A year in the life of the Bradshaws - three brothers, ageing parents and their families and three family mid-life crises. Firstly, there's middle brother Thomas who has taken a year's sabbatical to learn the piano, his wife Tonie who has been promoted and back at work full-time, and daughter Alexa. Older brother Howard is successful and impulsive, wife Claudia likes to be busy which keeps her in excuses for not going into her studio shed to paint. Then there's Leo, the youngest, who's rather insecure and his heavy-drinking wife Susie. Behind them are their parents who constantly bicker.

This is a stylised novel in which to quote Tolstoy, "each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." It is predominantly told from Thomas' point of view, house-husband and musician-manqué, and the author uses many musical metaphors to describe his part. Tonie, his wife however is so aloof, she's almost not there, until crisis comes. The episode near the end involving Howard's family and their unloved dog Skittle was hilariously awful and in its drama does much to leaven the intensity of this chronicle of middle-class family life.

I felt it was trying too hard to be clever, instead rather suffering in its detachment - funnily I remember feeling similarly about 'The Travelling Horn Player' by Barbara Trapido when I read that a few years ago, (it also has a musical theme running through it), although the latter had a more interesting cast of characters. ( )

Am glad I am not alone in thinking that this story was not plot driven! I do like a good plot so struggled a bit especially as I never felt much sympathy for any of the characters!
Having said that the language used to create a constant tension was very powerful and drove the story, beautifully written. ( )

This short novel is definitely not for anyone who likes their books to be plot driven, because there isn't really much of a story.

This is about the Bradshaws - brothers and their wives and family and parents. It is a look at the individual family members and their lives, sometimes in minute detail, over the course of a year, I think. Some of the writing is brilliant, but other times she lets it down by using too metaphorical language or references. She definitely overplays the musical metaphors around Thomas Bradshaw, a house husband who spends a lot of his time musing on art and practicing his piano playing.

The strengths of this novel lie in the characters themselves and the interplay of their relationships within the family.

Overall, I found it a good read and it was a book that I was always keen to return to. ( )

Rachel Cusk's previous novels, especially Arlington Park, were well received so I started out hopefully; not having read any of her earlier books, I had no preconceived ideas of what to expect. It was a huge disappointment; a novel that like a crossword puzzle mentioned early on "doesn't go anywhere". I felt like giving the characters - and the book - a good shake.

Yet another novel written in the present tense to no apparent effect, as it certain doesn't heighten the tension. Not that there is much tension to heighten. It is also a prime example of over-writing. (Did this book have an editor? Just asking.) Perhaps the over-writing was intended to compensate for the flatness of the characters.

Had this not been a review copy, I would probably have given up by chapter two but I felt duty bound to read to the end.

In the 1950s, the UK had a popular radio comedy sketch programme called Take It From Here. One of its regular sketches featured a family called the Glums. The Bradshaws are little more than a middle-class version of the Glums - but without the humour. The sort of family that has been picked over ad infinitum by oh-so-many writers, so any novelist venturing into this territory needs to have something new or different to say about middle-class life. The Bradshaw Variations fails on both counts.

Dreary and depressing and probably best not read by anyone feeling a tad melancholy. ( )

Although it is difficult to say why, I never really took to this book. I read about half-way through it soon after it arrived as an early reviewer copy but then couldn’t summon up the enthusiasm to finish it for a month or two. The story, as the title might suggest, deals with the Bradshaw family – parents, three sons, wives and children. In the family the book focuses on most, Thomas has left his job and is looking after 8 year old Alexa, while his wife Tonie concentrates on her full time university job. It’s one of those books written in the present tense – presumably to give it immediacy – but I found this just seemed a bit pretentious and annoying. Not a lot happens – I don’t necessarily mind this and am a great fan of writers like Anne Tyler who can make the minutiae of everyday life strangely fascinating – but as I found I was not particularly interested in any of the characters this made it difficult to keep going. Overall, I would describe it as a tale of a modern, somewhat dysfunctional in their own way, middle class family with the sons’ generation undergoing their own early middle-age crises – a book not badly written but just not that inspiring. ( )