The Facts of Life : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: A truly unique and special novel
Review: A friend insisted that I had to read this book since he had loved it so much. I also greatly enjoyed it, and I won't give a synopsis of the story, because you can read that elsewhere. The characters are so vivid and alive. There is Martha, the matriarch of the family, and her several daughters. Cassie, the youngest has an illegitimate son named Frank, whom she almost gave away when he was a baby. The story follows Frank's growing-up years near Coventry, England before and during WWII. Graham Joyce has a knack for vivid descriptions. The bombing of Coventry during the war is described in such detail, that I could feel the horror and also every tremor. There is a description of an undertaking parlor as seen through young Frank's eyes that is wonderful. Also, the ending is so extremely satisfying and unexpected. We find out who "The Man Behind the Glass" is, and I never guessed it at all. I would really recommend this book as a compelling read. This should become a classic.

Rating:
Summary: A truly unique and special novel
Review: A friend insisted that I had to read this book since he had loved it so much. I also greatly enjoyed it, and I won't give a synopsis of the story, because you can read that elsewhere. The characters are so vivid and alive. There is Martha, the matriarch of the family, and her several daughters. Cassie, the youngest has an illegitimate son named Frank, whom she almost gave away when he was a baby. The story follows Frank's growing-up years near Coventry, England before and during WWII. Graham Joyce has a knack for vivid descriptions. The bombing of Coventry during the war is described in such detail, that I could feel the horror and also every tremor. There is a description of an undertaking parlor as seen through young Frank's eyes that is wonderful. Also, the ending is so extremely satisfying and unexpected. We find out who "The Man Behind the Glass" is, and I never guessed it at all. I would really recommend this book as a compelling read. This should become a classic.

Rating:
Summary: Graceful Characters and Precise Language. A Treasure!
Review: A psychic matriarch, seven daughters and one magical boy hold center stage in Graham Joyce's latest novel, The Facts of Life, a work situated comfortably somewhere between the best mainstream fiction and the subtlest works of fantasy. Be it magical realism or literary horror, the key ingredients here, as with all of Joyce's works, are characters you can reach out and touch. And they touch you right back.
Set in during and post-WWII Coventry, England, the novel opens with "wayward ... fey" Cassie Vine and the bundle in her arms, Frank, whom she fails to give away to a prospective foster mother. Returning home to her mother, Martha and her six sisters, Cassie triggers a discussion that will set the tone and struggle for the rest of the novel. As Cassie herself "is the last girl on Earth fit to raise a child," Martha and her daughters agree that Frank should be raised by the entire clan.
Passed from Martha and Aunt Beatie Vine's own care to Aunt Una and Uncle Tom's farm, to his twin aunts Evelyn and Ina, it becomes clear that Frank is special and possessed of special abilities. Here at the farm, young Frank discovers the Man-Behind-The-Glass, a mysterious figure trapped in the Earth, constantly demanding that Frank bring him things.
Meanwhile, the secret of Frank's conception remains with Cassie, buried deep in the night that German bombers circled over Coventry dropping incendiary and explosive payloads until most of the city was leveled. Cassie, who is regularly possessed of "blue" periods during which she tends to wander far, must often leave Frank in the care of his more stable relatives, transferring him from household-to-household, including an experimental commune and a house with an active mortuary parlor in the back. From each he takes away a lesson about life.
Through it all, Martha watches, patiently directing Franks care from place-to-place, occasionally visited at the front door by precognitive apparitions that help her pave the way.
Though a quiet work, The Facts of Life is no less gripping than Joyce's more conventional work in novels like Requiem and The Tooth Fairy. It's gently graceful characters and precise language makes this alternately horrific and humorous work a treasure whose pages will have slipped through the reader's fingers far too quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Joyce's best
Review: Everyone who lived through the War still feels its effects though Hitler and the Nazi machine have been dead for a few years. In Coventry, Mrs. Martha Vine is the hub of eight spoke-families consisting of seven daughters, several grandchildren, and a reticent spouse. Martha is a brilliant tactician running her field officers (her daughters) better than any Five Star general could lead. She also has a gift of being able to foretell what will happen. Of her seven children, Cassie inherited the forecasting skill and so has her daughter's illegitimate Anglo-American son Frank too.

Though her siblings think Cassie is mentally unhinged and at times have her committed, they also rotate who takes her and especially Frank, based on General Martha's orders that no one disobeys. Thus, the wandering Frank grows up in a vast assortment of households that range the gamut of the 1950s so that he learns a great deal about the world around him through his not so stable aunts as the people of the Coventry area try differing means to recover and heal from the intensity of Hitler.

