Who wants to read about happy lives and secure, confident souls? Even through all that hardship (Depression Era, illness, job insecurity) all the characters persevere and are graceful and loving. Pah. The bright spots for me was reading about Charity—a demanding, controlling and obnoxiously energetic woman. The subtle and complex cruelty of the last scene was (not coincidently) centered around Charity—a woman whose rigidity and its affects on her loved ones were the only conflicts in a richly-written book filled with people sitting around, drinking tea and being ridiculously sensible.
