Lunchtime read: Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

This book has two stories so they will be dealt with in half chunks over the next four working days.

Highlights from the first half of Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters

* A large family with numerous children is described in the year 1942 with the eldest son Seymour apparently getting married in new York according to one of his sisters who informs the brother narrator that he has to attend on behalf of the family

* The brother duly turns up for the wedding but there is no sign of Seymour and the bride is in floods of tears as after an hour plus the ceremony is called off and everyone heads back to the bride’s family apartment

* Seymour’s brother sits in the car with an aggressive maid of honour who finally tumbles who he is but not before she reveals that the groom had doubts because he was ‘too happy’ to get married and that he called it off the night before

* The brother abandons the car with the maid of honour but seems in two minds what to do next

More tomorrow…