A reunion of ghosts

There was a lot about this novel that was simply odd. The use of first person plural is definitely not something you see often, but (to my surprise, honestly) it works really well here. The individual voices of 3 middle-aged sisters are instead replaced with the more general and muted voice of “we”. Together they write about their family history, their tragic, personal lives in this memoir turned shared “suicide note”.

Despite the dark themes and constant gloom, the sisters also manage to be really funny at times. I do think you have to have the right kind of sense of humour to get the most from this one. If you're not laughing at least a little bit (and probably feeling a little bad about laughing at the same time), then this might be too dreary to get through. It's an odd mix of dark comedy with historical fiction, an epic family drama, but it worked for me, at least most of the time.

The reason that I can't say I completely loved it is that I think there was some parts of the novel that were a whole lot more successful then others. The novel is mostly a scattering of separate stories, observations etc. from the family history, and there were simply some of these stories that I was more interested in and more emotionally affected by than others. Personally, I loved the beginning, but felt the narrative started to drag a little in the middle (maybe the dreariness was getting to me at that point), then picked up again (I loved Aunt Violet's unexpected appearance! Brilliant!), and then I felt like the ending didn't quite work. (Danny's voice was too similar to that of the sisters and I actually don't think anything he told us was very necessary. The epilogue seemed as a bit of a none event really).

Overall, Mitchell has crafted something that could have been a disaster, but is mostly tremendously successful. Recommended if you feel like trying something a bit different, as it's certainly original and quirky, but also a bit of a risk.