Human Croquet

by Kate Atkinson

Part fairy tale, part mystery, part coming-of-age novel, this novel tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a girl growing up in Lythe, a typical 1960s British suburb. But Lythe was once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor named William Shakespeare, and as Isobel investigates the strange history of her family, her neighbors, and her village, she occasionally gets caught in Shakespearean time warps. Meanwhile, she gets closer to the shocking truths about her missing mother, her war-hero father, and the hidden lives of her close friends and classmates. A stunning feat of imagination and storytelling, Kate Atkinson's Human Croquet is rich with the disappointments and possibilities every family shares.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, British Literature

384 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Kate Atkinson was born in York and now lives in Edinburgh. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and she has been a critically acclaimed international bestselling author ever since.

She is the author of a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World, and of the critically acclaimed novels Human Croquet, Emotionally Weird, Case Histories, and One Good Turn.

Case Histories introduced her readers to Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, and won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.

When Will There Be Good News? was voted Richard & Judy Book Best Read of the Year. After Case Histories and One Good Turn, it was her third novel to feature the former private detective Jackson Brodie, who makes a welcome return in Started Early, Took My Dog.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

i give it a three even though i enjoyed reading it in a four star kind of way. the three star means there are better books by her out there, but that this one is fun, if imperfect. and it's a shame, because she really tells a good story. this one was just a little too ambitious with what it was trying to squeeze in, and there were too many storylines that either didn't connect gracefully, or had to be absorbed by inference. does that make sense?? i am inarticulate. towards the end it gets especially bumpy with several tacked-on epilogue-y things that broke up my reading flow. in conclusion, this is like Behind the Scenes at the Museum, but with a more experimental form that kind of breaks it.

come to my blog!

[Peter Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

My GR friends will know that I am a big Kate Atkinson fan. I sometimes feel that she doesn't get the critical acclaim she deserves - maybe it's because her books sell so well that she is often tagged as "Popular Fiction"? Anyway, Human Croquet is one that had passed me by until now. It doesn't seem to be talked about as much as her other novels, but I reckon it's up there with some of her best work.

16-year-old Isobel Fairfax is our narrator. She lives with her family in the run-down Fairfax Manor, located in Lythe, a village in the North of England. And quite a dysfunctional family it is. Her brother Charles is obsessed with alien abductions, while bad-tempered Aunt Vinny shares her bedroom with a herd of cats. Eliza, Isobel's mother went missing went she was a child, and her and Charles have never truly recovered from this. They search the house for mementoes of her, anything that can unlock precious memories. Her father Gordon has taken a second wife, but Isobel is not very keen on her. She still clings to a hope that her dear mother might someday return. But strangest of all, Isobel seems to have developed the ability to time travel - visions of past Lythe appear to her while see is out walking. What could it all mean?

I think the reason the story works so well is down to the voice of Isobel. She's an intelligent, witty girl, but self-critical and lonely. She has a huge crush on Malcolm, one of her school-friends, and you root for her to win him over. But I also enjoyed the mysteries of the plot - the riddle of Eliza is one thing, but the apparitions Isobel experiences left me scratching my head in wonder.

When the answer to this arrives, it seems so obvious, and I was kicking myself that I hadn't figured it out. Some reviews have complained that it is a hackneyed explanation, but for me, it worked. If I have one complaint about the book, it's that maybe there is too much going on. There are references to Shakespeare and Ovid (much of which went over my head) and the main story is bookended by some mythical echoes of the Fairfax family history. I didn't really care about these details and found myself skimming through them. But when Human Croquet focuses on Isobel, her profound longing for her mother and the tragic events surrounding her disappearance, that's when this story comes to life.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of Kate Atkinson's witty prose and oddball characters, but I have to admit that this novel had a degree of weirdness beyond that found in those of her novels which I have read to date. In a mix of first person and third person narratives, it tells the story of Isobel Fairfax, a teenage girl from a most peculiar family, who finds herself unaccountably slipping through pockets of time. And that's the most easily understood part of the plot, because as time goes on, Isobel's life becomes even stranger and increasingly out of control.

It took a while for me to get into the novel, as I found myself initially as annoyed by Isobel's smart mouth and sulleness as I had been charmed by Ruby, the narrator in Behind the Scenes at the Museum. After a while, the narrative became more compelling - but almost unbearably sad - as the reasons for Isobel being the way she is became clearer. Well, sort of clearer, because in many ways what's true and what's not is never entirely resolved as the narrative skip between various realities (or possibly unrealities).

The novel is scattered with literary allusions - the Shakespearean ones being the most obvious to me - and Atkinson's writing is rich in clever wordplay. But ultimately it's one of those works which is exhausting rather than completely satisfying and I can't help but wonder if lots of it went over my head. Overall, this was not an easy book to read and I can't say that the experience was one of unalloyed pleasure. The characters have haunted me though, so that says something about the power of Atkinson's prose.

This isn't a book to read if you need a linear structure, an easily comprehensible plot or a really satisfactory resolution. On the other hand, if you think you come from a dysfunctional family then you haven't met Isobel's relatives and maybe you should make their acquaintance. Or maybe Isobel's family isn't so dysfunctional after all. At the end of the novel I wasn't entirely sure about that point.

This was something good to share with my friend Jemidar, even if we didn't really know what was going on a lot of the time. If someone with a less interesting style had written the novel, I'm not sure whether I would have finished it or how I would have rated it. As it is, Atkinson's writing is impressive, but I don't like this novel nearly as much as Behind the Scenes at the Museum or her Jackson Brodie series. It therefore comes in at 3-1/2 stars.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you loved Atkinson's Life After Life or John Crowley's Little, Big, you have to read this immediately. The jacket copy hooked me, but the book isn't exactly as advertised. It's just as good, though weirder and more impressionistic than I expected--with enough threads of story to keep me in. I'm a plot junkie, but in Atkinson's hands I enjoyed the flights of micro-to-macro, universe-spanning fancy nearly as much as finding out ~what happens next~ Even when she's not writing about magic, her writing is magic. A strange and luminous standalone.

[Tarin Towers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you ever read a comedy of manners that involves time travel? Or a Gothic novel that takes place in the 1960s? Or a coming-of-age story whose rites of passage include meeting Shakespeare, witnessing several murders, burning down a house, and turning into a tree?

Kate Atkinson once again blew me away with this book. I had just finished reading "Case Histories" (5 stars), an unforgettable non-traditional mystery and expertly woven tale of identity and attachment, when I found "Human Croquet" on top of a phone box in my neighborhood. This copy has been read by a young adult who circled all the words she didn't know (quite a few in this very British book).

I'm not giving this book 5 stars, but I would give it four-and-a-half if I could. There are a few spots where, even in a book of alternate universes, there are some consistency problems, and a few places where the writing gets bogged down in descriptions of either philosophy or trees. (Interesting place to get bogged down, can't see the forest for, etc.)

But the humanity, humor, depth, charaterization, and attention to detail, as well as the caliber of the writing itself, make this a book I would recommend to anyone, particularly someone seeking a strong, teenage female heroine.

[Lorna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Human Croquet by one of my favorite British authors, Kate Atkinson, did not disappoint. Ms. Atkinson's writing is marked not only by beautiful and haunting prose but her sharp writing can only be described as audacious. Spending time with Kate Atkinson is always magical.

As the New York Times Review Notable Book of the Year reported, it is a part fairy tale, part mystery and part coming-of-age novel about Isobel Fairfax in the 1960's British suburb of Lythe, once the heart of an Elizabethan feudal estate and home to a young English tutor, William Shakespeare. As young Isobel becomes more and more taken in and fascinated by all of the history of the Fairfax estate, the people, and her family history, she sometimes becomes involved in Shakespearian time warps. This was one of Atkinson's earlier novels, but a wonderful addition to her literary accomplishments.

The play's the thing, but in this case a very bad thing and I shall draw a non-existent curtain over the Lythe Players' version of a 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' It is comic where it should be lyrical, tedious where it should be comic and there is not even the slightest speck of magic in it."

"I like it here, it's more restful than the present, wherever that is. I shall gather nuts and berries and make myself a nest in the hollow of a tree and become as nimble as a squirrel in my great sylvan home. Does this forest have an end, does it have distinct boundaries, where the trees stop, or does it go on forever, curling like a leafy shawl around the earth, making an infinity of the great globe?"

"If I look closely at the trunk of the tree, I can make out the famous faint initials of 'WS.' I embrace the Lady Oak like a lover, feel its bark, its age, its electricity. I close my eyes and kiss the faded initials What if it really was Shakespeare himself who carved his name here? What if we both had touched, embraced, admired, this same tree."

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wants to be in a cage match with McEwan's Atonement, but, lacking confidence in itself, straps some badly explained timetravel to its breasts and tries to distract everyone.

Incest! Timetravel! Stolen babies! More incest! Family history! Teenage debauchery! Groundhog Day! Murder! All that....and more. Coming up next on What The Actual Fuck Channel.

[Jemidar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Kate Atkinson but don't feel this novel is one of her best. Her prose style is still wonderful but this one seemed to lack her usual humour. In places I found it overwhelmingly sad and in others I was totally confused. The ending wasn't as satisfying as it might have been and I felt more than a little let down. Maybe when I've mulled it over a bit more I may feel differently. Still good though, if not particularly enjoyable because of difficult subject matter.

Buddy read with Kim :-).

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surreal but grounded, quirky but not frivolous, endearing and sad- this is a mystery of lost identity, lost souls, crimes of passion, time warps and warped minds. It's delicious, clever, unsettling, grim and guffaw-inducing. Atkinson is a category unto herself.

[Sibyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book more or less at one sitting.

I alternated between admiring this book - and getting quite cross with it. I thought it was a mess. But a brilliant one. On one level I admire the author's ambition. The book tries to be everything. It's a romance, a historical novel, a medidation on time and nature, a work of magic realism, a homage to Shakespearean comedy, and an inspired set of variations and improvisations.

In places the writing is wonderfully noir, and there are sections which are pure farce. (The best parts are where Kate Atkinson is noir and funny at the same time.) I especially loved the section in which Isabel, thesixteen year old heroine attends a party at which Malcolm the object of her affections is present. There are several different versions of this party, each one more horrific than its predecessor.

I didn't feel the book hung together, but I loved the author's fearlessness and ambition. It made me want to go back and reread 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' - and to tackle her more recent novels

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Opinions about this book seem to be divided. Some of the devoted readers of Kate Atkinson are disappointed, some love it. I belong to the second fraction. I was, I admit, slightly apprehensive before what is described as ”Shakespearean time warps” and frequent changing of perspective, but I found it all far more natural then expected. I loved Isobels sharp and witty voice that led me through this non-linear story as if I was a blindfolded ”ball” in the game of human croquet - from a hoop to hoop, not knowing what will happen next…
Mesmerizing and quite delicious.

[Catie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Infused with gothic melodrama, darkly comic and yet wistful, literate and playful. The narrator is deeply unreliable so those readers who prefer a straight tale will probably not like it although the book is an enthralling page turner. Yummy

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Human Croquet is narrated by Isobel Fairfax and is the story of her family and their neighbours in the village of Lythe. Isobel and Charles’ exotic mother disappeared when they were very young, followed soon after by their father, leaving the children in the care of their steely, old fashioned grandmother and their irascible Aunt Vinny. Even after their father returns several years later no one seems willing to talk about what happened or why. In fact, lots of people in Lythe are hiding things and keeping secrets to themselves, not least Isobel, who keeps finding herself slipping into other periods of time without any explanation.

This is in many ways a very odd book, but it was exactly my kind of odd. My family and I have always played word games and twisted phrases around on themselves, so Isobel’s narration reads rather like I think. The text is peppered with her humorous asides in which she pokes fun at herself: "He runs a hand through his dark curls and brushes them away from his handsome forehead, ‘You’re a good pal, Iz,’ he sighs. I am his friend, his ‘pal’, his ‘chum’ — more like a tin of dog food than a member of the female sex, certainly not the object of his desire."

At other people: "Malcolm Lovat. If I am to have a birthday wish it must be him. He is what I want for birthday and Christmas and best, what I want more than anything in the dark world and wide. Even his name hints at romance and kindness (Lovat, not Malcolm)."

