Product Description

At a finger buffet held at 24 Beech Drive on the day of Charles and Diana's wedding, Rebecca Monroe's mother locked herself in the bathroom and never came out. Was it because her squidgy chocolate log collapsed? Because Rebecca's grandmother married her first cousin? Or can we never know why we do what we do? According to Rebecca's scientist husband, our genes control our fate, but Rebecca is less sure. Can science explain everything? Love? Chance? Who shot JR? Charting her family history, Rebecca discovers that it's not just a habit of quoting proverbs and a recipe for sherry trifle that have been passed down the maternal line. Three generations of mistaken marriages, dubiously fathered children and untimely deaths make up the Monroe family DNA. Is Rebecca simply the next twist in the double spiral? Or is Aunty Suzanne, the women's libber, right? That biology need not be destiny? In this tragicomic history of one British family, Carole Cadwalladr asks the most fundamental of questions: who, how and why we are.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #705825 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 359 pages

Review
" 'A real delight to read...such a delicacy of touch...very funny...hugely enjoyable.' MARGARET FORSTER 'Funny, fast and fresh...' MONICA ALI"

Monica Ali
Funny, fast and fresh. . . . Hats off to Carole Cadwalladr. It was such a pleasure to read. . . . A rare find

Anna Maxted
This is a jewel of a book. I loved it. Carole Cadwalladr is remarkably talented, and a very funny writer

Customer Reviews

Forget McEwan, read this
I read this book in a single sitting and then when I finished it I started it all over again. And it's even better second time around. The Family Tree is that rare rare book that has you turning the pages but also makes you think. I loved the storytelling and the sharpness of the dialogue and description, but I loved even more the many profound and subtle observations that Cadwalladr had to make about family and relationships and the weird and wonderful ways in which we are our parent's children and our grandparent's grandchildren.

She juggles plot-lines and characters as well as subjects as diverse as DNA and Marxist interpretations of Dallas. Yet it's never weighed down by them. I read 'Saturday' by Ian McEwan immediately before The Family Tree and couldn't believe how pompous and boring it was. McEwan's subject is neuroscience and he lays it on with a trowel. Cadwalladr, on the other hand, also uses science to illuminate her story but is never pretentious or preachy. Instead of clobbering you over the head with her intelligence, she uses humour to undermine your preconceptions. Guess which one will be shortlisted for the Booker?

It makes me cross that novels as wonderful as this get overshadowed by the Big Boys in the Big Boys Club. Read it!

all unhappy families are alike...
Neither the title nor the cover does this novel justice - it's much cleverer and funnier than chick-lit (even at its best). Readers who loved Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Hilary Mantel's Giving Up the Ghost, Jane Gardam's Crusoe's Daughter - in fact all those good and great novels about three generations of Northern women - will devour this. It works on many levels: as the tale of Rebecca's distintegrating marriage and decision to keep a baby rather than have a second abortion, as a meditation on whether we pass down psychological traits as well as physical ones, and as an excoriatingly funny portrait of lower middle-class life in the 1970s. The Monroes are a family divided by class, temperament, money and looks, and as the narrative weaves across past and present to the mysterious marriage of two cousins we get an inkling why Doreen and Aunty Suzanne hate each other so much. Eventually,you realise the novel is constructed as a kind of detective story, full of false clues and tiny revelations, particularly about family breakdown. The 1970s details are lovingly recreated with particularly amusing footnotes about popular TV shows. Highly recommended.

Must read book.
Highly recommended. I cried really hard (full box of tissues) for the last hour of this book and there are big belly laughs all the way through (the first is within about 30 seconds reading time from the start of the book). I think a testament to how good this book is the fact that when I finished it I really didn’t know how I felt about. I had to spend a few days mulling about and thinking it over and considering it before I formed my opinion. Cadwalladr is very subtle in her writing and doesn’t pummel you over the head with her points so I people reading it will take dramatically different things away from it depending upon their interpretation.

None of the characters are entirely sympathetic but they are so human and so well depicted as personalities that you care deeply about them with all their faults. The weaving in of genetics and cultural studies is witty and accessible and the depiction of the 70s is a real gem.

A great book, I would suggest buying a big box of tissues, commandeering the sofa and clearing the weekend for this one, definitely 5 stars.