This is another stand alone novel by LMM. Along with The Blue Castle it is among the rare truly adult novels she wrote. Also like The Blue Castle it deals primarily with romance, but this time the spotlight is shared by a huge cast of interconnected characters. Basically it's the precursor to Love Actually - now I know why I love that silly film so much!
Plot:
The easiest way to approach the complex plot is to break it down by character:
Aunt Becky: The elderly matriarch of huge family clan - the Darks and Penahallows. These two branches have been marrying one another for as long as everyone can remember. Longtime widow Becky has a wicked sense of humor and keeps the clan in line with her sharp tongue. One day she calls a family meeting (a levee) and announces that she expects to die soon and may or may not have decided who will inherit the much coveted family heirloom - an old jug with a long history. The catch is that the heir will not be announced until a full year after her death. In the following months the clan members try to live their lives in a way that might impress Aunt Becky's executor.
Gay/Noel/Nan/Roger: These characters are involved in what I guess can best be called a 'love square'. At the start of the novel Gay is a sweet, young and idealistic woman newly engaged to Noel. The way LMM portrays the exhilaration and naïveté of first love is remarkably dead on! Gay is so intensely in love - feels it to the fiber of her being - that at one point she imagines that everyone can see that she's been recently kissed. Surely everyone can remember that intensity of first love – how you feel it coursing through your veins and coming out your pores. There is also a fabulous scene in which she looks around at a family gathering and feels sorry for everyone around her because they can't simply be as happy as she is in that moment. LMM captures the folly and vanity of youth so well here! Anyone with half a brain can see that this young lady is in for a rude awakening. Enter Gay's cousin Nan - a sophisticated and cruel young lady who makes it her mission to steal Noel away from Nan. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this doesn't prove to be a very hard feat. And I'm not giving much away as this all happens very early in the novel. Therefore, Gay spends much of the rest of the novel nursing her broken heart. Again, I'm struck by how well LMM portrays the despair of first heartbreak and how one is never quite the same afterwards (usually for the better!). Enter Roger who has always loved Gay, but offers friendship with no strings attached to heartbroken Gay.
Hugh/Jocelyn/Frank: Approximately 10 years before the novel starts Hugh and Jocelyn were very much in love, but on their wedding day immediately after the ceremony Jocelyn and Hugh had a mysterious falling out and separated. No one knows what happened except Hugh and Jocelyn and eventually Aunt Becky. Again, the secret is revealed rather early on - when Jocelyn set her eyes on Hugh's best man Frank she fell completely head over heels in love at first sight and went through the ceremony in a fog. Afterwards, however, she didn't feel she could live the lie and confessed to Hugh and moved back in with her family. But out of respect to Hugh she never acted on her feelings for Frank. Now she's been hearing rumors that Hugh is courting someone else and might soon request a divorce. All this is further complicated when Frank returns to town. The resolution to this mess has always delighted me to no end! It's one of my very favorite stories!
Donna and Peter: Peter is an impetuous young man who lives for adventure. Donna is a young widow. And for some reason they have always hated each other. But at Aunt Becky's meeting Peter sees Donna and I mean really *sees* her for the first time and falls terribly and ridiculously in love. What follows is one of the most hysterical fictional courtships of all time.
Margaret/Penny/Brian: Margaret is a sensitive little old maid. She loves to write poetry and most of the clan finds her ridiculous and she knows it. She longs to be independent, but doesn't have the means to do so. Brian is a little orphan who is severely mistreated by the family who took him in. This book has one of the most heartbreaking acts of cruelty I've ever read in an LMM novel when Brian's uncle drowns Peter's beloved cat quite on purpose. Penny is a pompous and confirmed bachelor who decides he should consider marriage as a means to please Aunt Becky's executor and hopefully have a chance at the jug. How these three lives are intertwined makes for a very funny and touching story.
Big Sam and Little Sam: This is my least favorite of all the storylines. The two Sams are long time bachelors who are best friends and roommates until a bitter falling out. It's also the storyline which produced the infamous final line of the book which reveals some of LMM's racism
Positives:
Again, where do I start? Certainly some plot elements are contrived and perhaps a bit predictable, but that's not why you read LMM - you read LMM for the vivid characterization. The overall theme of this novel seems to be a gentle satire of love in its many forms. LMM's gift is her ability to expose her characters’ weaknesses while still making them infinitely lovable and relatable. Avid readers of LMM will recognize some stock characters, but this has never bothered me no matter how many times I read this book. I find instead that it’s a bit like visiting with old friends.
And then there is her ever present keen social commentary - here it seems mainly to center around the familial and societal expectations that come along with small town life. A lot of people in this story must make a choice - either to follow their heart’s desire or stick with safety and convention.
Negatives:
Plot:
The easiest way to approach the complex plot is to break it down by character:
Aunt Becky: The elderly matriarch of huge family clan - the Darks and Penahallows. These two branches have been marrying one another for as long as everyone can remember. Longtime widow Becky has a wicked sense of humor and keeps the clan in line with her sharp tongue. One day she calls a family meeting (a levee) and announces that she expects to die soon and may or may not have decided who will inherit the much coveted family heirloom - an old jug with a long history. The catch is that the heir will not be announced until a full year after her death. In the following months the clan members try to live their lives in a way that might impress Aunt Becky's executor.
