polished writing and fine character delineation. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Lively immediately plunges us into an entirely convincing world of bustling family life...exceptionally well observed and gloriously enjoyable...this should be rated as one of her most impressive works Guardian One of those ridiculously simple, ridiculously readable novels whose artistry only becomes apparent when you put it down with a sign of regret, having devoured it in one sitting...Lively still displays an economy and an elegance that put younger writers to shame Sunday Telegraph Lively's brilliance is of the creeping kind. There is a sense of formality, which falls away as the novel gains pace and builds towards an unforeseen end. She is particularly good at bending language to make it fit her cool and clear voice...Lively succeeds brilliantly in getting a hold on the climate of family life. Slowly we absorb the details that get lost in the bluster and flurry until we are so drawn in, so tightly contained in the dynamics of this one, that the end, when it comes, is simply devastating The Times A pleasure to read, hugely enjoyable, consistently absorbing, hilarious Independent An involving emotional drama and an insightful examination of changing family values Easy Living The complexities and silences of family life are intelligently and subtly explored...a very engaging novel, continuously interesting and often moving Scotsman Gorgeous -- David Vann Guardian Books of the Year Sympathetic and observant, Lively moves fluidly between present-tense set-piece scenes and silent monologues, placing the novel's revelations where they will be most effective, and allowing implications - about marriage, feminism and personal ambition - to blossom slowly Sunday Times Penelope Lively at her best, sharp-eyed but sympathetic, deftly steering the reader from one point of view to another. This novel should delight her regular readers and ensnare new ones Evening Standard A very readable, well-paced novel peopled with Lively's customary immaculately observed and impeccably rounded characters Independent on Sunday Lively skilfully mingles past and present, as she peels away the layers to uncover a family secret of which no one speaks...Lively's astute skewering of family relations reverberates in the mind long afterwards Daily Mail Lively plays her sleight of hand with admirable dexterity. The dialogue is pitch-perfect, the writing crisp and the humour wonderfully dry Tatler Gripping. An intelligent look at family relationships and the knock-on effects of past events on the present. It's an absorbing tale of mystery and intrigue that will leave you wondering what lies behind even the nicest facade Woman & Home A deeply satisfying, eloquent family-fabric novel Good Housekeeping --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: ISIS Audio Books (December 1, 2009)
• ISBN-10: 0753149370
• ISBN-13: 978-0753149379
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Memories: Ignored and Remembered, November 28, 2009

By 

prisrob "pris," (New England USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Family Album: A Novel (Hardcover)

A family that has come undone. Alison and Charles the parents, Ingrid the au pair and the six children, Paul, Gina, Ralph, Sandra, Kate and Clare all live in the lovely old Edwardian home they call Allersmead. Penelope Lively has given us a story of the lives of these nine people and their perspectives of how events shaped their lives.

We learn about the house, Allersmead, 'a gravelly drive, stone urns, lanky shrubs and, in the air, a redolent waft of hearty cooking.' Gina has come home to introduce her new love, Phillip to the family and vice versa. Alison, the mom, the earth mom, all she has wanted her entire life is to have children, and a husband, of course. Charles, the absent father, he lived in the house but he was absent emotionally and little is known about him. Ingrid, the Au pair, who lives happily with the family helping to raise the children and to organize the family. Paul, the oldest son is at home. He is his mother's favorite, but has never been able to do much with the life he was handed. Gina is a journalist who travels the world. She does not share much about her childhood, nor as we come to find out do the other children. There is something hidden, a secret that no one discusses. The children, all adults now, know about the secret, but it has never interfered with their lives, or so they thought. Alison, the mother is oblivious to any secret, her family is her all and be-all, and she does not recognize anything outside of her atmosphere. Charles is too busy with his research and writings to be bothered. Each member of the family discusses their points of view, alternating between the children and the adults. This is done in flashback, as they focus on what they remember. The children are gone, but there are no grandchildren, and we ponder why this is. As the events unfold, the secret is a vague consciousness as everyone circles the truth. There is no big event, it is the slow skillful manner in which Penelope Lively allows this to become devastating.

Penelope Lively has become a favorite author. This new novel is not my favorite, but it kept me wrapped up in her reading for most of a day. Her manner with words and the development of her characters keep us on our toes. I love the fact that she involves us in her novels, we come to know the people and how they think and what they want in life. We can picture them in our mind's eye, and that, my dear friend, is what a great novel is all about.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 11-28-09

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing, January 2, 2010

By 

Krispie - See all my reviews

This review is from: Family Album: A Novel (Hardcover)

It was a joy to read this book after Between Here and April. It was such a good, though not great, novel. Maybe it reminded me of my own family in some ways or what my family is going through as the parents age, but I really felt a connection to the family, if not all of the characters.

I will say that I did enjoy the e-mails at the end. I did not think it fractured the flow of the novel. In fact it enhanced the plot. I guess my main issue was the way Lively presenting the concept of memories. I think it would have been better if the characters weren't so actively recounting the past as Peter did in his old bedroom or researching the concept of nostalgia as Charles was. But Lively's ideas about time and perception were thought-provoking.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What makes a family? What makes a happy family?, December 15, 2009

By 

Jill Meyer (United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family Album: A Novel (Hardcover)

Penelope Lively's new novel, Family Album, is about a large family that grows up in a large house in suburban London. The Harper family consists of six children, the two parents, and an "au pair girl" who has played an interesting role in family history.

The Harper family revolves around Alison, the mother of the brood, and Allersmead, the Victorian "pile" that the Harper family has lived in for 40 years or so. The father, Charles, a distant figure in the household, is sort of "there, but not there", to his six children. He's a fairly successful writer of non-fiction, often writing about families in far off lands, while moving through his own children's lives at a safe distance. He's often holed up in his library, which is off-limits to the rest of the household. He doesn't get involved with his children, other than with his oldest son, Paul, a neer-do-well who Charles often disparages.

Alison Harper is a "super-Mom". She's the one who wanted a large family and she has made a life for herself seemingly limited to raising the children and keeping the house. She's not the intellectual that her husband is and actually has very little communication with him.

In this melieu the six children - four daughter and two sons - grow up. All but one leave home as soon as possible, but maintain a tenuous connection with family and house. They return to the family home for holidays and birthdays and try, between themselves, to make some sense of their crazy upbringing. An upbringing that only Alison sees as "happy".

Lively is a good writer and most of the nine characters are well drawn. The book goes back and forth in time, depending on who's "telling the story". I found the characters interesting enough so as to almost wish that another writer, maybe one who writes big, fleshy, juicy novels, would take these characters and expand the book.