A sprawling, bizarre epic of a novel that somehow only covers a few months of time. Could have used another few rounds of editing to remove a few of the more cliched elements and hackneyed tropes (but then maybe they were all intended, I don't know) but it was certainly interesting to see what the author did with the story, anyway. ( )

“All happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”'
Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina"

While reading, "House of Trelawney", I was haunted by this famous quote. Indeed, this book highlights the brokenness of a highly dysfunctional British aristocratic family. Yet there is so much more to this story beyond all its family drama.

Author Hannah Rothschild has done a bang up job of poking fun at the slowly decaying aristocratic society (old money), the greed of hedge funds managers in their search for power and fame (new money) and the struggle to hold onto crumbling estates while meeting the demands of needed repairs and inheritance taxes (no money). Although much of this satirical story is sad, there is also a tremendous amount of humor and even tenderness. The depth of character writing is excellent and scene settings are richly portrayed. It is interesting how a crumbling 800 year old castle is also a breathing/dying character in the book - so much in need of resuscitation or its own requiem. Ms. Rothschild's writing is well crafted, her understanding of the human condition and her knowledge of financial markets - spot on. Not wanting to give too much of the plot away, I'll just leave it at this - I, for one, look forward to reading more stories by this talented writer.

I am grateful to author Hannah Rothschild and her publisher Alfred A. Knopf for having provided a complimentary copy of this book. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone. ( )

This book had such potential. A great historical year 2008, fabulous characters dead and alive, interesting situations. But some parts should not have been included. A good editor would have improved the book ( )

I do like a good family saga, and The House of Trelawney has all the strained relationships and eccentric relatives imaginable. After 700 years of titled wealth, the remaining members of the Trelawney family have inherited the vast, falling-down estate and most of the aristocratic sensibilities, but there isn't actually any money left. Rather than succumb to a reasonable middle-class (or even upper-class) lifestyle, the aging Earl insists on keeping up standards, and pretending they still have servants, while the future earl of Trelawney constantly re-mortgages the estate for financial schemes to reverse the family fortunes.

I loved the family's near-constant refusal to mention anything wrong, like the lack of staff, heat, private schools, or the missing relatives. Despite the huge estate full of empty rooms, the younger siblings are not permitted to stay in the family estate after they reach adulthood. I also loved when the Trelawneys occasionally met other aristocrats, and as they go around calling each other their ridiculous nicknames, you can't help wondering who else had sold off painting and fields. And the reversals and shocks just keep coming, with perfect tension and timing, throughout the novel.

At times, though, it's just too much. The house is not just a rundown manor, with no heating and gaps where the auctioned paintings used to be, instead it's revolting, with mold and animal droppings and general filth. The stubborn spinster aunt, a bit too into her horses or dogs, is a familiar character in stories about British aristocrats, but here she's scraping fleas off animal corpses for research. Gross. Other stories have infidelity, here it seems like half the village is a Trelawney byblow and half the fortune has gone to pregnant housemaids. The grandson and future heir is uselessly privileged, of course, but is it too much? Can 700 years of rank and breeding really end up like this? ( )

I spent a grand old day in the sun reading this novel in more or less one sitting! The eccentric Trelawney family really came to life for me, not least being the 800 year old castle inhabited by three generations from the doddering old Earl and Countess to the ‘spare’, Kitto, and his wife and three teenage children. The story is supposed to be centred around three friends – ‘Plain’ Jane the daughter-in-law, Blaze the sister, scarred but financially shrewd, and the brilliant, mysterious Anastasia, who exists only in memory like Rebecca de Winter – but apart from a predictable twist in the tale, nothing really came of the big ‘family secret’ after Ayesha’s arrival.

Instead, I enjoyed reading about the day to day life of the family and the crumbling ancestral home, which is like a millstone around the neck of each generation, passed onto the eldest, usually ungrateful, son and causing sibling rifts. Trelawney Castle, set in Cornwall like Du Maurier’s Manderley, is the star of the story, but in the thoroughly modern, decaying and depressing sense of being a symbol of the aristocracy in the twentieth century: The decline and fall of the House of Trelawney would mirror the history of Britain; like the country, Trelawney was a shadow of its former self, a mere elegy and an effigy. The message gets a little heavy-handed at times - ‘People matter, places shouldn’t. And the worst thing of all is just to keep on doing things because that’s what was done before. You lot aren’t even old-fashioned or quaint. You’re myopic Jurassic has-beens,’ as one ‘commoner’ remarks – but the effect is truly atmospheric. The characters could be straight out of Cold Comfort Farm or We Have Always Lived in the Castle, but their lives are so modern and ordinary – Jane struggling to patch up the house and hold her family together, Blaze filling her life with work, the Earl and Countess trapped in the past – that they somehow become believable. Although, I did find the final chapters slightly ridiculous, when the Dowager Countess becomes the subject of a TV docudrama, but for the most part, I could believe that Trelawney family really existed!

My only quibble – of course I have one – would be the pacing. Key events, or at least dramatic scenes that would have livened the story, are told ‘off screen’, or in retrospect. Also, the ending felt slightly rushed – to spend so long with this family, only to have their lives summarised with a passing line, seemed unfair. ( )