And, probably my favourite, when she takes common idiomatic phrases to absurd (yet also supremely logical) lengths: "‘I’m just marking time at Temple’s,’ Charles says, in explanation of his remarkably dull outer life. (Ah, but what does he give it? B-? C+? He should be careful, one day time might mark him. ‘Och, without doubt,’ Mrs Baxter says, ‘that’s the final reckoning.’)"

Isabel’s narration is something that I suspect a reader will either love or hate, but for me it was one of the book’s main attractions.

Another aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed is the way that Atkinson plays around with motifs from fairy tales (Cinderella and Hansel and Gretel spring to mind immediately as examples). She gives the well-known stories subtle nods without ever explicitly copying them, in a way that suggests that all is not quite as it seems. I found it simultaneously reassuringly familiar as I recognised elements of particular stories and unbalancing as what I knew of those stories indicated that things were not going to go as I expected, which is really how the whole novel works: fundamentally a story about family relationships, it is quite happy to have characters turning into dogs or time travelling without any indication that this is somehow unusual.

Atkinson has an approach to writing about different time streams which I have never come across before, but is so wonderfully simple I wonder why it’s not more common. When Isobel is talking about events taking place in the main timeline of the novel, she writes in the present tense; when she narrates scenes from earlier on in her life, they are written in the past tense. The clear definition between what has happened and what is happening is particularly helpful given how confusing and uncertain the reality of the present becomes, and I found the technique to be a good one. Given my dislike of present tense narratives I was surprised by this. It turns out that I quite enjoy the present tense when it is used in a carefully considered manner and employed effectively.

Human Croquet is a bizarre and wonderful book which I suspect readers will either love as unreservedly as I did or find very odd indeed. Either way, it’s definitely worth trying.

[Kate George]

Here's the thing. I really enjoyed 'Case Histories,' and was looking forward to reading Human Croquet. Anticipated it.

But here's the rub, and this is the spoiler so don't read past here if you don't want to know, I think it's very bad form to mislead your reader. Less than a third of the way through the story something happens that the reader isn't told about. We continue reading thinking we are still in real life, when in reality everything that happens from that point in the story only happens in the protagonist's head. It's a dream.

It's a dream (or halucination) we and we arent' told it's a dream until the very end of the book. It's not real. And it's a cheat.

Bad form, in my book.

What would have cleared it was if Ms. Atikinson had told us the truth. If she had mentioned that our protagonist has hit by a falling tree, everything from there on out would have been okay with me. I wouldn't need to be told that the protagonist was unconcious. I would have been okay with any of the strange happenings, I only needed to be told that something happened.

To leave out that fact, well I'll say it again: It's a cheat and it does a disservice to the reader.

[Rebecca]

This reminded me of a cross between The Crow Road by Iain Banks and The Heavens by Sandra Newman, what with the teenage narrator and a vague time travel plot with some Shakespearean references. I put it on the pile for this challenge because I’d read it had a forest setting. I haven’t had much luck with Atkinson in the past and this didn’t keep me reading past page 60.

[Sandra Deaconu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poate e nedrept că recenzia mea e negativă pentru că aș fi putut evita asta dacă nu mă apuca îndrăzneala să citesc despre călătorii în timp. Este poate cel mai insuportabil subiect pentru mine, dar mi-au plăcut prea mult coperta și titlul ca să nu încerc. Scriitura mi s-a părut că aduce a cea a lui Kate Morton din Fiica ceasornicarului. La fel de amețitoare în sensul rău, inutil de complicată și obositoare, dar cu pasaje poetice pe alocuri. Din cât am reușit să citesc din această carte nu am rămas decât cu o stare de somnolență. Știu că ambele Kate sunt foarte apreciate, așa că poate pur și simplu nu mă prinde pe mine stilul lor. Cert e că Atkinson m-a speriat și nu cred că vreau să o mai văd. Recenzia aici: https://bit.ly/3c6Hy3h.

,,Exista însă un mister tainic în inima unei păduri.
Când pădurea era tăiată și culcată la pământ, unde se ducea misterul? Unii spun că în pădure trăiau iele - făpturi dușmănoase, năzuroase (copiii nescăldați ai Evei), nefaste sub lumina lunii, care bântuiau cu gânduri rele pe dâmburile acoperite cu cimbrișor-de-câmp, ascultând furioase zgomotul securilor uzurpatoare. Unde s-au dus ielele când pădurea n-a mai fost? Dar lupii? Cu ei ce s-a întâmplat? (Faptul că nu poți vedea un lucru nu înseamnă că lucrul acela nu este acolo.)"

