An accidental life (by Titia Sutherland)

(Amazon UK link)

I’ve been rereading my collection of novels by Titia Sutherland which were published in the 1990s over the past six months or so. It’s nearly two decades since I last read ‘An accidental life’, so - unsurprisingly - I had entirely forgotten what it was about. As I’ve liked the other books by this author very much, I was looking forward to read it.

However it has a most depressing opening chapter. Some men have been out hunting - and I have never begun to understand the appeal of this violent activity. So I was quite ready to sympathise with Philip, whose stomach is turned by the dead animals shared around. He’s evidently rather low, and in his ponderings we learn that he’s had to hide something from his wife and family. And then he does something drastic…

The action then switches to Ellie, recently widowed and quite angry about it. She rejects the idea of an accidental death, and is convinced her husband was having an affair. She was an actress before marriage, but never very successful. Now she teaches English and drama at a local convent, and finds it very fulfilling. 

Ellie has three children: Cassandra, who is a university student, Luke who is seventeen and retaking an A-level, and nine-year-old Harriet. Cassandra has a memory of something she has hidden from everyone, and often seems to clash with her mother. Luke is rather depressed, and not sure he wants to study music although everyone else expects him to, and he’s evidently quite talented (though not brilliant). And Harriet refuses to believe that her father is dead…

Ellie’s brother-in-law Alex is an executor, and half in love with her too, though he tries to hide it. And there are other local friends who play their parts; Titia Sutherland had quite a gift for characterisation, and I didn’t have any trouble recalling who was whom.

The story is cleverly written, with many flashbacks into the past taking up whole chapters. They’re mostly Ellie’s memories, as she thinks about her marriage. She was very happy in the early days and not sure she wanted children, although she has also found motherhood quite rewarding. I found the pace good, and the people mostly believable, although I felt frustrated that they weren’t more open with each other. Evidently they got under my skin.

The writing is good, and the story eventually reaches its conclusion. But I felt that it took far too long for Ellie to understand what the reader knows from the first chapter. I began to wonder whether she would ever work it out. She knew something was wrong, but seemed to hassle her husband rather than encourage him to talk, and be willing to listen.

I also found it rather a depressing story.  With all the secrets and half-truths, characters misunderstand each other, and the tragedy is perhaps inevitable - but it feels, now, a bit dated. The knowledge would still be shocking to someone like Ellie, but I think less likely to lead to shame or the need to hide, even thirty years after publication. 

But even given the rather less accepting era and the society in which Ellie and her family move, it’s not a pleasant topic for a novel. I didn’t like the first chapter, and I was shocked at an incident towards the end, which seems entirely unnecessary to the story, and really not needed for the development of the character concerned. 

So while I liked some of the people, and found it very readable, I’m not sure I’ll want to read this again. Perhaps I will, in another decade or so. I have recommended the other books by Titia Sutherland, but really wouldn’t recommend this one. Then again, I liked it very much when I first read it… 

Maybe the author was experimenting with something heavier than her other books; I don’t know what reception it had when it was first published. She didn’t write any more, as far as I know, and her books are now out of print (though fairly readily available second-hand). 

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