Accomplished a strangely mesmerising effect absolutely excellent New StatesmanNew York, 1980sAlice Burns a young book editor is deep into a manuscript about the morass of family life. The observations within resonate, perhaps, because she has just watched her own family implode.As she reads she wonders: When did the sadness start? And could it be that unhappiness is a choice?Thus begins a great American epic which follows Alice as she navigates high school, first love and sexism at an elite college, a spell in 1970s Ireland, and a tragedy that sends her stateside as the US embraces a cowboy actor named Reagan.But it is also the tale of her endlessly complex parents and brothers how their destinies are written by the lies they tell themselves and others.The Great Wide Open is an immensely ambitious and compulsive saga; a novel which will speak volumes to anyone who has marvelled at that pain that can only be caused by family itself.
