Told in four distinct sections, this novel is a powerful and affecting story centering around the way in which the characters connect and disconnect with each other, the ways in which we fail each other, and how self-absorbtion overtakes and smothers. The narrative is both set in the present and the past and the minute details serve to explain and illuminate the tragedy whose thread runs through each of the stories told between the covers.

First in the story is Sean, the boyfriend of Abigail, who owns the eponymous house. He is completely blocked on his doctoral dissertation and taking on questionable writing projects with a partner whom he doesn't respect in order to pay his share of the rent upon which arrangement Abigail insists despite the fact that he left his wife for her. As Sean and Abigail's relationship disintegrates, Sean becomes more and more fascinated by his current writing project on suicide. Wanting to discuss the project, he turns, very occasionally to Dara, Abigail's friend from university who lives in the basement flat of the house on Fortune Street.

The second section focuses on Cameron, Dara's father, who left his wife and children many years ago and who has hidden distasteful things about himself from his children. He is (or was) an amateur photographer whose kinship of feeling with Charles Dodgson is disturbing and is detailed during this section through important and defining snapshots of Dara's childhood and pre-pubescence.

The third section opens with Dara meeting Edward, her elusive boyfriend whose presence or absence mirrors Dara's feelings. Happy when she can spend time with him but miserable when he has disappeared into his other life (he still lives with his partner, the mother of his child), Dara is more similar than not to the women she counsels at the crisis center where she works, pinning her hopes on an unreliable man. In addition to the woes in her love life, Dara's working life is fully fleshed out in this section as is her adult relationship with her father, helping to create a more complete picture of Dara.

The fourth section centers on Abigail's college memories and her entrance into Dara's life, filling in the last bit of the puzzle that is this story. And while the reader has long known where the story has no choice but to go having read the climax in the first section, this final narrative wraps everything up so that it, as a whole, feels authentic and somehow understandable.

I am still thinking about the power of this one, many days after having finished it. It's an interesting novel in terms of format and aside from the jolt of trying to figure out who Cameron was after the focus on Sean, I think the four sections were successful. There's much fodder for discussion here and the writing was simply luminous. I loved the constant literary connections, often made overtly, in this book, pairing each main character with a major British literary figure. There is a somewhat desperate and desolate feel to the narratives so don't look here for a happily ever after although Livesey has managed to inject a certain small measure of cautious hope by the end. But for a searching and insightful look at human nature, our flaws and weaknesses, and the way we fail each other in and out of the many different types of love, this is masterful. ( )

The House on Fortune Street is a leisurely novel about how our past reflects upon our future, and how our relationships with others are inextricably linked to how we integrate events from our childhood.

The book is broken into four separate parts – each narrated by a different character. Abigail is an actress and playwright who immerses herself in loveless sex, protecting herself from the intimacy she knows may hurt her. Sean has left his wife and struggles to complete his dissertation on Keats. He moves into the Fortune Street house with Abigail and finds himself regretting his decisions. Dara is Abigail’s best friend from college. Highly sensitive, she works as a counselor and longs to find true love and start a family, but her questions about why her father abandoned his family when she was a young girl overshadow her happiness. Cameron, Dara’s father, is living with a secret and struggling to come to terms with yearnings he is unable to explain.

Early in the novel, a pivotal event occurs … and from this point onward the reader searches for understanding of each character’s motivation, desire, and fears. Livesey has given each character “a literary godparent” – an author who the character relates to and provides further understanding of that character’s personality. For Sean, Keats provides that role; for Abigail is is Charles Dickens; Dara relates to Charlotte Bronte, and the novel Jane Eyre; and Cameron connects with Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll).

Margot Livesey’s prose is gentle and probing. In The House on Fortune Street she brings her story together with patience, carefully flushing out each character and putting together the pieces of their lives as though constructing a psychological jigsaw puzzle. Thematically she explores the idea of luck or chance vs. choice, and examines the role which early childhood plays in the development of our personalities. Specifically, she gives the reader a glimpse into the complexity of women’s friendships – the intimacy, as well as the secrecy which these types of relationships engender.

I found myself deeply involved in the lives of Livesey’s characters – I grew to care about them, to wonder about their choices, and to sympathize with their struggles. The format of the novel – a series of interlocking narratives – gave depth to the story which might not have happened if told only through the eyes of one character.

