Okay, a family with six children, an aloof father and a mother who seems almost obsessed with creating a facade of happy family life. Add an au-pair who never left the family, even when the children are grown up. And of course there is a dark family secret that is never mentioned, but everybody seems to know about it. Sounds interesting.
But I was disappointed by this book. The characters were stereotypical and missed depth. The constant changes of narrator and timeline made it impossible to get into the book, to identify oneself with one of the characters or even to care for one of them. The complex relationship between family members is not fully explained. A lot of questions remained without an answer.
The title of the novel was well chosen. The family is presented in snapshots of their life, it feels almost like skimming through an album of family pictures.
I liked the writing style, though. I will definately try another book by this author. Many of them got better reviews than this one. ( )

I was disappointed with this Penelope Lively. The action involves a family of two parents, six children and Ingrid, a long-standing mother's help. There are family secrets. Penelope Lively shows a family where the children are a unit, separate from their parents. They mostly leave home as soon as they can and just occasionally return, with the exception of the oldest, Paul, who struggles to hold down a job. The father is a shadowy figure, mostly in his study writing books. The mother and Ingrid spend all their hours in the kitchen and the garden. For the mother the family is everything. Only Gina, the second eldest, really comes alive at all for me. The adult children have a chapter and an internal monologue but so much of this has no depth. ( )

ReVisited November 2021
I got the audio version this time and still loved it. This is a book I read with my feelings, not with my thoughts. My favorite kind!

November 2021
Audio/Libby
Driving for FFE

2014:
Okay, perhaps five stars because this book was so ridiculously timely, what with me lately thinking about family and memory and the fantastic oddity of life. But five stars it is because for me, this book truly was Amazing.

I don't know how I'd even begin to describe Family Album, except to say that it really is rather like being privy to the meandering memories that pass through the minds of family members as they are gathered to flip through the family photo album. But that really isn't quite right at all, so perhaps I'd talk about Penelope Lively's amazing use of punctuation and sentence structure, and her gloriously diverse vocabulary. I had to use my dictionary quite a few times and that's a rarity for me. Meanings were always quite clear from context, and mostly I was intrigued by how certain words were employed, but there were also a few distinctly British words unfamiliar to me. Hurray for that!

If you have a family, or know any families, and you like words, and you like thinking about families and words - and memories - read this book. And if you have lots of siblings, read this book...and then call me up so we can sit down and talk about it. (And that invitation even includes my sisters.)
( )

Lovely story about a large English family headed by a mother kind of crazy about children and cooking, a distant father, and an enigmatic Scandinavian au pair who stayed for decades. Mostly, from the perspective of the six kids, both while growing up and afterwards, as adults. Lively really nails family relationships, how memories differ among participants of the same events, and what people know and don’t know about other family members.

Listened to the audiobook, fine narration by Josephine Bailey. ( )

Uit de erfenis van ma. Een boeiend en goedgeschreven verhaal over 6 broers en zussen die zijn opgegroeid in een enorm huis. Ieder kind komt aan het woord en langzaam wordt het familiegeheim onthuld: de jongste zus is kind van de au pair (een halfzus). ( )

I just couldn't get into this book. All the characters were introduced at the same time, which I found a little confusing, and had to keep referring back to see who everyone was. I didn't understand why the tense kept changing between past and present. Maybe it becomes clearer further into the book, but it didn't hold my attention. ( )

Well observed, well captured, wittily recounted. ( )

Okay, perhaps five stars because this book was so ridiculously timely, what with me lately thinking about family and memory and the fantastic oddity of life. But five stars it is because for me, this book truly was Amazing.

I don't know how I'd even begin to describe Family Album, except to say that it really is rather like being privy to the meandering memories that pass through the minds of family members as they are gathered to flip through the family photo album. But that really isn't quite right at all, so perhaps I'd talk about Penelope Lively's amazing use of punctuation and sentence structure, and her gloriously diverse vocabulary. I had to use my dictionary quite a few times and that's a rarity for me. Meanings were always quite clear from context, and mostly I was intrigued by how certain words were employed, but there were also a few distinctly British words unfamiliar to me. Hurray for that!

If you have a family, or know any families, and you like words, and you like thinking about families and words - and memories - read this book. And if you have lots of siblings, read this book...and then call me up so we can sit down and talk about it. (And that invitation even includes my sisters.)
( )

Penelope Lively is one of my favorite authors, and this novel did not disappoint. Gina, the oldest daughter of Alison & Charles, brings her partner Philip to meet her parents and stay the weekend at her childhood home, Allersmead. Philip, an only child, is fascinated by Gina and her five siblings, and begins to draw stories out of her. It’s obvious Gina’s family has more than its share of dysfunction, but most of it is masked until Lively expertly reveals a detail, and until those details start to add up and connect. As each family member’s character is developed, Lively shows how the same incident can affect each person in radically different ways. And of course there was a huge family secret which was a constant, unspoken presence which everyone pretended to ignore.

