I’ve reviewed three of Anna Hope’s previous four novels, starting with Wake over ten years ago. They’ve all been very different, and her fifth continues that trend. Albion spans five days as the Brooke family bury the man who has wielded so much influence over their lives, faced with both the future and the past of the Sussex estate he inherited aged eighteen.
The hedges on either side of the lane are thick with white flowers and the air is alive with birds and it looks almost laughably lovely, looks in fact like a dream of England – all white and blossomy, as though it’s getting ready to marry itself.
Frannie wakes early to a beautiful May morning and decides to walk the estate, leaving her seven-year-old asleep. She and her father had established the Albion Project a decade ago, a rewilding scheme which Frannie sees as a contribution to a better future for all. Philip had a great reverence for the countryside coupled with a reputation for partying, combining the two by hosting the legendary Teddy Bears’ Picnic, a free festival where he met both his wife Grace and his best friend Ned who has camped out in a copse on the estate ever since. Despite his constant philandering, Grace took him back when he returned from the States where he’d lived with Natasha. Before his death, Philip had promised his son a portion of the estate to establish a centre for the psilocybin therapy Milo believed had cured his addiction. While Frannie and Milo wrangle over the estate’s precarious finances, Natasha’s daughter has decided to take up their sister’s invitation to his funeral, and now the family is fretting about whether she might be their half-sister, little knowing that Clara has a much bigger bombshell to drop.
This vista in itself could be the grounds of a PhD: so seemingly benign, so neutral, and yet so loaded, so layered with meaning; meaning, it seems, which has entirely escaped the inhabitants of the house.
Hope takes her time unfolding this absorbing story of a supremely dysfunctional family, exploring class, privilege, climate change, colonialism and responsibility for the future and the past. Each of Philip’s children has been damaged, both by his actions and by the class they were born into; Milo’s experience of being ripped away from his mother and sent to boarding school is particularly well done. Her characters aren’t monstrous – Philip was as scarred by his own childhood as his offspring have been by theirs – but they are blind to their history and its implications. Hope avoids bludgeoning her readers with these weighty themes, deftly weaving her message about the foundation of wealth and where it comes from through an engrossing narrative studded with some beautiful descriptions of the natural world. I found the ending a bit too neat and tidy but it does leave readers with hope.
Fig Tree London 9780241698426 288 pages Hardback (Read via NetGalley)
I read Anna Hope’s first two novels then lost track with the last two. This sounds really well done, even with a too-neat ending. I should get back to her!
There are some very meaty themes in this one but her storytelling skills are such that the novel isn’t weighed down by them.
I read her first three novels but then abandoned The White Rock; I think I’ll try her again with this. I like dysfunctional family stories and those with siblings having to negotiate a late parent’s wishes.
That’s the one I’ve not read. I liked her approach with this novel which deals with important issues without being issue-driven.
Not an author I’ve read but this sounds interesting
I hope you enjoy it if you get to it, Cathy.
Reserved immediately at the library on the strength of this tempting review!
Hurrah! Hope you enjoy it.
I’ve read and reviewed all four of her novels but after The White Rock I decided she wasn’t a writer I’d seek out any more – in short, I felt her writing was continually excellent but the quality of her ideas wasn’t really up to scratch. I would probably read this one if it turned up in the library or secondhand.
I liked the way she handled her themes in this one but I wouldn’t rank her as one of my favourite writers.
Some interesting themes here; the nature/rewilding/climate change aspects in particular appeal to me.
She writes beautifully about landscape and nature.
That’s very tempting for me!
I’ve never felt a strong-enough pull, although her books are also very nicely presented. (And I do like that quote about it marrying itself!) Perhaps in the right mood though.
They’re all very well turned out. There are some lovely descriptive passages of the natural world in this one.
This is another of the novels I might spend an audible credit on. I’ve never read Anna Hope but have read many good reviews of her work. I like the premise of this one and its themes. I might well give it a go.
She does write well. I hope you enjoy it if you do plump for it.