[Magill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book certainly presents me with a conundrum. The good: the writing style - it a pleasure to read; so jam-packed that, what in other books might seem overdone, here it was relatively light-hearted and literate. The moderate: the initial light-heartedness of the narrative belied the delicate, familiar strains of melancholy and fate, as the characters were lost and had suffered loss and had never entirely recovered.

The book is an interesting ... melange, I am not even entirely certain how to describe. There are segment headings of past and present, which is not unusual, with the young narrator, Isobel, in the present, while the past segments tell the family tale. The 1st 3rd of the book has a bit of seeming time travel, and general oddity, but nothing to cause concern. The next 3rd, becomes odder, and the past, sadder. The final 3rd becomes downright surreal, and the limits to suspension of disbelief are reached. The over-all resolution to the story is an interesting exercise but essentially deconstructs the entire story and unravels the sympathy created for the characters by re-creating different versions of events. This would be the not so good part of the book, to me. While an interesting exercise, it is not one which really emotionally engages the reader, but perhaps that was not the author's intention - maybe she wanted to play with time and perspective in a pseudo-magical realism kind of way.

That being said, I still preferred this over "Behind the Scenes at the Museum"... for some reason, I think because of the lightness of the style and maybe because the unpleasantness of some of the characters were not revealed quite so early on... plenty of unhappiness to go round though.

[L.B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm torn about this book. On one hand I loved it. It's an impressive book. The writing is fantastic, superb, unique. I mean, she is a master at her craft. The structure is outstanding and also unique. It was one of those books that kept me up past my bedtime reading. And I'd walk around the house thinking about these characters and what was happening to them and I'd say to my husband (or whoever would listen) "This book is just so weird. Like, in a good way. One of the most unique things I've ever read."
However, the explanation for all of the weird events in the book turned out to be the most cliched (not to mention a cop out) explanation ever and a total disappointment! I can't say what it is, because I don't want to spoil it. So, on one hand I'd give this book five stars, and on the other hand two stars, so I settled somewhere in the middle.
And even after the disappointing ending, I just might read it again. Just for the experience of the prose.

[Lisa (NY)]

dnf at page 120.

[Gail Goetschius · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is well written and chock full of eccentric characters realistically rendered. I'm rather fond of teenage characters( all those years of teaching high school) and Isobel is an endearing narrator . Her wry and witty perceptions of life prevent the tragic experiences she encounters from becoming too overwhelmingly depressing.

While I expected time travel to play a more significant role in the book it seemed almost an afterthought . I usually don't enjoy that type of thing but this was fun. I did get somewhat frustrated by all the alternate realities in the final quarter of the book. The traditionalist in me wanted to know the "real" story, but that is Atkinson's point...that lies with the storyteller who "knows how it ends".

I particularly loved the title of the book. On one level it is fun to imagine a quaint and happy family playing the corny games in Mrs. Baxter's book of entertainments. It would certainly never happen in any of the drastically dysfunctional families in the novel. On another level Atkinson is playing Human Croquet with the reader. We are sent off in one direction, blind to other possibilities, when suddenly we are ordered to stop and are sent in an entirely different direction through a different hoop.

Atkinson is a highly clever and creative writer. I'm definitely going to keep reading her.

[Elliot Ratzman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spoiler alert. The cleverness of the writing and the occasional insightful observation did not redeem this novel for me. Isobel is a sour, middling, middle-class teenager in 1960s Britain dealing with square peg friends, a vanished (murdered) mother, a distant father, an inept stepmother, etc. The fairy tale aspects of the plot left me cold; the frequent family violence and sexual taboos were without the requisite emotional impact or narrative weight. Characters die, young women are impregnated by fathers, even the main character has sex with her dreamy half-brother. If you blink, you’d miss these events. What is edifying about all this? Nothing. More insulting is the random time-travelling that the protagonist undergoes, to no apparent narrative significance. This could have been a novel of ideas or at least of emotional seriousness. Instead it is an extended dream sequence. The story is framed by forests; the trees endure before and after the follies of humans. Yes, yes, but so what?

