ALBION by Anna Hope, reviewed by Linda Newbery

 

"Combines typical ingredients of the big house novel and family saga with deep questions about individual responsibility, whether wrongs of the past can be righted, how we adapt to climate change and nature loss, and what kind of future we can shape."

Linda Newbery edits Writers Review. She is a writer, reviewer and active campaigner on animal and environmental issues. Her latest novel, published earlier this year, is The One True Thing. 

The big country house as a fictional setting has enduring appeal. Names come readily to mind: Downton Abbey, Brideshead, Manderley, Mansfield Park, Brandon Hall (see Graeme Fife's recent review of The Go-Between) and countless more, including the recent Saltburn. The house in Anna Hope's latest novel differs from these others in never being named, though it's certainly as grand as any of them - an eighteenth-century Greek Revivalist mansion standing in a thousand acres of Sussex pasture and woodland. The name we focus on isn't that of the house, but of the Albion Project - a ten-year rewilding project that certainly owes much to the influential and nearby Knepp Castle estate, obliquely referred to. As with the Knepp project, the ambition of owner Philip Ignatius Brooke and daughter Frannie is to extend beyond their own boundaries, creating a green corridor that will reach through Sussex and Kent countryside to the sea. 

Now Philip has died, and the novel's action takes place over five days in May during which the family reassembles for his funeral. Of his three children only Frannie, the eldest, still lives there, and is in the process of moving with her young daughter into the main house, while Philip's widow, Grace, will take over their cottage. Philip himself had inherited house and estate at just eighteen when both parents were killed in a car crash; he set up what became known as 'the English Woodstock', a festival known and fondly remembered as The Teddy Bears' Picnic. There he met his future wife, leading to a marriage from which she wishes she'd had the courage to escape. While she remained at home with the children,  he did escape - to New York, where he settled for years with another partner (and possibly another child?) before returning and zealously taking up the rewilding scheme.

Anna Hope loses no time in showing us the spiky relationships and resentments of the three grown-up children, Frannie, Isa and Milo. Frannie is named as heir in their father's will, to the disapproval of brother Milo; she in turn is impatient with Isa, who's barely been in contact; Milo, recovering from various kinds of addiction, plans an exclusive rural retreat in the grounds in which, bizarrely, he aims to convert the 1% who can afford it into benevolence that will benefit the whole of society. Frannie, faced with paying millions in inheritance tax, is desperate to find the money somehow, fretting as she tries to write her father's eulogy; Grace, relieved to exchange the house she hates for the cottage, has ambivalent feelings about her late husband and how she'll express them at his funeral. Isa, distancing herself from wealth and privilege, is a teacher in London, scornful of her sister's enterprise: "The shepherd's huts, the yurts, the caravan serving lattes to middle-aged white people while they sit on hay-bales and chatter about their Pilates teachers and their dogs. A theme park for solvent fifty-somethings, all of it about as wild as a fucking printed tea-towel." Meanwhile, seven-year-old Rowan is showing what her class teacher sees as a disturbing fascination with bodily decomposition after death.

Into this potent mix comes a young American PhD student, Clara, with a bombshell to drop. Most readers will see what's coming, but that doesn't lessen the impact when she chooses her moment to reveal the source of the estate's wealth. With mesmerising clarity, calmness and precision she compels the family to listen, making eloquent use of her encounter with Rowan playing with a box of shells.

What next? How will these descendants of Oliver Ignatius Brooke adjust to the knowledge of the vast injustices (more than one) that underpin their privilege?

I first came across this novel when it was dramatised as Radio 4's Book of the Week earlier this year. There, I thought the repercussions of Clara's revelation were disappointing, too glibly and swiftly dealt with, so I wanted to see how Anna Hope handles this in the novel. Even here, though, I'm not sure. There are various reconciliations: too many and still too quickly, because of the constraints of the five-day structure. Frannie is the one whose ending is left most open-ended and uncertain as she confronts difficult questions, both practical and ethical.

