A Tale of Two Families

This book isn't about anything and almost nothing happens. Rather than focus on plot, character development or interesting dialogue, it only focuses on the particular thoughts and feelings the characters are experiencing in the moment which they invariably don't act on. It isn't even about two families but rather they are one family. May and June are sisters married to George and Robert, brothers. May and George are rich. June has a crush on George. George is a philanderer. Robert has writer's block. Two of their children (double first cousins), Hugh and Corinna, are in an incestuous but chaste relationship. Corinna is considering an affair with a much older man because she is a young woman in a Dodie Smith novel and they always do show more that. Baggy, the father of the brothers, is lonely. Fran, the mother of the sisters, still thinks she is young despite being in her 70s. Everyone hates her sister, a sex-obsessed weirdo. There's a dalmatian and they feed it chocolate because again, Dodie Smith. NOTHING HAPPENS. It's not even funny, which I thought at least was always a given with a Smith book. I really just don't enjoy her later work at all. show less

An easy and fairly enjoyable read but the characters all seemed rather silly.The story didn't really end but just fizzled out. It was originally published in 1970 and is very dated in its attitudes.