Messy family matters: Bad Relations, by Cressida Connolly, reviewed

Cressida Connolly’s new novel begins with a couple of endings. It’s spring 1855, and on the battlefields of the Crimea William Gale is mourning the deaths of his brother Algernon and his friend Mr Lockwood. He writes to his wife Alice, who back home has befriended the progressive Dr Nolan, and asks her to call on Mrs Lockwood in Cheltenham. Upon returning from the war a medalled hero, William isn’t himself, and after meeting the ‘good lady’ widow and her two little girls, Molly and Kitty, he makes a rash decision that reverberates across generations.

It’s hard not to play favourites with a novel divided into three fairly distinct parts, and I admit I would happily have spent all 280 pages of Bad Relations in Part Two. The year is 1977 and William’s descendants have invited Stephen Nolan, a thoughtful art school drop-out (and a distant relative) to help on the family farm in Cornwall.