Will Eaves's third novel describes itself, via its blurb, as a book about an "ordinary" family. However, Eaves evidently does not see himself as an "ordinary" author. Instead of adopting a conventional narrative arc, he bombards the reader with intricately rendered snapshots of family life through the years.
The family in question consists of Emily and Don Allden and their four children: Liz (coolly confident), Clive (borderline autistic), Lotte (sensible and shy) and Benjamin (an Aretha Franklin fan, who turns out to be gay).
The Alldens live in an unfashionable area of Bath in a ramshackle house through the 1970s and 80s; Emily spends her time making patchwork quilts and irritating her daughters, while Don earns a living as a picture framer and has a series of extramarital affairs.
But it takes a long time to establish even these basic facts, because Eaves's technique is like Emily's interminable quilting to sew together random patches of information until a broader picture emerges.
It's an approach I wanted to like, especially because Eaves has a real gift for nuanced observation. The tension between Emily and her growing teenage daughters never expressed but left to slither out in acts of passive aggression is conveyed brilliantly. When Lotte spends time on the phone to her boyfriend, Emily, who is "scared by the prospect of bills", takes to interrupting conversations "as soon as possible. She did this by wandering into the kitchen, saying, 'Now, where did I put my?'"
Eaves is good, too, at getting inside a child's mind the best passages are reminiscent of that other unflinching chronicler of family dynamics, Edward St Aubyn. When the young Benjamin sees a shooting star on holiday in France, "He wished: for the top bunk, and maybe a small volcano, nothing too threatening."
And yet the relentless accumulation of detail left me feeling bogged down rather than properly engaged. It takes several chapters simply to understand who is who amid the barrage of names, and Eaves's overtly lyrical prose style can obfuscate rather than clarify (in the opening chapter, the grandmother Irene is described as "the elfin stoic").
By the time all the children have grown up, however, the reader's persistence begins to pay off. When Emily shows signs of dementia, the family reconvenes, each member trailing their own unfulfilled ambitions and failed relationships. Emily's infirmity is convincingly charted and Eaves is particularly good at conveying the poignant daily routine involved in caring for the elderly. "[] the carers were still turning the wisp of a body that had cooked and sewn and laughed and walked everywhere Off came the old gown and the knickers, and for no more than ten seconds they saw Emily as she was, the skin drawn over the rack of her ribs, the whole body a membranous sac."
But even by this stage, I didn't care enough about the characters to be truly moved. Unlike with Anne Tyler or Elizabeth Jane Howard, both masters of the minutely observed family saga, there seems to be no heart at this book's core. Crucial plot developments, such as Don's affairs, Clive's fits of aggression or Benjamin's struggle with his sexuality, are played out offstage without resolution.
Of course, this is partly the point. Real families are messy and difficult and untidy, just like this one. There are no neat narrative arcs or uncomplicatedly likeable protagonists in our own lives, so why should the Alldens be any different? It is an engaging idea, and yet while there are flashes of the novel becoming something great, it never quite lifts off. In the end, This Is Paradise was a book I admired rather than loved.