This was an excellent character study with a few “aha moments” in the storyline, making for a quick and satisfying read. ( )

Not as engaging as the other books by Lively. Hidden secrets in the childhood past of the 6 siblings come forward at an adult reunion. The father's dysfunctional distancing and the mother's efforts at pretending everything was all 'happy families' come unravelled. I could relate to some of the sibling difficulties but overall, I couldn't reconcile my expectations of how it could have ended versus the actual conclusion. ( )

I have enjoyed other novels by Lively but can't count this one among them. The topic was insubstantial: a family built on what the mother believed to be the ideal family, large, happy, close, with lots of traditions to maintain and keep them in touch with her stereotypical idea of a model family, which of course this family is definitely not. While most of the characters were unpleasant and without depth, the father, who had very little presence at all in the story, still managed to be the most unpleasant. While reading this I was reminded of the type of people I dislike most. But it was Lively's writing style, harsh and staccato with short abrupt sentences, that condemned this book for me. ( )

Was disappointed with this book. Not sure why I even read it, it was so boring. You would be reading the book in a narrative voice and then all of a sudden it would be in the first person of one of the characters. It was very disjointed and just blah. ( )

families, who'd have them. A large family dynamic well portrayed. ( )

At first I wasn't at all sure whether I would continue for there was something flat about the narration which was irksome, but somewhere between 50-100 I became more interested in what Lively was trying to do, explore the boundaries between individuals and the family they find themselves part of, what brings a family together, what sends them scurrying. I find myself in agreement with the reviewers who disliked it, but also in agreement with the reviewers here who liked it, which makes little sense, but there you have it. Alison always wanted a 'family'. Regard it the same way as someone else might wish to be a poet or a priest. Not so much a career as a vocation (although one of the children describes it as a career). I would say Alison's fixation on having a Family is ... never adequately explored..... anyhow, she finds her victim, Charles, a passive and removed man, and the house, and then the babies come. And then, as happens, the babies all start growing up, becoming unmalleable and uncooperative. Then they fly the coop. In this family (in which the characters say too often to one another what an 'odd' family they are) there are secrets, one rather big one. These are mixed in with trivial 'secrets' (what the six children did when they went to the cellar, who pushed whom in a scrum during an Easter egg hunt.....) The mixing of the real with such trivialities was jarring as it said, to me, that Lively wasn't making a distinction. Likewise sometimes the story veered off in a Binchy-ish direction but at others seemed to be striving for something much higher.... almost Woolfish, as Lively describes the century of life in the house. Overall, it was entertaining and not without interest. I won't rush out to read more Lively, but I wouldn't scorn one if it came my way. ***1/2 ( )

I struggled to finish this book before January turned to February. I read it as a part of the British Authors Challenge, and I am glad I did! It is not a book which grabbed me and would not let go; somedays it was all I could do to read a couple of pages. In the end, about 2/3 of the way through, I finally began to appreciate the family, and the characters, and could see glimpses of what Ms. Lively was getting after. She thinks a lot about "memory"; and seeing the same stuff from all these different points of view.

I liked it that she even occasionally gave the family house a point of view and in the end I loved the house the most of all. ( )

Allersmead was once the home of a family with 6 children, husband, wife, and au pair. The novel is not told form the perspective of any singular person but instead alternates through various voices until we see a complete pictures of the family. There is even a secret that is known but not discussed. I loved the descriptions of the food and the moments in the kitchen which are quite prominent throughout the novel, but the writing style was a bit choppy for me although I realized that it was simply a literary style that does not work for me. It's a novel some will read and devour and others will abandon. Its short length makes it one that many will want to give a try. ( )

This is a wonderful and thoughtful written family story. It's written in a kind of retrospective from each family member. The most interesting thing is that the offspring's point of view, how their childhood and the family life were, is very much related to each other whereas the adult's view is completely different rather like a misty-eyed one.
There is also a family secret, nobody is speaking about, but everybody knows about it. Only in the end the offspring is discussing this matter. There is a major solidarity among the offspring which helps them to be independent. A death in the family brings all members together and is also a restart. ( )

Astutely written.