Gay/Noel/Nan/Roger: These characters are involved in what I guess can best be called a 'love square'. At the start of the novel Gay is a sweet, young and idealistic woman newly engaged to Noel. The way LMM portrays the exhilaration and naïveté of first love is remarkably dead on! Gay is so intensely in love - feels it to the fiber of her being - that at one point she imagines that everyone can see that she's been recently kissed. Surely everyone can remember that intensity of first love – how you feel it coursing through your veins and coming out your pores. There is also a fabulous scene in which she looks around at a family gathering and feels sorry for everyone around her because they can't simply be as happy as she is in that moment. LMM captures the folly and vanity of youth so well here! Anyone with half a brain can see that this young lady is in for a rude awakening. Enter Gay's cousin Nan - a sophisticated and cruel young lady who makes it her mission to steal Noel away from Nan. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this doesn't prove to be a very hard feat. And I'm not giving much away as this all happens very early in the novel. Therefore, Gay spends much of the rest of the novel nursing her broken heart. Again, I'm struck by how well LMM portrays the despair of first heartbreak and how one is never quite the same afterwards (usually for the better!). Enter Roger who has always loved Gay, but offers friendship with no strings attached to heartbroken Gay.
Hugh/Jocelyn/Frank: Approximately 10 years before the novel starts Hugh and Jocelyn were very much in love, but on their wedding day immediately after the ceremony Jocelyn and Hugh had a mysterious falling out and separated. No one knows what happened except Hugh and Jocelyn and eventually Aunt Becky. Again, the secret is revealed rather early on - when Jocelyn set her eyes on Hugh's best man Frank she fell completely head over heels in love at first sight and went through the ceremony in a fog. Afterwards, however, she didn't feel she could live the lie and confessed to Hugh and moved back in with her family. But out of respect to Hugh she never acted on her feelings for Frank. Now she's been hearing rumors that Hugh is courting someone else and might soon request a divorce. All this is further complicated when Frank returns to town. The resolution to this mess has always delighted me to no end! It's one of my very favorite stories!
Donna and Peter: Peter is an impetuous young man who lives for adventure. Donna is a young widow. And for some reason they have always hated each other. But at Aunt Becky's meeting Peter sees Donna and I mean really *sees* her for the first time and falls terribly and ridiculously in love. What follows is one of the most hysterical fictional courtships of all time.
Margaret/Penny/Brian: Margaret is a sensitive little old maid. She loves to write poetry and most of the clan finds her ridiculous and she knows it. She longs to be independent, but doesn't have the means to do so. Brian is a little orphan who is severely mistreated by the family who took him in. This book has one of the most heartbreaking acts of cruelty I've ever read in an LMM novel when Brian's uncle drowns Peter's beloved cat quite on purpose. Penny is a pompous and confirmed bachelor who decides he should consider marriage as a means to please Aunt Becky's executor and hopefully have a chance at the jug. How these three lives are intertwined makes for a very funny and touching story.
Big Sam and Little Sam: This is my least favorite of all the storylines. The two Sams are long time bachelors who are best friends and roommates until a bitter falling out. It's also the storyline which produced the infamous final line of the book which reveals some of LMM's racism
Positives:
Again, where do I start? Certainly some plot elements are contrived and perhaps a bit predictable, but that's not why you read LMM - you read LMM for the vivid characterization. The overall theme of this novel seems to be a gentle satire of love in its many forms. LMM's gift is her ability to expose her characters’ weaknesses while still making them infinitely lovable and relatable. Avid readers of LMM will recognize some stock characters, but this has never bothered me no matter how many times I read this book. I find instead that it’s a bit like visiting with old friends.
And then there is her ever present keen social commentary - here it seems mainly to center around the familial and societal expectations that come along with small town life. A lot of people in this story must make a choice - either to follow their heart’s desire or stick with safety and convention.
Negatives:
The second biggest complaint I hear about this novel is that it's confusing. This is due largely to the fact that the principle characters are all part of one big family clan - the Dark/Penhallow clan - and therefore names are repeated and if you don't pay close attention you might quickly lose the thread. This was never a problem for me as I've always been fascinated from start to finish with this story.
The biggest complaint concerns the last line of the book which freely uses the word nigger. It’s a difficult thing to reconcile when a writer whom you admire and seems so progressive in so many ways shows herself to be no better than many of her contemporaries on the issue of race. But I don’t think it does anyone any good to ignore or suppress this kind of thing. Why should we forget that intelligent people can hold woefully ignorant attitudes? It’s important to be aware that it’s not just evil, stupid people who do and say bad things and what a powerful (and not necessarily positive) force popular opinion can be in shaping individual attitudes.
Conclusion:
This book isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – not even all LMM fans seem to appreciate this one. It’s not with out its detractors. But for people who enjoy complex plots, rich characterization and smart, unconventional love stories this could be a great match. Along with The Blue Castle this is a book I would recommend to people who aren’t familiar or interested in LMM’s other work. This is an important distinction because there are a few works which are really only suited to the die-hard fan, but I’ll get to those in time.
Interesting Tidbits:
This book has a distinctly ‘modern’ feel. Before I read this one I always associated LMM with a more Victorian sensibility. Surely everyone remembers how Anne yearns for puffed sleeves? But in this book characters have bobbed hair and there is talk of automobiles. Nan, in particular, is clearly meant to be a 'flapper' type. The Blue Castle also has a more modern setting, but I didn’t read that one until recently. Also, the last Anne book (Rilla of Ingleside) is set partially during WW I – a time of great social change and upheaval. These are the kinds of things that remind me what a fascinating life LMM must have had – how many changes she must have witnessed.
P.S. I always think the characters on the cover (at the top) represent Jocelyn and Hugh, but a case could be made for Donna and Peter too.
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