The House on Fortune Street is a heartbreaking tale which deals with some uncomfortable subject matter. It is not filled with action, but requires patience and a slow reading to fully appreciate. There are no sudden “aha” moments, but rather a gradual realization and understanding of the underlying message of the novel. At times I wanted to flip ahead to get to the nitty-gritty of the story, but I am glad I restrained myself from doing so as I think I would have been disappointed that there are no easy answers in this book.

Readers who enjoy well-written literary fiction will like Livesey’s style. Written with sensitivity and compassion, The House on Fortune Street is recommended. ( )

Abigail and Dara became friends in University. Now they are both living in a house on Fortune Street in London that Abigail purchased with an inheritance from her aunt. Abigail is an actress and theater manager living with her boyfriend Sean, who left his wife for her. Dara is a therapist living in the downstairs flat, hoping that her boyfriend Edward will be able to move in with her sooner rather than later.

Both girls have some serious issues, particularly around men, eventually resulting in tragedy. The story of the girls’ lives and the tragedy that ensued is told first through the perspective of Abigail’s boyfriend Sean, then of Dara’s father Cameron, and finally of Abigail. This was a fascinating method of telling Abigail and Dara’s stories. Sean and Cameron were really telling their own stories, through which we learn about Abigail and Dara through their interactions with whomever is narrating. This really confused me initially, since the back of the book says that it is about Abigail and Dara and Sean was telling me about his life. Eventually, though, I got into this style of telling the girls’ stories. Hearing the stories of important men in their lives gave me a greater understanding of where Abigail and Dara were coming from.

Although it took me some time to get into “The House on Fortune Street,” mostly because I wasn’t quite sure what Livesey was doing with Sean’s narration, I really enjoyed it. The psychological issues faced by the characters seemed authentic and made the book very interesting.

This would probably be best described as women’s fiction, but it is definitely smart and not the least bit saccharine. I liked it. ( )

Although it certainly doesn’t occur in every story or every book – it seems to be very common that the end of a work of fiction ties back in some way to the beginning. In “The House on Fortune Street”, although I am sure it is probably my fault, the only link between the end and beginning of this book is that both contain a letter. One is a mundane letter from a back, the other a letter whose contents have been eagerly anticipated throughout the book. And yet – I was left flat. I enjoyed the book, on the whole, but I don’t feel as if either the big reveal nor the journey the reader takes to get there lived up to expectations.

The four main characters of the novel – Sean, Dara, Abigail and Cameron are each given their own section of the book. In each, we look through their eyes at many of the events that tie them all together. I did feel as if I gained some insight as to why they did what they did, but there was still a barrier that left the question of why they were who they were unanswered.

(I did find it interesting though, that the one character whose head I most did not want to be in was the one character whose section is written in the first person. His thoughts, the images we see while inhabiting his mind, continue to bother me, days after finishing the book.)

And yet, that tantalizing bit that remains out of reach is hinted at in many ways throughout the book. Maybe, now that I think about it, that’s one of the main themes of the story.

“She was looking at him across the table, her eyes deep and steady, and he knew that if he stretched out his hand she would lead him to her bedroom. He sat there, meeting her gaze, imagining the skin he could see leading to the skin he couldn’t, imagining the pleasure of sex without history. At last, not sure if he was being courageous or cowardly, he looked away.”

Each character is tied to a book or a writer, a plot device that I kept forgetting about unless it was being thrust in front of my face. The subtlety was lost on me.

“Dickens has been two years older that she was when he had published his first sketch, and described his eyes so dimmed with joy and pride, that they could not bear the street, and were not fit to be seen there. Her own eyesight was as keen as ever – she could distinguish the start ruin of the cathedral and beyond it the headland – but she understood about hiding joy.”

I still feel ambivalent about this book, and I’ve been considering my review for a few days. I enjoyed reading the book, there were parts that I felt were very well done and I felt as if I learned something about the characters.

And yet – and yet. I guess I never really felt as if the book lived up to its potential. I felt as if there was some big question that had been posed about these four people that was never answered. Four lives, tied together. Each character impacting and forever changing each others lives…

“But no, what she was sensing was absence, not a presence. Everything she could see, everything she could measure, was the same, and yet everything was profoundly altered.” ( )

Did not finish. Boring ( )