For two summers the Cazalets – grandparents, three sons and their wives, and their numerous children – gathered in their family country home. Caught up in their domestic dramas, they take little notice of the encroaching threat of war – at first.
This is the first of the five Cazalet Chronicles, a series which, drawing upon the experiences of the author and her own family, follows wealthy English family in trade through the turbulent years of World War 2 and its aftermath.
Being the first book, we get introduced to a large cast of characters, and much of the story is focused on building out where all of them are situated in these waning days of peacetime. It’s a sprawling clan depicted, and so plenty of dynamics at play – between husband and wife, between parents and children, between siblings – yet Howard does an amazing job at balancing them, and giving everyone a fair shake. I had both favorable and unpleasant first impressions upended again and again.
And yet while the nature of the family and the troubles they have are very ordinary throughout this book, I found myself engrossed all the same. You get a real feeling of being a fly on the wall, of seeing the whole picture and yet the little pieces of each characters’ perspective close up as well.
On the other hand, the long build up to the start of the war does make you quite aware that delightful as it may be, this is all a prelude to real action and catastrophe, so it’s a little annoying to just get cut off at the end of the book. Gone With the Wind is a book mentioned in this one – imagine if that story ended with Part I, and you get the idea. I do have the rest of the series ready to go though, so I can’t complain much.
