She certainly appears to have the motivation to attempt murder, holding him responsible for the death of her younger brother Fred, whom he bullied to join the army. Monica pays a visit to her father, a dentist called Albert, with an axe, shortly before he is found covered in blood.

It is hard to know exactly what Gee is aiming at. While being a tall woman doesn’t seem weird in itself, Monica, with her caterpillar eyebrows, is painted as something of a grotesque, who wonders whether she has Neanderthal genes and says: ‘Male eyes feast upon my breasts.’ She also seems to be much taken with her own vulgarity, and one can’t help but feel sympathy for her lampooned younger sister Fairy who ‘shrank from familial crudeness’ after Monica suggests that their mother might have ‘wee-ed’ someone to death. The choice of Thanet is not accidental, and one’s initial hope was that this might be the first great Brexit novel.īrexit is mentioned, but the narrative is dominated by 38-year-old ‘buxom bruiser’ Monica Ludd, an unconventional deputy head at a local secondary school, who we are repeatedly told is six foot. The setting is Thanet, which was the only Ukip-held council in Britain until March last year, when almost half of its councillors resigned and formed a breakaway group. Blood, her latest, is a bizarrely misfiring black comedy. Urn:oclc:696006637 Republisher_date 20180809122806 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 2508 Scandate 20180112150411 Scanner Scanningcenter hongkong Tts_version v1.Maggie Gee has written 14 novels including The White Family, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize). Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 16:37:48 Bookplateleaf 0010 Boxid IA1305611 City London Donorīostonpubliclibrary Edition Paperback External-identifier

The White Family by Maggie Gee