A few months ago I posted about my very favourite L M Montgmery book, The Blue Castle, link here. It was a new edition by Hesperus and it is now on my shelves sitting next to my battered thirty year old copy that I came across in a remaindered bookshop in Brixton High Street. I had not known any other books existed other than the Anne of Green Gables series and I adored it. Since then I have tracked down all of her work and have every single thing that she wrote, or that has been discovered so far, and I am delighted to hear that more of her unknown stand alone titles are being reprinted now that the author is out of copyright.
A Tangled Web is the second republished by Hesperus and I am most grateful to them for sending me a copy. I read it in one afternoon a week or so ago and could not put it down, indeed I can never put any of LMM's books down once started even if I have already read them several times already which is always the case.
'I am ready to die. I've felt almost everything in life there is to feel - I've drained my cup. But I mean to die decently and in order. I'm going to have one last rally'
For over sixty years members of the Penhallow family have married members of the Dark family and have created a tangled web of marriages, feuds and secrets. Aunt Becky knows she is dying so has called them altogether to read her will to them, tell then what she thinks of them and, most importan of all, who is to inherit the family's most precious heirloom. It is a jug, it is ugly, cracked and badly mended but it has been handed down through the generations and every member of the family wants the pride of ownership.
And so they all come. Murray Dark who is in love with Thora married to a drunken wastrel and who has nearly died several times but never quite managed it, so he is left to watch her from a distance; Margaret Penhallow, a spinster who lives as a drudge with her family in a noisy, loud untidy house and who yearns to live quietly in a small cottage in the country; Mrs Alpheus Penhallow and Nan,her modern, glamorous daughter with sleek hair who paints her lips and smokes cigarettes and who is disapproved of by everybody; young and lovely Gay Penhallow in love with Noel; Joscelyn Dark who left her husband on their wedding day and has never explained why - all the clan arrive at Aunt Becky's bidding.
She decides that a year will pass after her death before the inheritor of the jug is named. During that year the family dynamic changes forever. Nan decides to take Noel from Gay, Margaret is determined to have a life of her own, Murray attains his heart's desire and the long estrangement of Joscelyn and her husband comes to a head.
All these stories are interwoven, with many more strands to tell full of subtle touches, wit and humour and outright laughter. L M Montgomery is at the height of her powers here and she is unmerciless in her eagle eyed perception of the stupidity and silliness of humanity, also its love and warmth. It is very close to being my favourite and if you have not read this title, then I urge you to do so, you will simply love it.
I have read Montgomery's journals and know what a hard and difficult life she had, with an unhappy marriage and an unsatisfactory son, and from reading these it is clear how she finds a release in losing herself in her imagination and in the world she creates.
This is one of her best.