Eighty-one-year-old Murray Blaire hoped for the best when he waited for his three children to arrive one Friday night. He might be a retired lawyer, a state legislator, elected congressman and now an amateur farmer but he knew that there could be trouble when Ruth and George arrived. Ruth, a corporate lawyer, would find fault and want to talk about him going into a retirement home. George, a nurse, would argue and Lizzie, a professor of English Literature, who lived locally and visited him fairly regularly, would be unpredictable. Murray hoped that all would go smoothly, but that simply wasn't going to happen.
| Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde | |
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| Category: General Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Superbly written, elegantly, effortlessly plotted and a very good read. Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 304 | Date: June 2018 |
| Publisher: Hodder and Stoughton | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-1473679733 | |
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It began with a cookbook, the Fannie Farmer cookbook of the title, as it happened. It was decades since Murray's wife, Lilian had been killed in an accident and one of the family's treasured possessions was her cookbook, with all her notes in it. She'd jot down ideas for stories too, if one came to her whilst she was cooking. The children agreed to have the cookbook for a year each on the understanding that it was not to be loaned out to anyone when it came to your turn. Lizzie didn't think that this applied to her lover, Gavin, but he'd had it for four months. When he finally admitted that he did have it, Lizzie was horrified to discover that he'd dropped it into a sink of water. Lizzie lost her temper and poured a kettle of boiling water onto Gavin's laptop, but in the ensuing struggle Gavin was scolded. Badly.
So the harmonious, useful weekend that Murray had hoped for began with the suspicion that Lizzie wasn't telling the full story about what had happened, Ruth worrying about the possibility of black mould at the farmhouse, and wanting discussion about retirement homes - and the there was a visit from the the police. That was probably the good bit of the weekend.
Elisabeth Hyde captures family life perfectly, particularly when there's an elderly parent involved. There's the worry about how they're coping and what might happen when they're alone, but what Hyde's best at is the insensitivity of Ruth, who had to organise the family when her mother died when she was seventeen and who has never got out of the habit - with everyone. George is an elegant foil with just enough differences to make the relationship believable and I totally went for Lizzie, brought up through her most formative years by Ruth, but who has never learned control.
The writing is superb and compelling: even with relatively long chapters I still found myself reading just one more to see what happened next. It's helped, of course, by the excellent plotting and a story which just seems to happen without effort. This was the first of Hyde's books which I've read - but it won't be the last. I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals then we can recommend Crazy as Chocolate and In The Heart Of The Canyon, also by Elisabeth Hyde.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Go Ask Fannie Farmer by Elisabeth Hyde at Amazon.com.
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