An interesting read.
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I have read a few of Tony Parsons' books but would not describe myself as a particular fan. I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Other reviewers have already described the plot so I won't go over it again. I thought the concept was slightly trite though useful for assessing different women's responses. I was amazed by how the author managed to get into the female psyche -I found all the women credible and sympathetic. (Interestingly I think he did worse with the women after children than he did with the women before children).
I was far more disappointed by the male responses - particualrly Michael and Rory which I found to be very one-dimensional and stereotyped "Women change after having babies and men are no longer so important to them; woe is me". Other than Paulo I found the male characters a bit pathetic and unbelievable. Also I was disappointed by his level of research - I'm a GP myself and Megan's path to general practice was just describe wrongly on quite a few levels; equally with the adoption bureaucracy there were just too many errors.
However despite commenting mainly on the negatives I do think this is a good book and it makes an interesting and easy read.
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The real meaning of Family
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It is unusual to read novels about such emotional issues as families and parenthood that are written by men. Tony Parsons does it amazingly well and with The Family Way he has produced another story of love and fulfilment with great emotion and humour.
Cat , Jessica and Megan three sisters whose mother deserted them when they were eleven, seven and three respectively. The day she left was the day Cat's childhood ended and she was left with her father and a series of au-pairs and nannies to help her sisters grow up. They are now all grown up with partners, struggling to cope with work, sex, love and the real meaning of family.
The issues are all sensitively dealt with and one feels able to empathise with all the characters. Basically a story about love and parenthood it all seems to come right in the end. Well for most of the characters anyway!
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Terrible novel
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Try as I might, I still can't stifle my perpetual yawn having read this garbage. Excited to see if the author (Tony Pratsons) improved on his other poor novels (all best sellers), I began this book with great expectations. Yet I was instantly disappointed by writing that was trite, uninspired, and one-dimensional--prose as flat as the walls in my sittingroom.
And what makes matters worse is this tired prose tries to tell the story of women getting pregnant, and people adopting babies from China (Parsons has described a scenario that is so far away from what would be acceptable to the UK authorities and the Chinese government, that anyone considering adoption would be very badly misled. The couple has 3 months of bureaucracy - in real life it is more like 3 years.
What a shame some simple research wasn't carried out).
Anyhoo, it all results in one series of contrived cliches after another--trite storytelling that is literally agonizing to read. The writing, to put it mildly, is weak. The author's style is hardly any style at all, unless you can call watered-down and clichéd a "style." Even the very few moments of the story that threaten to become interesting are dealt with so clumsily and pretentiously that they devolve into the same witless and lackluster mess that surrounds them.
Quick. Give me some gravel to gargle so I can get the icky taste out of my mouth.
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Good but needs a change in style
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The Family Way is about three sisters ranging from their mid 20s to 30s, pregnancy and children. Oldest sister Cat more or less brought up her siblings when her mother left and doesn't want children of her own...or does she? Mid-sister Jessica meanwhile has a loving husband but they can't manage to conceive whereas the academically-gifted youngest sibling Megan becomes pregnant after a one-night stand. The Family Way reflects their different attitudes towards motherhood though it is also, as much as this, an illustration of the very strong bond between the three siblings.
Tony Parsons' fourth novel is good with the author being one of the very best writers on modern families and their relationships and values, albeit with sentimental and arguably reactionary undertones. The downside of this though is that, having read Parsons' previous three novels, The Family Way continues the trend of slowly diminishing returns. It would be great to see Parsons try something stylistically or emotionally different like his near contemporary Nick Hornby has with both How To Be Good and A Long Way Down rather than ploughing the same artistic furrow.
The Family Way is still a good, contemporary lifestyle novel though the author's unchanging prose style and subject matter is beginning to get a bit tiresome.
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Very good
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I love Tony Parsons as he has a great ability to get to the heart of things and really tell it like it is. He impresses me in this book with the way he writes so convincingly about pregnancy and child birth. A great read.
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