[Erika · Rating 4 out of 5]

En smågalen berättelse skriven på ett språk som ibland blir drastiskt underhållande. Vad är sanning, vad är saga, vad är dröm och vad är verklighet? Bitvis är det en berättelse om en familj lika dysfunktionell och tragisk som Angela's Ashes av Frank McCourt. Jag tänker på den för att jag minns hur svårt jag hade för den i höstas, att jag inte klarade av misären. Jag tänker också på den för att jag numera klarar av att läsa om misär utan att gå i bitar själv. På det sättet blir Human Croquet ännu en milstolpe i berättelsen om mitt litterära tillfrisknande (Väinö Linnas Högt bland Saarijärvis moar var en annan minnesvärd sådan.)
Den här boken får mig också att förstå att Kate Atkinson är djupt fascinerad av tidsresor och parallella verkligheter – det här är ju ett tema jag känner igen från Liv efter liv, min absoluta favoritroman av Atkinson, skriven många år senare.
Jag lyssnade på ljudboken, och det gjorde det stundvis svårt att hålla reda på personerna. Delvis därför, delvis för att händelseutvecklingen tar väldigt överraskande vägar, har jag en liten lust att läsa om den här, på papper.

[Mary Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

To say this is bizarre is a woeful understatement. If you think Atkinson plays with time and space in Life After Life, you ain't seen nothin' yet. I think she honed her skills in this, the earlier novel. It's very much a fairy tale (of the grim Grimm variety; I think of The Little Mermaid and The Happy Prince). The characters of Isobel and her family are neither as nuanced or as likeable as those of Ursula and the Todds in Life. I liked it for the beautiful writing and for the adventurousness and experimentation of the author, but it is sort of a charming mess.

[CanadianReader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely adore this book. I feel I rediscovered the absorptive reading experiences of childhood and young adulthood. Not a conventional book but interesting,clever, and affecting.

[Vityska · Rating 4 out of 5]

У випадку з детективами Кейт Аткінсон затерта метафора про скелети в родинних шафах більш ніж доречна. Вони, ці скелети, у шафках і креденсах, схоже, лежать штабелями. І щойно читач необережно проходить повз них, вивалюються йому на голову. Навіть якщо читач затулятиметься руками й гукатиме: "Годі, я не хочу більше нічого знати!" - авторка його не пощадить. Принаймні, у "Людському крокеті" саме так: ти муситимеш дізнатися усі таємниці роду Ферфаксів довжиною у 300 років і його відгалужень, хочеш ти цього чи ні.
Все починається як історія 16-річної Ізобель. За свій недовгий вік вона вже наковталася всілякого - то мама зникла, то тато пропав, потім, правда, повернувся, але з "новою мамкою". А ця новозеландська простакувата "мамка" Деббі - геть нерівня вишуканій Елайзі, їхній справжній мамі, яка так зникла, кажуть - втекла. Правда, й образ Елайзи геть вивітрився з пам'яті дітей. Ізобель і її брат Чарльз (рудий, веснянкуватий, некрасивий, дослідник загадкового і надприродного) намагаються сконструювати образ мами з деталей і артефактів, які час від часу знаходять у домі. От тільки справжня причина маминої "втечі" куди жахливіша версій про банальний адьюльтер.
Взагалі це дуже заплутана історія, яка розвивається у кількох площинах - минуле, від початку часів і від першої леді Ферфакс, через усі гілки роду аж до Ізобель. Флешбеки не завжди пов'язані з оповіддю-в-реальному-часі.Ба більше, те, що відбувається "тут-і-тепер" - не завжди відбувається в реальності. На героїню (а відтак і на читача) читають розриви часо-просторового континіуму, паралельні реальності і безліч інших химер.
А ще це дуже жіночий роман. Бо саме жінки - представниці різних поколінь сімейства і не тільки - головні рушії, сильні персонажі...і головні жертви у всій цій історії. Хотіла написати, що "жіноче щастя- це не про них", але зрозуміла, що вони просто далекі від звичайного людського щастя. Чим більше замкнених скриньох родинних історій відкривається перед тобою - тим більше з них виходить прикростей і горя. Інцести ведуть хоровод за руки з насильством у сім'ї, викрадення сусідять із вбивствами. Гріхи верховодять, гріхи (власні чи батьківські) змінюють життя. Під кінець хочеться кричати. Хоча авторка завершує оповідь майже оптимістично.
Важливим плюсиком є прекрасний стиль оповіді. Це така вишукана суміш шекспірівської лірики і підліткового цинізму, де компоненти взаємно врівноважують одне одного. Не знаю жодного подібного тексту, якому вдалося б настільки вдало поєднати речі з зовсім різних площин.
А ще цей текст повний несподіванок. Тому не дивуйтеся, що зустрінете на його сторінках самого містера Шекспіра. І не дивуйтеся, коли космологічні роздуми раптом перетворяться у закручений детектив. І будьте уважні - до людей і до імен. Одне із них, побіжно згадане лише раз, виявиться вкрай важливим для розуміння того, що ж там, в біса, сталося.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

