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A review by claire_fuller_writer
Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg
4.0
I've also just finished The Green Road by Anne Enright (which has also just been long-listed for the Man Booker), and they both share a similar structure - chapters given over to different narrators. I've given them both 4 stars, but I think I enjoyed this slightly more. More story, more drama than The Green Road, but that's also why this didn't make 5-stars perversely: too much story, too much drama. The other thing about its structure is that everything is reported to us; there is no dialogue, and whilst this works for the main characters, there is a large number of supporting characters (which I sometimes lost track of) and in their short sections it sometimes reads as though they are giving a police report to an officer.
But these are nit-picking things. The characterisation is wonderful. I cared deeply for June, Cissy, and Lydia and what would become of them (too neatly tied up perhaps). I loved the languid pace, the language.
Highly recommended.
But these are nit-picking things. The characterisation is wonderful. I cared deeply for June, Cissy, and Lydia and what would become of them (too neatly tied up perhaps). I loved the languid pace, the language.
Highly recommended.