Peter, the patriarch. Peter is a physician in a small town where everyone knows everyone and is interested in their lives (obsessively so). He wishes for more in his home, doesn't get it, so he begins to fantasize about what could be with his neighbor.
Helen, the matriarch. Helen tries to keep the family on the straight and narrow, hanging on to habit and tradition with a ferocity that would make a rabid wolverine proud.
Rowan, the son. Sensitive, artistic, and Lord Byron's biggest fan. Rowan is subjected to the bullying of his classmates. He is also secretly in love with his sister's best friend.
Clara, the daughter. Clara starts out seemingly in the background. She is Eve's friend, the beautiful newcomer who has enraptured Rowan (and most of the male teenage population of Bishopthorpe). But Clara will not stay in the background long.
One fateful night, a young man decides that he is going to ignore the fact that no means no. It is his decision that will change the fates of this, well, boring middle-class family.
You see, the Radleys are vampires. Granted, Rowan and Clara do not know this, and Peter and Helen have been abstaining for the last 17 years. However, that night changes everything for them. Rowan and Clara learn their true natures, Peter's long lost brother returns with his past on his heels, and this nuclear family goes atomic.
And all of this happens in the span of a week.
Matt Haig's tale of family and what happens when secrets are finally revealed is one of the best books I have read in quite some time. He is in turn humorous and serious. Haig captures the nature of repression with sparkling clarity. His unique voice is one that I find refreshing. Haig expertly captures the disconnection that his characters are experiencing between what is right and what is nature.
When I first started the book, I was a little put off by the seemingly erratic change in topic in the first few tiny chapters (some as short as a few paragraphs on one single page). However, as I continued reading, the book and its format began to make sense. As in real life, we never get the full impact of a situation all at once. Haig mirrors that in his writing.
As with all that I read, I gauge how much I like a book based on if I would read it again. The answer: over and over! This book is fantastic! The only con I can really post is that I would have liked to have heard more from Clara throughout the novel. She tended to take a backseat to everyone else, and she is really the character who put the major part of the story in motion.
Outside of that, the novel was great! My next step will be to seek out Haig's other novels. I can only imagine they will be just as grand as this one.
