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SURVIVING FAMILY HOLDAYS
THE author and broadcaster suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life.
AT THIS time of year, it is only too easy to start dreaming about the summer holiday and how it will smoothe away all the annoyances of daily life, the wrinkles in family relations, and restore everyone to their best selves.
The truth is, holidays can be remarkably stressful; the combination of sun, cheap booze and unfamiliar plumbing can quickly turn trips into ordeals.
The family in Emma Straub’s The Vacationers has come to Majorca from New York to escape their troubles. The husband Jim has been sacked from his job for having an affair with an intern; the teenage daughter has been dumped by her high school boyfriend and Franny the mother is facing the prospect of sharing an empty nest with an unfaithful husband.
The holiday is meant to be a sticking plaster, but it soon becomes the catalyst for the whole edifice to crumble.
On the other hand, having a change of scene can also shift your perspective for the better. Molly Pargeter, the protagonist of John Mortimer’s novel Summer’s Lease, is determined to have the family holiday of a lifetime, so she rents a villa in Tuscany for three weeks.
Things go wrong from the beginning, culminating with the discovery of a body in the swimming pool. But Molly finds the strength to deal with this and the discovery of her husband’s faithlessness through her study of the Tuscan painter Piero della Francesca.
On her pilgrimage to visit his paintings, she discovers the strength to take charge of her own life.
The other thing about holidays is when you put people in unfamiliar settings you often find out things about them that otherwise you might have overlooked.
Captain Wentworth is well on the way to proposing marriage to Louisa Musgrove in Jane Austen’s Persuasion when they make a trip to Lyme Regis. Walking on the Cobb, Louisa insists on jumping down some steps and knocks herself out.
Her foolishness makes Captain Wentworth realise they are not suited and that the real love of his life is the calm and sensible Anne Elliot.
Perhaps everyone should go on holiday with a prospective spouse as a test of true compatibility.