Family Dynamics

~ Cousins, by Salley Vickers ~

There could have been no other possible title as apt for this novel, as Cousins. This is a novel of family love, love between cousins of various generations, love between siblings, parents, aunts, grandmothers, etc.

Cousins tells the story of the Tye family, beautifully set within the landscapes of Northumberland and Cornwall, depicting both sets of geographies with great affection and detail. This review is not going to provide a plot synopsis, because there is almost no way to avoid spoilers if so, but it can tell the potential reader that the novel is written from the POVs of several of the key characters, which is an important plot device in this narrative which depends in no small part on who knew what and when, and how much. It is very much a novel of how a family interacts, the family dynamics, of how despite such closeness and love, there are still so many secrets – and increasingly as the novel unfolds, one realises more and more than the secrets are because of so much closeness and love.

There is something charmingly old-fashioned about this type (form) of writing, which puts one in mind of authors like Rosamunde Pilcher, for instance. It is quite a distinctly feminine kind of consciousness, and the storytelling spins the narrative with care into the domestic and the everyday, with the myriad little dips and turns of that which could so easily be mundane, but in Vicker’s hands, is quietly absorbing. Despite the length of the novel, and despite it seeming to just keeping ticking on and on, the pace never actually flags, and at no point does the narrative dull or lose the reader. There is considerable understated craftsmanship in this unostentatious novel. 

The characters are what makes this kind of novel, of course. One is kindly disposed towards the majority of the protagonists, who are all sympathetically portrayed. Oddly, while all the women characters are fairly delightful, the key male characters, Fred and Will esp, are rather harder to like. The male characters come across as more selfish, more angst-ridden (unaccountably so, actually), rather spoilt despite supposedly being endearing.The women characters, by contrast, are depicted with a considerable capacity to love, forgive, absorb, and extremely mature, able to see the bigger picture, extremely giving. They also have an extremely deep attachment to their family members, particularly to those rather willful men of theirs. In fact, the whole narrative stems from their extremely deep and loyal attachment to those men, who never entirely convince me as reader that they are deserving of such devotion. This, however, in no way detracts from the pleasure of the read. An especial pleasure of this novel is how the key characters are all keen, avid readers themselves, and there are literary allusions and connotations sprinkled throughout, but with a very light hand indeed.

Cousins, by Salley Vickers. Viking, 2006