Evangeline Knapp is down on her knees, scrubbing frantically, breathlessly and yet unsuccessfully, at a line of grease spots on her kitchen floor; her youngest son, clutching his beloved and very grubby teddy bear, watches warily from the door of the dining room before disappearing again, both relieved and somehow disappointed to remain unseen and – for the moment at least- forgotten by her.
So begins our introduction into the lives of the Knapp family; a family almost on the brink of self-destruction where seething disappointments, frustrations and unbelievable tensions lie just beneath the surface of calm, efficient civility.
Evangeline’s husband Lester is an unsuccessful and unfulfilled clerk in the town’s department store, moved much more by poetry than ambition. Their elder children Henry and Helen are accomplished tightrope walkers, forever balanced above the fury and wrath of their mother’s dissatisfaction, eager to make it across to the warmth and uncomplicated love of their father’s arms. Stephen, the youngest child and still at home with mother, is surly and fractious, disobedient and wilful; the spark to his mother’s gunpowder.
Something has to change – and it does. An almost-tragedy becomes a blessing in disguise and we watch the miracle wrought upon these five lives – and the wider impact on the town and its citizens.
This is a beautifully crafted and wonderfully enthralling tale, as relevant now as at its first publication some seventy-five years ago. It examines the damage caused by forcing people to take on roles to which they are not suited, merely because of their gender; it demonstrates beautifully – and very powerfully – the impact unfulfilled ambitions and frustrations have on the lives of others around us; it is, in short, a very definite must-read and one whose message is woven with fluidity into a narrative that is gripping and, ultimately, very rewarding.
- Goodreads rating – 4.17
- SUMMARY – Ian McLoughlin