Love Is Strange

by Joseph Connolly

From the '50s to the present day, this is a bold and brilliant depiction of a family and a country caught up in a moral decline.Clifford is an 8-year-old short-trousered schoolboy who yearns to be an adult; Annette, his troubled elder sister, on the cusp of adolescence and coping badly with a convent education. Their mother Gillian, an archetypal fifties housewife, is devoted to Clifford, until life and events propel her elsewhere. Her husband Arthur is dictatorial and aloof, and in time his inner turmoils are to result in swift and devastating consequences for the family.The eagerly-anticipated arrival of the family's first TV set is to provide the catalyst for a disaster which plunges the family into crisis. Clifford and Annette are spun into the 1960s in wholly surprising ways and in places as disparate as Swinging London's Carnaby Street and the hell of a punitive convent in rural Ireland.Rich in the cultural detail of Britain throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Joseph Connolly'sLove is Strange is a beautifully written and quite unforgettable novel of family life framed by a darkly English humour.

Genres: Roman, Fiction

Paperback

First published August 3, 2006

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quel livre étrange… Le style d'écriture est correct, à la limite, captivant, même. Mais l'histoire et les dialogues sont si lourds… Je cherche encore la raison d'être de ce livre mais je ne trouve pas. Parfois, j'ai l'impression que l'auteur voulait simplement choquer pour choquer mais encore là, je pense que je n'ai tout simplement pas compris l'essence même du livre… Drôle de lecture.

[Lisa McKenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me a while to get into but I started to enjoy it's unusual narrative style. It took me a while to get used to the fact that it switches from 3rd person to 1st person monologue mid-sentence at times but after while it became dominated by 1st person monologues. Each of the main characters' voices became so genuine sounding that you could tell whose monologue it was before being told.

However, I had a few issues with this book.

First of all, the monologues are flashbacks of the main character Clifford's life as he lies dying. However, it occasionally comes back from a flashback to him lying there "quite uselessly" and he then introduces his next memory before it happens, like a tour guide - seems a bit forced to me.

Secondly, you would assume these flashbacks would be to his own memories, but somehow we get to hear the internal monologues of his sister, mother and father. How would he have known any of that if we're being shown a dying man's life flashing before his eyes? Especially all the stuff that happened to his sister in Ireland.

Thirdly, as the monologues are happening, it's as if they are talking to us, the reader. Why would the be doing that if we're watching someone's memories? The reader wasn't there at the time.

Finally, the bizarre transformation of the mother. I just don't buy that, after being such a subservient wife and mother for so long she would become the head of a prostitute ring and have people executed. It's just not a believable character arc, or at least it wasn't for me.

All that said, I found it entirely readable, if a bit heavy-handed and laboured in bits.

[David Vincent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Les affres d'une famille britannique fragile dans les années '60s
Sensibilité, Pertinence , réalisme malgré une once d'allusions **xuelles gênantes et un tableau peu édifiant de l'enseignement catholique au R.U

[Gemma Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm...quite a nasty book, all in all. It begins in the most florid and overwritten style possible, and just when you think it will be totally unreadable it shifts into a much more entertaining mode, shifting between point of view of the four main characters - 8yr old Clifford, troubled teenage Annette, downtrodden housewife and mother Gillian and her horrible pompous husband (whose name I've already forgotten). initially this works very well, the story is touching and bleak, conveying Clifford's child's eye point of view with real perception and accuracy. But then it all becomes ridiculous again - melodramatic misery memoir style and finally just farcical with the most unlikely and forced character shifts. The male characters are all monsters but portrayed with sympathy. The female characters are either monsters or idiots, portrayed in either case with contempt. The story line seems to me to make insincere, cynical and superficial use of the themes of incest, child abuse, rape and forced prostitution in a thoroughly distasteful way. Despite the flashes of talent early on, the whole thing leaves a nasty taste. It is also much too long. Not recommended.

[Charles-Antoine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le début m'a paru très pénible plus par la forme que par le fond : l'auteur écrit un roman à plusieurs voix. La narrateur change au fil des personnages. On assiste donc à une vue de la même histoire sous la perspective de tous les personnages importants/principaux. C'est relativement dérangeant sur la première moitié. Ensuite, soit je me suis habitué soit l'histoire devenait de plus en plus terrifiante... Ce roman n'est pas mon préféré de J. Connolly mais il marque certainement ses lecteurs.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ce livre marque mon histoire personnelle : il s'agit de la première fois où j'ai abandonné la lecture d'un livre. Le style d'écriture est extrêmement lourd, j'en étais essouflée. Le changement de personnage m'étourdissait également. Je me dis encore que peut-être je manque un livre excellent, mais je suis incapable d'en terminer la lecture.

[Madeleine Decker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Comme toujours, j`aime ses romans.
Moins pissant que les autres, les personnages sont cependant plus touchants. J`ai eu un peu de difficulté avec les dialogues entre la mère et le fils au début mais en s`accrochant un peu, on le reste et jusqu`à la fin.