The time-span of Jennifer Lash's "From May To October" is short, the plot of no particular consequence. But what she has created in almost tangible detail is a mosaic of family life during the course of one summer.
From May To October
by Jennifer Lash
Hamish Hamilton
6.95 pounds
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A Review by Selina Hastings
The Daily Telegraph
9 October 1980
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The time-span of Jennifer Lash's "From May To October" is short, the plot
of no particular consequence. But what she has created in almost
tangible detail is a mosaic of family life during the course of one summer.
The Lamberts live in a shabby farmhouse in the West country. Michael runs a cosy if not very prosperous bookshop while Caroline, when she has time, paints. The five children are all very different -- one clever, another slow and absentminded, a third still a little girl in constant need of love and attention.
And around them are the tangled groups of friends and relations which seem to accrue to any large family: Flavia, Michael's fussy mother who lives in a cottage in the village; his handsome father and second wife, a showy American; and Monica, Caroline's old friend, intelligent and argumentative and angrily committed to the feminist cause.
The attraction of this accomplished novel is in its vivid descriptions of meals and chatter and of those moments of depression and elation which occur throughout the fascinating routine of day-to-day existence.