Meet the Radleys
Peter, Helen and their teenage children, Clara and Rowan, live in an English town. They are an everyday family, averagely dysfunctional, averagely content. But as their children have yet to find out, the Radleys have a devastating secret
From one of Britain's finest young novelists comes a razor-sharp unpicking of adulthood and family life. In this moving, thrilling and extraordinary portrait of one unusual family, The Radleys asks what we grow into when we grow up, and explores what we gain - and lose - when we deny our appetites.
***
[It is a quiet place, especially at night]***
(Canongate Books, 1 July 2010, borrowed from my library)
***
***
I loved The Radleys.
From the start of the book it's clear something is off about the Radleys. I thought they were serial killers. Maybe a family of assassins. I had no clue what they really were and the revelation took me by surprise.
This novel is a work of genius, a brilliant example of how black comedy can work in fiction. Things to take some dark turns when the family's big secret is revealed but the larger than life characters provide a lot of humour and things don't stay very serious.
The characters are all well-written, bold and larger than life. I felt sorry for Clara and Rowan whose lives are turned upside down when they discover the family secret. They just want to be normal teenagers and discover they're anything but normal. Learning the family secret helps them to understand why they've always been treated as freaks and outcasts at school.
The Radleys is great. I loved it.
