Blog #5

After finally finishing Family Album, I had a difficulty determining whether the ending was successful or not. It left me speechless, not because something extraordinary happened, but because the ending was completely predictable and tied the rest whole story together. After finding out that Clare was Ingrid and Charles’s child, not Alison, the reader is pulled into a deeper understanding of the novel and why Alison’s portrayal of her family is so superficial. She insisted that Ingrid “go away” for a while until Clare was born, and then they both return to Allersmead as if nothing happened. Charles’s affair with the au pair did not affect Alison as it should in a normal marriage, and she demanded that no one know about it, not even Clare. However, as the children grew up, they all began to suspect that Clare was not their sister, yet it was as if this idea was to be known only subconsciously; no one ever talked about it or questioned it. Then came the predictable and ordinary ending: Alison and Charles grow older, all the children continue living separate lives, and Allersmead slowly falls apart. Charles and Alison don’t have the money to renovate keep such a large and empty house, but Alison holds onto it with everything she has because it is a symbol of the life she created with the perfect family. Then, in the last chapter, Charles dies of a heart attack. It seems odd at first because no one is deeply upset or expresses any grief about this death. But looking back to the rest of the story, it is very fitting because Charles had no significant role in any of the children’s lives, and he never affected Alison’s way of life. Charles was almost just a role in presenting the “perfect and successful” family that Alison strived so hard for. It is after Charles’s death that Alison finally agrees to sell Allersmead, and maybe it is because she can no longer grasp this dream of hers. She has come to the realization that life must move on, and hopes that a young, growing family will buy the large Edwardian house and create memories like her family did. Although this ending is predictable and fitting to the rest of the novel, it is needed in order to close all loose ends. It allows readers to make a judgement and look back to the rest of the novel, and that is what makes Lively’s ending a success.