FIrst off, I have to say that I’m very proud of myself for remembering that Jane was holding her Margaret Kennedy Day and for having a Margaret Kennedy book on my shelves and for making the time to read it! With all of the reading I’d been doing for the presentation I gave a few weeks ago I thought that I’d never have time to join in any reading challenges again – but here we are and I actually completed one. So, I’m just happy for that.

And I’m even happier that the book I happened to read is an absolutely wonderful novel. Published in 1936 (and dedicated to Rose Macaulay) it is essentially the story of a divorce and how it subsequently affects each member of the Canning family. As the novel begins they’re at their summer home in Wales where relations between the parents, Alec and Betsy, are tense and strained. Betsy wants a divorce, but Alec doesn’t. The children know nothing of the negotiations between their parents until Alec suddenly leaves one Sunday morning – for good.

The oldest boy Kenneth passionately sides with his mother, refusing to speak with his father ever again. Eliza, the middle child, secretly prefers to go with her father. And the youngest girl, Daphne, doesn’t really care. As the next year passes all of the children are changed by the breakup of their family especially when their parents find other spouses and seem to move on with their lives. And of course Alec and Betsy are changed too.

It’s a heartbreaking depiction of how awful divorce can be, even when it may the best thing to do. The characters are intensely real, faulted and, at times, not very likeable. But always believable and worthy of our sympathy – even when they’re being appallingly stupid.

One of the amazing things about the book is that it hardly feels dated. I felt I could have been reading about a modern family – the same struggles, fears, financial concerns, and child custody and neglect issues as written about in contemporary family dramas appear in this novel.

Kennedy is very observant of human nature which is one of my favorite traits in a writer. I love books that tell the same story from each character’s different viewpoint and she is so good at getting into the mind of every member of the Canning family (except for Daphne – she’s a bit of a shadow).

In a way, this reminded me somewhat of Noel Streatfeild’s Saplings, with a similar look at how trauma shatters the lives of an entire family.

All in all, I really enjoyed Together and Apart and am glad to have finally read Margaret Kennedy.