BEST BOOKS ON... GENERATION GAP
THE bestselling author suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life. THE first time I picked up a child from a school disco, I was foolish enough to wait inside with the other parents. There was the usual collection of tired faces and pyjama bottoms; yet I was the only one who got a text saying ‘just wait outside’. It appeared I had become Officially Embarrassing. When we were young, our mums were all embarrassing — properly so. But we were never going to make that mistake. We’re so young for our age. Everyone can see that. Everyone, that is, except the next generation.
Elizabeth Strout’s Amy And Isabelle are a mother and daughter with a tricky relationship. Each is as painfully embarrassed as the other. Amy would like a new mother altogether; this one is plain and churchy and knows nothing at all about love.
Funnily enough, Isabelle would very much like a different daughter, as this one knows far too much about ‘love’ from having public sex with her middle-aged maths teacher.
For a long, hot, horrible summer Amy and Isabelle live together in mutual, agonising discomfort and irritation, until circumstances force them to see that their differences are not quite as great as they thought.
It’s not just parents and their children who suffer from generational misunderstandings; it happens in relationships, too.
Often — not always — there’s money involved. In Middlemarch, it’s not old Edward Casaubon’s millions that attract young, beautiful Dorothea — he doesn’t have any. She mistakes his ponderousness for genius, his old-man grumpiness for wisdom. It was never going to end well.
What captivates the lucky reader of The Cazalet Chronicles (Casting Off is the fourth of five) is that there are so many generations to contend with: Elizabeth Jane Howard sends four out into the world.
Each has different social pressures, creating misunderstandings and conflict. But it’s her oldest generation — dear old Brig and the Duchy — who are the wisest, most sympathetic and most loved of them all.