This was an interesting study of a large family in rural England, living in an old, crumbling mansion. I loved the earth mother, Alison, devoted to her children, whose only aim in life was to be matriarch to a large family.
Her husband, Charles, was a somewhat cliched version of the distant father, surrounded by constant noise and hubbub, yet almost unaware of it. Somewhat ironically, he was an anthropologist, studying the interactions of distant societies and how they raised their children.

The six children also had the support of Ingrid, an au pair, who had been with the family for years and still remained, even after all the children had left.
This is a largely character driven novel, with the old house, Allersmead, looming large in the background.
Each person has a chapter of their own, providing back-story and further details, but do we really need quite so much information? As an audiobook, it was a bit confusing and I would probably have awarded an extra star if I'd been reading it rather than listening, simply because of the complexity of the family relationships.

As the, now adult, children come home to visit Ingrid and their parents, we start to see the flaws in the family dynamics. In addition, we are drawn forward by the knowledge that there is a family secret to eventually be revealed.
Not a gripping story but entertaining for the astute observations that Ms Lively provides. We are the fly on the wall as these nine people interact through the years. ( )

Predictable family drama. ( )

I enjoyed the writing very much- but unfortunately these children/characters often come off as tiresome and whiny. Maybe as I just finished reading about a WWII POW I'm being a bit harsh. I look forward to reading her other books. She has good insight and a way of sketching out different personalities. ( )

To put this review in context, I read a galley. It was free. I liked the book quite a bit - enough to keep the galley, but not enough to spend more than $20 on a new book. Take what you will from that. ( )

Penelope Lively is gifted with the ability of acute observation, both of characters and the seemingly mundane activities of domestic life. Her writing is suffused with wit and sensitivity, and while the story is not plot driven, I was captivated throughout the read.

Allersmead, a large Edwardian House in Britain, is where parents Charles and Alison Harper raised their six children, Paul, Gina, Sandra, Roger, Katie and Clare. The family also employed an " au pair" Ingrid, who interestingly remains with the parents long after all of the children have grown up and left home.

Father Charles is a somewhat detached husband and father, busy writing books on other societies, including how such societies raise their children. He ponders on societies where " the care and supervision of the children is more or less a collective affair." " The kibbutz has always seemed to him to have been a an eminently sensible arrangement" , as have African Tribal systems" in which all women keep an eye on all children, and men get on with whatever they do." p 37. From those quotes, you can get a good idea of Charles parenting style .

In contrast, Alison is an " earth mother". p19 "For Allison, Allersmead is a kind of glowing archetypal hearth, and she it's guardian." " All she ever wanted was children, a house in which to stow them , and a husband of course" p33.

As the story opens all of the children have grown up and left Allersmead. Interestingly none have children of their own, and all live lives very independent of one another. The family is far flung , physically and psychologically. Only Charles, Alison and the au pair, Ingrid remain at Allersmead,. Paul, the eldest son who tends to run into trouble, comes and goes from the family home.

Gina,aged 39, makes one of her rare returns home with her boyfriend Philip. Philip,the product of a very ordinary two child family, is fascinated by the large family that grew up at Allersmead, and so the recollections of family life begin. That sets off the individual and collective memories of all six of the children who grew up at Allersmead, each one with his / her own chapter though written in the third person.

The dynamics of the family in the past, present and future are captivating. Yes, there is somewhat of a dark , shadowy secret to the family , which, as in most families, is pretty much universally known to all, but never openly acknowledged.

It's always the mark of a fabulous writer , like Penelope Lively, when spot on observations and wit can keep the reader glued to the pages , while seemingly dealing with the mundane.

5 stars ( )

A large family -- six children, two parents, one au pair, who oddly remains through the children's growing up -- in an Edwardian mansion that is almost the main character. At least a chapter is devoted to each child as he or she grows up, as well as shorter chapters spent on parents and au pair. Some are fairly engrossing, others, less so. A bit formulaic, but hard to put down. A much better job explicating the children than the parents. ( )

I loved this book-- most particularly in the way the writing conveyed the gestalt of one (large) nuclear family's life across decades, rich with concurrent memories conveyed through the voices of all it's members (some more than others, of course). I liked that this family's mysteries (and of course every family has its mysteries, never clearly elucidated in one clear, unambiguous "truth") are acknowledged and poked at but never revealed in some definitive form. A beautiful, though reserved, piece of writing--and provocative, as all beautifully written prose must be. I had the curious thought, throughout, that the mother, "Allison," reminded me of the characters played by Allison Steadman in Mike Leigh's films-- and that this family might have been one of Mike Leigh's families. ( )

The author has a nice style of writing and her story lines completely catch you up. Try any of her books, you won't be disappointed. [Aleta, patron]