Never Too Late

Like most of Angela Thirkell’s Barsetshire novels, Never Too Late shows a subset of the Barsetshire community living fairly ordinary (albeit privileged) lives, with a couple significant developments driving the plot. In this case, Edith Graham has returned from spending several months in America and is trying to find her footing as a young adult. At the same time, an older woman and her adult son are dealing with their husband/father’s decline. In these novels, young adults usually find romantic bliss, but Edith is a bit too young for marriage; perhaps that will happen in the next book. I found the other storyline more interesting. This is the second book in which Thirkell has written about the end of a life well lived; she expertly show more handles the gradual but inevitable failure of mind and body, the impact on their loved ones, and the feelings of guilty relief afterwards. These scenes were quite moving and I couldn’t help wondering if, at this point in her career, Thirkell was writing from personal experience. And then she surprised me by setting up a new relationship that I look forward to reading about in the next novel. show less

This late entry in Thirkell's Barsetshire series has much of the light humor of the earlier books & a little less of the complaints that life isn't what it used to be. Although the romance in this novel doesn't center on Edith Graham, Lady Graham's youngest (and only unmarried) daughter, she is in it a great deal and has grown out of some her more annoying characteristics of her pre-teen years. I look forward to seeing with whom she will finally fall in love!

More details of everyday life in Barsetshire and with a lovely happy ending for one of the characters who had previously been taken for granted and a little downtrodden.