While this book was well written, its content was depressing to me. This novel deals with a dysfunctional family with many alcoholic members. ( )

I'm not sure whether the book overall deserves 4 stars, but I certainly found parts of it to be worthy of that rank for me. As with the companion book, August, it attempts to describe the life of a family that is devastated by the effects of substance abuse and mental illness. For me, believability is always a big issue with any novel and in this case I found the family just a little beyond my experience (can any English family live without a fridge in the late 20th century?). That said, however, we are dealing with a family many of whose members are really on the borderline of 'normality' in terms of their lifestyle, world view, sexuality and day-to-day function. That failure to fit in with the surrounding society is, I suppose, what the book is all about. The consequences of failure to fit in are shown to have the potential to be devastating, and certainly I agree with Woodward's implication that this is a fundamental truth about the situation. Further, Woodward's exploration of the way families function and dysfunction was well worth reading for anyone who takes the family seriously. ( )

I wouldn't bother reading this if you're looking for a primer on alcoholism- that seems more like a marketing tactic than an important feature of the novel. Yes, there is plenty of addiction here, but it'll be incomprehensible if you haven't read 'August.' A lot of reviewers, as with August, complain that 'nothing' happens; that there's no character development; that the characters are unsympathetic. Just to be clear: what exactly is meant to happen in a novel that doesn't? There's death. There's love. There's adolescence, aging and divorce. There's worrying about the place of art in the modern world. There are money issues. The narrator doesn't tell you what's happening, you have to think about it for yourself, but there's very little that isn't very well motivated- except for those actions which are important because they're unmotivated. On top of all that, the writing is exquisite. If you eliminated the subject matter, this is what Jane Austen would be writing in the 21st century: amused and ironic stories about dreadful, awful events acted out by a cast of fools who are frighteningly realistic. If this and August had been one novel, it'd be the best novel I've read this year. ( )

Terrifying and unsettling. The resilience of family life in the face of generations of alcoholism, set against its tragic consequences. Woodward has a poet's eye for the minutiae of 70s life, spread across a decade of social change and ending on the cusp of the Thatcher era, where everything will change. The book is funny, but it's often a joke gone sour, stuck in arrested development. I found it savagely enlightening - and, appropriately, addictively readable.

Terrific, moving story of a family torn about by alcoholism. (That makes it sound like a depressing read. It's actually very funny and engaging.) ( )