It would upset Robin if she left him, so she never says that she has – and no one in the family ever admits it either. Perhaps most extraordinary is when Mercy moves out of the family home, one laundry bag at a time, and eventually starts living full-time in her studio and trying to make a living as a painter. Conversations start then short circuit, sputter back into life and then get stuck again. In one, David brings home his new partner Greta and her young daughter he doesn’t explain that they are in a relationship, and, like rabbits trapped in headlights, no one asks. Tyler’s set-pieces – here largely conceived as awkward family get-togethers – seem undramatic, but her rhythms are masterly. Alice becomes prissy and domineering and Lily is flaky and unmoored, while David, never losing the sense that his dad dislikes him, keeps his family at arm’s length. We jump ahead in time with each chapter, observing how the family dynamic has shaped each of them. Their eldest, Alice, takes charge of the cooking Lily, the middle child, spends most of it off necking with a boy called Trent and young David, age seven, cautiously avoids getting into the water until his dad forces him into it. While there, it’s as though they are individuals unconnected with one another: Mercy wants to get on with her watercolours, while Robin wades into the lake and has blokey chats with a new friend he’s made.

They are embarking on their first proper holiday with their three children, heading for Deep Creek Lake and stoically determined to enjoy themselves. He has taken over the running of a hardware shop that ran in Mercy’s family she has parked her painterly ambitions in order to be a housewife and a mother. The action spins back to 1959, and we meet Robin and Mercy Garrett. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENT.

French braid anne tyler