Writer Nathan Staples is middle-aged, messed up and only now prepared to inform his grown daughter of his existence. He is the leader of a group of fretful characters living in an artisic community based on a Scots island. Into this self-indulgent world comes Mary, Nathan's 19-year-old daughter, raised by a gay uncle and his partner, and already destined for a writer's life. Unaware he is her father, Mary becomes drawn to him. Though a plausible development it is also an unfair one and somewhat unlikely in that Nathan treats her as if he was her athletics coach rather than literary mentor. Kennedy's previous works include superbly exact performances such as Now That You're Back and So I Am Glad, but this ambitious big book is often flabbily written, wordy, marred by weak dialogue and curiously contrived. When not debating what to do about Mary, Nathan laments the gorgeous wife who gave up on him. Meanwhile, his editor, a walking disaster area, decides to involve himself by writing to Mary. Possibly the most hyped book of 1999, Kennedy's sprawling and harshly seedy saga creaks along for more than 500 pages, without ever proving sympathetic or even particularly interesting.
"Mary Delany on Irish hospitality in 1730: `The people of this country don't seem solicitous of having good dwellings or more furniture than is absolutely necessary - hardly so much, but they make it up in eating and drinking! I have not seen less than fourteen dishes of meat for dinner, and seven for supper . . . if we are to go to an inn they (our hosts) constantly provide us with a basket crammed with good things; no people can be more hospitable or obliging . . .' " From Mrs Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers by Ruth Hayden
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