This is a deep look at the varying ways that the battered and tired people of Coventry recover from World War II. Through Frank's wanderings between his relatives, the audience obtains an incredible picture of the heart and soul of a bone weary England struggling to recuperate on individual levels. Though more a series of interrelated shorts as seen through Frank's observations than a novel, the theme of Graham Joyce's deep tale is that THE FACTS OF LIFE are humanity can face its darkest moment and its aftermath yet confidently start over.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: deep look at tired people recovering from World War II
Review: Everyone who lived through the War still feels its effects though Hitler and the Nazi machine have been dead for a few years. In Coventry, Mrs. Martha Vine is the hub of eight spoke-families consisting of seven daughters, several grandchildren, and a reticent spouse. Martha is a brilliant tactician running her field officers (her daughters) better than any Five Star general could lead. She also has a gift of being able to foretell what will happen. Of her seven children, Cassie inherited the forecasting skill and so has her daughter's illegitimate Anglo-American son Frank too.

Though her siblings think Cassie is mentally unhinged and at times have her committed, they also rotate who takes her and especially Frank, based on General Martha's orders that no one disobeys. Thus, the wandering Frank grows up in a vast assortment of households that range the gamut of the 1950s so that he learns a great deal about the world around him through his not so stable aunts as the people of the Coventry area try differing means to recover and heal from the intensity of Hitler.

This is a deep look at the varying ways that the battered and tired people of Coventry recover from World War II. Through Frank's wanderings between his relatives, the audience obtains an incredible picture of the heart and soul of a bone weary England struggling to recuperate on individual levels. Though more a series of interrelated shorts as seen through Frank's observations than a novel, the theme of Graham Joyce's deep tale is that THE FACTS OF LIFE are humanity can face its darkest moment and its aftermath yet confidently start over.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Joyce's best
Review: Graham Joyce just keeps getting better. This novel is beautifully written, flawlessly plotted, with very well drawn characters. It is quite funny in places, and it vividly evokes the bombing of Coventry and its aftermath. The elements of fantasy are woven seemlessly together with the more "realistic" elements. You really come to care about this family. In his earlier novels, Joyce's endings are sometimes disappointing, but that is not the case here - the ending is perfect.

Joyce's supernatural thrillers with exotic settings(such as Smoking Poppy, Indigo and Requiem)are among the best of their kind, but he is even better at coming of age stories set in working class Britain, such as The Tooth Fairy and this book. The Facts of Life reminded me more of magic realists Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabelle Allende than it did of "genre" fantasy or horror.

I can't think of any contemporary novelists whose work I enjoy more than Joyce. I can't wait for the next one.

Rating:
Summary: my first review ever
Review: I picked up this pick not familar with the author Graham Joyce. It took me about 30 seconds into reading the inside flap that this book was going to be special. I can't speak for anyone else, but many a time when I am in a bookstore, I get an odd feeling that there is a book somewhere on those endless shelves that is calling out to me. Doesn't happen all the time, but when it does I try to hone in on the feeling...I had "this feeling" when I found "The Facts of Life".

The plot centers on the Vine family living in Coventry, England during World War II thru the mid fifties. Ah, they are an odd bunch! Martha the matriarch has seven (living) children all girls, now adults. All are married to a just as odd lot of husbands. All except her youngest daughter Cassie who is as the author puts it a bit "fey". Cassie suffers from "blue stetches" wanderings and apts to get herself in trouble. The trouble now,is Cassies unplanned pregnancy (her 2nd) to a baby boy. The first baby, a girl was put up for adoption; Cassie can not bear to have this happen again. So Martha decides since Cassie is too unstable to raise baby Frank alone, the sisters will tke turns raising him.

Up till now this seems like a not so unusual plot for a novel. Except Martha, Cassie, and possibly little Frank have all been bestowed (cursed) with the gift of precognition.

I will not give anymore of the plot away, but this is one hell of a beautiul novel. The story is told with an omniscient view point, so each character is finely drawn, and you really get a wonderful sense of their thoughts and lives.

Coventry if you recall was the town where Lady Godiva made her infamous ride, and that becomes part of the plot as well. Again, trying not to give anything away, there is a chapter that describes The Coventry Blitz, one of the worst bombings in World War II that will make you think that you are there.

For me the sense of "being there" was one of the great pleasures of this book. I felt as if I could taste the Dundee Cake, feel the warmth of the milky tea, and smell the ashen coal in the fireplace. But above all I felt the absolute love in a not so perfect family. Thank You Graham Joyce...you have gained a new fan.