The Facts of Life

The Facts of Life by Graham Joyce is a magical read. If you like heart-warming stories with a good dash of eccentricity you will love this novel. This is the first book I've read by Graham Joyce and it is wonderfully written. I expect I'll be reading everything else he has to offer.

Graham Joyce just keeps getting better. This novel is beautifully written, flawlessly plotted, with very well drawn characters. It is quite funny in places, and it vividly evokes the bombing of Coventry and its aftermath. The elements of fantasy are woven seemlessly together with the more "realistic" elements. You really come to care about this family. In his earlier novels, Joyce's endings are sometimes disappointing, but that is not the case here - the ending is perfect. Joyce's supernatural thrillers with exotic settings(such as Smoking Poppy, Indigo and Requiem)are among the best of their kind, but he is even better at coming of age stories set in working class Britain, such as The Tooth Fairy and this book. The Facts of Life reminded me more of magic realists Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Isabelle Allende than it did of "genre" fantasy or horror.I can't think of any contemporary novelists whose work I enjoy more than Joyce. I can't wait for the next one.

A friend insisted that I had to read this book since he had loved it so much. I also greatly enjoyed it, and I won't give a synopsis of the story, because you can read that elsewhere. The characters are so vivid and alive. There is Martha, the matriarch of the family, and her several daughters. Cassie, the youngest has an illegitimate son named Frank, whom she almost gave away when he was a baby. The story follows Frank's growing-up years near Coventry, England before and during WWII. Graham Joyce has a knack for vivid descriptions. The bombing of Coventry during the war is described in such detail, that I could feel the horror and also every tremor. There is a description of an undertaking parlor as seen through young Frank's eyes that is wonderful. Also, the ending is so extremely satisfying and unexpected. We find out who "The Man Behind the Glass" is, and I never guessed it at all. I would really recommend this book as a compelling read. This should become a classic.

A psychic matriarch, seven daughters and one magical boy hold center stage in Graham Joyce's latest novel, The Facts of Life, a work situated comfortably somewhere between the best mainstream fiction and the subtlest works of fantasy. Be it magical realism or literary horror, the key ingredients here, as with all of Joyce's works, are characters you can reach out and touch. And they touch you right back. Set in during and post-WWII Coventry, England, the novel opens with "wayward ... fey" Cassie Vine and the bundle in her arms, Frank, whom she fails to give away to a prospective foster mother. Returning home to her mother, Martha and her six sisters, Cassie triggers a discussion that will set the tone and struggle for the rest of the novel. As Cassie herself "is the last girl on Earth fit to raise a child," Martha and her daughters agree that Frank should be raised by the entire clan. Passed from Martha and Aunt Beatie Vine's own care to Aunt Una and Uncle Tom's farm, to his twin aunts Evelyn and Ina, it becomes clear that Frank is special and possessed of special abilities. Here at the farm, young Frank discovers the Man-Behind-The-Glass, a mysterious figure trapped in the Earth, constantly demanding that Frank bring him things. Meanwhile, the secret of Frank's conception remains with Cassie, buried deep in the night that German bombers circled over Coventry dropping incendiary and explosive payloads until most of the city was leveled. Cassie, who is regularly possessed of "blue" periods during which she tends to wander far, must often leave Frank in the care of his more stable relatives, transferring him from household-to-household, including an experimental commune and a house with an active mortuary parlor in the back. From each he takes away a lesson about life. Through it all, Martha watches, patiently directing Franks care from place-to-place, occasionally visited at the front door by precognitive apparitions that help her pave the way. Though a quiet work, The Facts of Life is no less gripping than Joyce's more conventional work in novels like Requiem and The Tooth Fairy. It's gently graceful characters and precise language makes this alternately horrific and humorous work a treasure whose pages will have slipped through the reader's fingers far too quickly.

Joyce (Graham Joyce) is one of my favorite authors. I started with The Dark Sister, then I inhaled The Tooth Fairy, and quickly read everything else. The Facts of Life was highly anticipated, and now I know why.Joyce has a gift for description and humanity that flows through his pages and into the reader. He doesn't care whether you believe in the extraordinary traits he gives three of the main characters (just as he disregarded the people who say the tooth fairy doesn't exist), he presents it in a way that makes it not only real but almost mundane. He takes Life, and imbues it with unforgettable reality. The Facts of Life left me breathless.