That reservation aside, I found Albion utterly compelling: it combines typical ingredients of the big house novel and family saga with deep questions about individual responsibility, whether - and how - wrongs of the past can be righted, how we adapt to climate change and nature loss, what kind of future we can attempt to shape and who will benefit. The pace is leisurely enough to draw us fully into the family's concerns, while never seeming slow; tensions crackle off the page while the depictions of the natural world are vivid and immediate, whether portraying the woodland in May extravagance, the brisk extermination of a pregnant mink or the dawn song of a nightingale. I hadn't read Anna Hope before, so this is a very impressive introduction.

Albion is published by Penguin.

See also Anna Hope's Expectation, reviewed by Claire Grint of Cogito Books, Hexham.

Linda Newbery's The One True Thing is published by Writers Review Publishing.

SUMMER ROUND-UP by Adèle, Celia and Linda

Adèle Geras, Celia Rees and Linda Newbery are the hosts of Writers Review. Here we each share two books that have impressed us recently and one or more titles we're planning to read next. 

Linda's choices:

In The Lost Rainforests of Britain, Guy Shrubsole has almost single-handedly raised public awareness of the temperate rainforests we have in Britain – often in damp microclimates where a deep gorge creates the right conditions of moistness and protection from wind. He’s an engaging writer and the book ranges widely, recounting expeditions with his partner or friends to remote places in Wales or the West Country, describing in detail the species found in these ecosystems, and exploring references in poetry and folklore. We justifiably criticise other countries for destroying their rainforests, but Shrubsole points out that we're largely unaware of how much of our own has been lost. His campaign has resulted in government acknowledgment of these precious habitats and a commitment to protecting and restoring them. 

I went straight on to Guy Shrubsole's more recent The Lie of the Land (clever title) - an angrier but equally informative book that looks at who owns land in Britain (the wealthiest 1% owns 50% of it), what they do with it, and how they deny access to the rest of us. You won't be surprised to hear that Guy Shrubsole was a leading figure in the successful challenge to Dartmoor landowner Alexander Darwall when he attempted to ban wild camping. Shrubsole is outraged about the (mis)management of huge areas of moorland for grouse shooting, which includes practices such as burning moorland and the illegal slaughter of birds of prey, foxes and anything classed as 'vermin' which might reduce grouse numbers - all this subsidised by taxpayers. The mass release of pheasants each year, again in the interests of the shooting minority, receives equal condemnation - in what other circumstance would the widespread release of a non-native species into the countryside be considered acceptable, at a time when bird flu is rife and we're all aware of the risks of another pandemic? As recent parliamentary debates have shown, it's down to the lobbying power of those with vested interests in shooting estates. More optimistically, Shrubsole looks at instances of communal purchase of land for the benefit of all and for nature restoration. 

As for the books I'm looking forward to, I'm treating myself to a re-reading of Judith Allnatt's touching and beautifully-written The Poet's Wife, which tells the story of poet John Clare's descent into madness from the point of view of Patty, his wife. I first read this ten or more years ago and am now delighted to see it reissued in our own imprint, Writers Review Publishing. With wonderful evocations of the Northamptonshire countryside and rural life, it begins with Patty's deep concern when her husband John, who's walked eighty miles from a lunatic asylum in Epping Forest, appears to believe that he's still married to his first love, Mary. How will Patty cope, as his behaviour becomes increasingly delusional?

I'm also tempted by Anna Hope's Albion, having been captivated by the abridged version as Radio 4's Book of the Week. With a funeral, a will, a privileged family, a big country house, complex relationships and a big surprise sprung on the gathered relatives, it has elements in common with my own novel, which Celia's kindly chosen below. Here, no spoilers, but the revelation brought by outsider Clara shocks the family out of its smugness and leaves them with a difficult dilemma to face.  

And I can't omit to mention that I'm currently in thrall to Barbara Kingsolver's Demon Copperhead. It's been sitting on my reading pile for some time but now that I've started, I can't wait to get back to it - a marvellous and moving novel whether or not you're familiar with David Copperfield, which it cleverly shadows.