While this book wasn't quite as good as Behind the Scenes at the Museum A Novel, it had many of its strong points -- excellent writing and characterization, acerbic wit, good pacing, etc. It was also more creative and postmodern, which I found to be both a strength and a weakness.

Sixteen-year-old Isobel is a member of the Fairfax family, a long line of cursed individuals. And Isobel's life, like that of her predecessors certainly is miserable. Her mother disappeared permanently when she was young, and she continues to hope for her return as she struggles with becoming a woman and fantasizes about having a mother's guidance. Her father disappeared shortly after her mother, leaving young Isobel and her brother Charles to be raised by a crabby divorced aunt. Her father does return seven years later, but with an unlikeable wife who is becoming increasingly eccentric. In short, none of the adults in Isobel's life seem particularly invested in her, with the exception of her neighbor Mrs. Baxter, who has serious problems of her own. Isobel's older brother Charles leads a dead-end life and frequently retreats into a fantasy world. And then there's Isobel herself, struggling with adolescent unrequited love on top of everything else as she tries to make sense of her life, an effort which is hampered by a disturbing tendency to find herself going back in time unexpectedly and discovering alternate versions of her past, and even her present.

I usually hate postmodern stuff, so I was pleasantly surprised when the constant alternate realities didn't bother me. There's still that stick-in-the-mud part of me that would have preferred a more coherent story, but I didn't feel nearly as strongly about that as I usually do. I actually enjoyed reading the book a lot. I did find parts of the story line overly dark, though, which I've come to expect from Atkinson but still found disturbing -- way too much incest, adultery, and Machiavellianism for my tastes. That's why, despite its great qualities, I could only give this four stars. But if you like Atkinson, you'll definitely like this one.

[Jill Lawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came across this book in a second-hand bookshop and thought " Wow, a Kate Atkinson I've never heard about!". Now I know why. It is, overall, a pretty bad book. Yes, the writing is as good as you would expect, and there are many little gems sprinkled through, but what was she thinking? How many genres was she trying to cover? Where was her sympathy for a loyal reader? I kept intermittently thinking "Oh that's what really happened" or "I see, that didn't really happen" until the end. And then I was still confused. Most unsatisfactory. But, thank you, Kate, for many happy hours with your other books.

[Deb · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Experimental style" are words that usually put me off reading something; "by Kate Atkinson" are words that always pull me in. And that's how it is with this: it's imaginative and Atkinson is clearly taking her writing skills for a walk, and there are bits where it sort of goes off-piste a bit - but overall, it works. I found myself drawn into the atmosphere and the characters and admiring the title for its cleverness and appropriateness. Not my favourite Atkinson to date, but certainly recommended.

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow wow wow can't put in to words how Mas that was. The first half of the book typical 5 star Kate stuff and then its like she took an acid tab and takes us along for the ride. Was just gasping and laughing at the things she was coming up with. Sooooo dark yet so funny !!
I would say only for the hardcore Kate fans some people could find it annoying. I LOVED it

[Thewife Ofbrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like all Kate Atkinson's books, this is a deep, clever, whip smart and intelligent story.