Next of Kin - Softcover

Trollope, Joanna

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425184749 ISBN 13: 9780425184745

Publisher: Berkley, 2002

Synopsis

More than twenty years ago, a young American named Carolyn came to the Meredith family farm, marrying Robin Meredith and settling—never quite comfortably—into rural English life. Now Caro has died, leaving behind a husband who has long slept in a separate bedroom and an angry adopted daughter. But another young woman is about to arrive. Her name is Zoe, and unlike Caro, she finds something compelling in the Meredith's strenuous, earthbound lifestyle—and in Robin...

About this title

Review:

Fans of Joanna Trollope's cozy, plot-driven novels like Marrying the Mistress and Other People's Children might find Next of Kin slightly forbidding. Set on a farm in the English Midlands, the book opens with a funeral. The deceased, Caro Meredith, is (or rather, was) a Californian, a lost soul who ended up on Tideswell Farm by chance, having married into the taciturn, proud Meredith clan. Her funeral finds her husband, Robin, depressed; her twentysomething daughter, Judy, furious at the world in general and at her father in particular; and her brother-in-law, Joe, hopelessly bereft. Meanwhile, Robin's father, Harry, looks on, thinking of his late daughter-in-law: "Strange woman. American. Never quite seemed able to involve herself with the farm and yet--Harry swallowed. He felt it might be an obscure and diverting comfort to mention to Robin that his new power harrow would cost over six thousand pounds, but thought he'd better not."

This gives some idea of the preoccupations and sensitivities of the Meredith mind. The farm comes first; everything else comes a distant second. Next of Kin traces how that rigid mindset is changed by a wholly unexpected agent: Judy's London roommate, Zoe. This disturbingly forthright character arrives for a weekend at Tideswell Farm bedecked in her signature purple hair, rows of silver earrings, and all-black boy's wardrobe. She declares that she likes farm life, and to Judy's horror, soon moves down from London to Tideswell, ultimately ending up in the paterfamilias's bed. As the Merediths find their old ways failing them, Zoe teaches the family how to live with her own odd mixture of honesty and lawlessness. Trollope's books usually move with a nice combination of introspection and action. Next of Kin, on the other hand, holds still--Zoe has to all but goad the Meredith family into the happy ending she has in mind. This stillness makes for a quietly and surprisingly satisfying read. --Claire Dederer

From the Publisher:

"A richly satisfying novel, sometimes dark, but compulsively readable, and imagined with a warmth that makes its determined realism oddly uplifting"
- Sunday Exprss

"A devastatingly acute picture of a harsh rural world"
-Sunday Times

"Absorbing, uplifting and truly impressive"
-Daily Express

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0425184749
• ISBN 13: 9780425184745
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352