Home Leave (by Libby Purves)

I collected and read all of Libby Purves’ novels over a decade ago, and have only recently started re-reading them. It’s sixteen years since I first read ‘Home Leave’, and I had entirely forgotten what it was about.

It opens by introducing Robert Grafton, at a New Year’s Eve ball in Vienna, in 1950. There he met and fell in love with the beautiful Diana. Robert was a diplomat, and she made an excellent diplomatic wife, happy to pack up and move every few years as they travelled around the world. However she didn’t find motherhood particularly rewarding. Her role in the book is as the mother of the children, but by 1996, when most of the action takes place, Diana has died.

The first chapter introduces her four very different children, and most of the story focuses on them. But the main protagonist, at least in my mind, is the oldest: Catherine, or Cat, as they call her. She’s just past forty, married to the altruistic Gervase, who is a farmer. He farms by old-fashioned methods, cruelty-free as far as possible. And he runs a scheme using ex-convicts to work in the open air and absorb some of his values. He doesn’t take on any dangerous criminals, and on the whole, it has been a success.

Cat has two teenage children from a previous marriage, and she works as a freelance writer for a large corporation. She likes to organise family gatherings, and keeps a motherly eye on her younger siblings. She’s a classic oldest child who had a temporary aberration as a young adult but has appreciated being rescued, first by her former mother-in-law Noreen, and then by the handsome Gervase. I liked Cat very much.

Toby is the second oldest; he was quite wild as a child, and is still somewhat unpredictable even in his late thirties. He’s been travelling around the world, writing shocking lyrics for songs, living a bohemian lifestyle. His brother Mark is a few years younger, and entirely different. He was a stolid child, his mother’s least favourite. He works for a large corporation, and is fairly recently married to Lindy whom he adores.

Then there’s Caroline. We get to know her early in the book when Cat finds a hotel reservation has fallen through, and she goes to spend the night at her sister’s house. Caroline was her mother’s favourite; she’s the typical ‘spoilt princess’ youngest child, perhaps a tad caricatured and not particularly likeable. But I felt sorry for her too; her husband Alan is clearly a very unpleasant (and unfaithful) person. Caroline is expecting her first baby.

There isn’t really a great deal of plot as such. The book features several family gatherings, hosted by Cat, at which we get to know her siblings and their partners, and various other relatives. We also get to know some of Gervase’s current helpers: Duanne is not particularly bright, but is very willing to work. Gary is angry, and doesn’t really care what happens to him. There’s Martin, too, a young American man taking a gap year before doing his PhD in the United States. He is very interested in Gervas’s methods, and is extremely helpful. And then there’s Winston, who doesn’t really feature much until Caroline and her baby come to stay for a while, and he proves to be an expert at child-care.

Some of the characters are caricatures - Gervase’s mother, in particular - but that’s okay. They were all easily distinguishable, and indeed memorable; I didn’t have to check any of the names despite having finished the book 24 hours before writing this. Not that I recalled any of the plot at all from my prior reading. There are some unexpected turnings in the story, and some shocks which I did not see coming. The blurb on the back mentions one particular facet of the story which proves a catalyst for the siblings to venture out of their comfort zones. This moves the story onwards, bringing some healing to Caroline, who is quite depressed after her baby’s birth, and some unexpected freedom to Cat.

Overall I found it a very enjoyable story, set as it was in several different locations, featuring different people and attitudes. There is a sense of family unity that pervade even the arguments and jealousies that arise from time to time, and a great deal of genuine niceness. I was not expecting the final surprise of the book, even though it was something I would expect to have remembered, and I absolutely loved the final paragraph.

Definitely recommended.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews