Blogging Bert

I've long meant to read Miss Garnett's Angel (and have failed to do so), so it was a pleasant surprise to receive Cousins as a present.  I am a sucker for novels about families and this one exceeded my expectations.  Told in three female voices from three generations, the story revolves around two men.  The title is deceptively simple, the plot complex as it plays with the gaps and silences between people and generations. Each voice reveals more of the family's stories and secrets, none of which feels contrived. It is an epic, gripping story involving war and (for me some little-known British) politics which shape the domestic and the intimate. Religion and mysticism also shade the book's whole.  It is based on Salley Vickers' own family.  Part of her background as a trained psychotherapist provides her already substantial writing talent with a disarming insight into the characters who, for me, really lived within the pages.