Bad Relations - Cressida Connolly
‘Families don’t always bring out the best in people’
I found ‘bad relations’ by Cressida Connolly to be a wonderfully written, multi generational historical story set between the Crimean war, 1970’s Cornwall and modern day Australia and England. The story telling is controlled and beautifully paced. It only took me a couple of summer days to read this, a pace that is rare for me. The story took turns that I never expected, which I always like.
I was actually a bit wary of this before I received it - wasn’t sure if I wanted a family epic spanning the generations - I’d already had the behemoth that was Hanya Yanagihara’s ‘To paradise’ to do me. But this was much tighter, shorter and more compact, and really nothing like that book. I always trusted the author - it felt like she was in control and I was happy to follow her in whatever direction she took the story.
Crimea
The book begins in Crimea, with William Gale mourning the loss of his brother in the war, cutting a lock of his hair for his parents. His wife Alice waits for him, but when he returns he’s not the same man and his actions then have consequences which reverberate through the ages.
The seventies
I found the middle section in ‘bad relations’ set during the seventies particularly poignant, and you really got the sense of a golden, carefree summer and the joy of being a teenager. Stephen arrives from Australia, meeting up with some distant relations to work for the summer. The setting was incredibly evocative and it was easily to imagine the family and the ramshackle farm house. Stephen is a good narrator and was an especially engaging character for me, and I liked the interplay between him and Georgia and Cass, the two sisters. But there are dark clouds in the summer sky.
The characters felt all too human - they were always shifting, moving, revealing themselves. Some of them are colder than others, others complicated, but they always felt real. Cecelia, the mother of the two sisters, is especially removed and distant, something which also has an effect later.
Family and grief
‘Bad relations’ is really good at looking at grief and loss within a family, and it felt like Cressida Connolly really understands the dynamics that exist, especially between siblings. She really ramps up the tension in the final third of the book - such a cliche, but I couldn’t put it down.
It’s funny how decisions, big and small, ripple down through the ages. Bad feelings linger, pushed down only to surface again. There’s one storyline involving a family heirloom that does have consequences, and I suppose the story had to be tied up somewhere, but I really didn't want it to end. Just really masterful storytelling in a book I thoroughly enjoyed, a proper page turner, with wonderfully crisp prose and taut storytelling.
Thanks to Netgalley and Viking for the Advanced Reader Copy.
Bad relations by Cressida Connolly
280 Pages
Published May 2022 by Viking