Celia's choices:

I have been reading…

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. The house of the title is in Elk Park, a prosperous suburb of Pennsylvania. It is A large mansion, built in the 1920s, with a glass frontage ‘as big as storefront windows’. The use of glass in the design makes it possible to see right through it, which cannot be said of the characters who come to live there. The house is more than a setting – it is a powerful and enduring presence in the novel with a deep and lasting effect on those who inhabit it. The characters change. The house does not. It is named, not for the design, but for the Van Hoebeeks, the originally owners. It is acquired in 1946 by Cyril Conroy, a real estate developer, who buys it and moves in with his wife and two children, Danny and Maeve. He leaves the contents intact including a library of Dutch books no-one can read and large portraits of the Van Hoebeeks. Nothing about the house changes. It is as if his family have no impact on it. The house affects them, however. The mother loathes it and leaves house, husband and children. Cyril quickly installs a young widow, Andrea, with two children of her own. Danny and Maeve are pushed out, underlining the book’s fairy tale quality. Told over five generations, Pratchett continually plays on fairy tale elements and archetypes: rags to riches, absent fathers, neglectful mothers, abandoned children, wicked stepmothers, faithful retainers but it is done with such skill and delivered with such laconic, casual insouciance by narrator, Danny, that it all seems completely natural.

Our own Linda Newbery also has an iconic house, Wildings, and more importantly an iconic and beautiful garden in her novel The One True Thing. The garden is created by Bridget, a renowned gardener, who is married to Anthony who owns the house. There are two narrators, Bridget herself and her daughter, Jane. With echoes of E.M Forster’s Howard’s End and Dickens' Bleak House, the novel revolves around a death and a quirky will which leaves the future of house (and garden) in doubt. Her mother having pre-deceased her father, daughter Jane is doubly bereaved. The garden and the idyllic rural surroundings are so beautifully described that the reader begins to feel the imminent loss as acutely as Jane does. She is forced to confront not only the threat to her home, but a complex set of revelations that strike at her core beliefs about her family. The skilfully handled dual narrative gradually reveals the lies, evasions and emotional complexities of the past, leading to a resolution where past and present can be reconciled.

Having recently read The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie, I'm now looking forward to The Claw of Attraction by the same author. Plucked as a tiny, dying kitten from the streets of New Delhi by His Holiness The Dalai Llama (who just happens to be passing - not coincidence {obv.} but karma), the eponymous heroine re-counts her life as HHC: His Holiness's Cat. Her day to day encounters and challenges, from the temptations offered by over generous food providers (she is, after all, the Dalai Lama’s Cat) to the sudden arrival of a dog, an abandoned Lhasa Apso, serve as lessons in timeless Buddhist wisdom, compassion and the way to true contentment. As a cat owner and therefore lover, I found The Dalai Lama’s Cat utterly charming and deceptively wise. It would work for dog lovers, too. Don’t like animals? What’s wrong with you?

Adèle's choices:

This year, I have discovered a writer I'd never heard of before and I really want to introduce her to readers of this blog. Her name is Laurie Colwin and she died in 1992 at the age of 46. She was mainly known as a short story writer and especially a food writer during her lifetime but her novels are wonderful and deserve the attention of anyone who is interested in the texture of life and relationships, food and houses, animals and children .... I'm highlighting her last novel, which was published posthumously in 1993. It's called A Big Storm Knocked it Over and it's about a woman preparing for her own wedding, while also working at a publishing house where she is the editor in charge of illustrations in adult books. Her run ins with recaltricant writers who will not listen to her excellent advice, her beautifully depicted dealings with her fiancé and her friends and the toings and froings with regard to the wedding...everything takes you straight in, and you're part of the proceedings which are described with grace, humour and attention to detail. She's comparable to Anne Tyler in her ability to absorb you into what's happening on the page, seemingly without any effort. Her writing, sentence to sentence, is elegant and considered and engaging. Here is a tiny example, picked at random: "The enormous manuscript of In the Polar Regions by Hugh Oswald-Murphy, had been placed on Jane Louise's desk three times and taken back three times by Erna Hendershot. Then, just as Jane Louise felt she had a grip on what this thing should look like, Erna would appear in a tearing rush and inform her that the author had added to it or taken something away, or that most likely it had been pushed off the spring list or that he had decided that some Eskimo artist would do little line cuts to be scattered throughout, and furthermore that his photographs -still to come- would have to be keyed in.

