We All Live Here
By Jojo Moyes
Here’s something to appreciate about Jojo Moyes: as a romance novelist, she knows that a love story, if it’s really going to touch our hearts (and hers do more frequently than just about any other romance novelist out there), it needs a strong premise.. And Moyes always employs a strong premise. Not only are they strong, they’re also frequently as illuminating as they are intriguing. Some of the best of her career have included: a team of women traversing the landscape as part of a traveling library, a life fully reinvented by an accidentally swapped pair of shoes, a ship carrying wartime brides from Australia to England, the six remaining months in the life of a quadriplegic man and a rediscovered WWI portrait.
Now we get to add a new one: what if your mum dies suddenly, your husband leaves you and both your dads come to live with you… all at the same time?
We’re talking about strong themes here too. Often, Moyes writes of love as the fruit of a journey toward recovery, or a drastic change of perspective, or the reconciling of histories. So too does she explore love as embodied by acts of service, by patience, by learned and revealed vulnerability. The point is this: Moyes knows that the greatest love stories don’t just pop into being. They take work. They are confluence.
…And we get a lot of warmth along the way. And real and true character development (a cornerstone so often forgotten by too much contemporary romance). And some laughs, more often than not.
All of which is to say: let’s read the new Jojo Moyes! It’ll be just the post-January pick-me-up that we all need. Whether we know it or not.
We All Live Here
The blended family.
Is there a family that’s not complicated? Probably not. Are there families that are less complicated than Lila Kennedy’s? Most certainly. Families more conventional than hers, and less bursting at the seams with drama, and conflict, and chaos? Yes. And yes again.
When we meet her, things are looking pretty ropey for Lila. Her two daughters (troubled, pre-occupied teenager, Celie, and younger Violet, who has boundary issues and a very smart mouth) are going to be okay, she thinks. And that’s almost miraculous considering that her husband has just left them for another woman, who’s pregnant. And that her mother just died suddenly. And that her elderly step-father, recently widowed, has just moved in with them. And that their house feels like it might give up and fall apart at any moment. And that her writer’s block is making it almost impossible to pay the bills. Should Lila be amused or horrified that her most recent book was, in fact, about fixing a stale marriage? She hasn’t time for irony right now.
But, somehow, none of these things is the one that might just push everything over the edge. No; that thing is something else. That thing is, well, more of a someone than a some-thing. A someone that she has barely seen, and has either had too little time or too little inclination to even think about much over the past thirty-five years. It’s been almost four decades since Lila’s father abandoned his daughter to go and reinvent himself in Hollywood. Lila was six at the time. Or it might have been seven. And now, without a word of warning, here he is. On her chaotic doorstep.
She doesn’t know if she’ll ever forgive him. Back when he was thousands of miles away, it was easy to assume she wouldn’t. She’s had other priorities. She still has. And this sudden appearance, with all the hurt it holds, the baggage it carries and the confusion it inspires, this is what’s going to bring all these spinning plates crashing down. She just knows it.
Two dads – one grieving and quiet, the other sudden and inexcusable. Two daughters – one dealing with her own stuff, and the other incapable of staying out of everyone else’s. One precarious career. One even more precarious house. And one woman holding it all together. Precariously.
But with dad back on the scene, and with no escape from any of it, perhaps Lila is about to learn more – about being a family, about forgiving and adapting – than she thinks. And just when her family could scarcely get any more complicated.
We All Live Here is a touching portrait of a family in the throes of divorce, grief and reconciliation. The characters are memorable and real – particularly younger daughter Violet, whose outspoken remarks provide much of the novel’s comedy – and the situation is all too tangible. It’s a book with genuine heart and genuine empathy. And it’s a genuine pleasure.
Is it the best book Moyes has written yet? You’ll have to let us know!