Changes

I found the characters in this story very real and convincing, the living and the dead. One of the most interesting, and sometimes disturbing, is Polly's Uncle Sam, her dad's youngest brother, only 5 years older than Polly herself. At different points I found him attractive and irritating. He is sharply critical of his family for sending him off to school for a ""''bourgeois education"" '' and runs away from home, and will not tell his parents where he has gone. While I liked his idealism, and was interested in his plans to go to Cuba to support the revolution, I thought his attitude to his parents was very selfish. I was uncomfortable, as I assume the author intended, with his attitude to Polly, burdening her with secrets but also with a rather incestuous and exploitative streak. This is never spelled out. It is possible to interpret Johnston's presentation of this story as failing to be critical of his incestuous overtures, but I preferred the ambiguity, the chance to read between the lines.