I really loved this book and have also read Home Cooking and More Home Cooking which are superb and also contain recipes in plenty. She's a writer to take to your heart.

If you’ve not come across the four police procedural novels of Simon Mason (The Wilkins and Wilkins books) then I urge you to find them and read them in the right order. I don’t think nearly enough readers have discovered them and they’re very good indeed.

Even fewer readers will know about the Finder novellas. These are short, spare books in which a man, who calls himself The Finder, turns up in a place (in the case of The Woman Who Laughed it’s a rather drab suburb of Sheffield) and sets about finding someone who has disappeared. In Sheffield, a young sex worker who was murdered some time ago is seen on a bus…. Then she disappears again…. The Finder begins to follow threads which lead into many strange places.

He always takes a novel with him when he travels. In this book, it’s Persuasion by Jane Austen. His reflections on the novel add to this reader’s pleasure.

My advice? Read Simon Mason!

Two books I’m looking forward to:

I’ve just downloaded Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. His name seems to suit the subject very well. It’s about fungi which have complicated networks of communication and which behave in all kinds of very fascinating ways. I love books that open up a whole new world and I am looking forward greatly to learning much more about mushrooms than the fact that they’re delicious when they’re not poisonous.

And I’m about to start on a new novel by Stephen King. It’s called Never Flinch and is a follow up to a terrific and very gory thriller starring the private detective Holly Gibney. That’s called Holly. This story involves a murderer who embarks on a plan to kill 12 innocent people, to avenge the death of a prisoner who has just been stabbed to death in gaol…. but who was falsely imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.

One thing is sure: never a dull moment in a King book, and this one looks terrific!

Happy reading and have a great summer….

Independent Bookseller Feature no 14: Claire Grint of COGITO BOOKS, Hexham, chooses EXPECTATION by Anna Hope

"Beautifully realised characters, elegant, emotionally direct prose and clever fluid structure." 

"Cogito Books has been in my family since we first opened our doors in 2001. I became much more involved with the shop after graduating, so it was a natural transition for me to take over the business when my Dad retired. With a small but dedicated team of three experienced booksellers, we put the customer at the centre of everything we do – and we love nothing better than sharing recommendations and talking about books.

A family business from the outset, Cogito Books was established by my Dad back in 2001. I joined him in 2005, then  took over when he retired in July 2012. I love books and people, so running a bookshop has always been a perfect combination for me. The relationships we build with customers are absolutely central to what we do – and nothing beats the feeling of helping someone to find the perfect book and hearing that they enjoyed it.

What makes our bookshop unique? The relationships we build with customers are absolutely central to what we do – from discovering their reading tastes to knowing the details of their lives. We’re lucky to be at the centre of a thriving community, running three monthly book groups in addition to author events and weekly storytelling sessions for children. Customers often comment on the sheer range and breadth of books we stock; being independent, we’re lucky to be able to get behind books we love and to provide a curated, personalised experience." Claire Grint

See more on our website.

This novel is utterly luminous; the lives of friends Cate, Hannah and Lissa leaping straight out from the page and resonating in the very deepest sense, as we’re invited to recognise and celebrate the experiences which mould us as human beings. The novel pivots around the year 2010, where we find Cate struggling to cope with new motherhood and her in-laws, Hannah undergoing gruelling IVF treatment and Lissa beginning to think that she’s running out of time to achieve success as an actress. The past is then woven into the present, with subsequent sections diving back through the years to reveal more about the roots of the women’s friendship; the experiences which created it and those which are beginning to fracture it on both subtle and dramatic lines. 

The issues in the novel are ones we can all recognise; examining friendship, feminism and family in our complicated century. The beautifully realised characters, elegant, emotionally direct prose and clever fluid structure create a portrait of lives both full and vivid yet tinged with the melancholy of regret. The novel tells of chances not taken, of mistakes made; of the gap between expectation and our often painful, compromised yet ultimately precious reality.

Expectation is published by Transworld.

Personal book recommendation

Team 20th birthday celebration: Claire Grint, Hilary McCallum and Jenny Tattersall