Lunchtime read: The Steep Approach to Garbadale

Well there is still room for a twist in the tale with the main surprise being that you discover that you really do care about Alban after all. That concern comes when you start to get the sense that he might be killed as a result of his prying and aggressive stance towards the American company taking over his family’s company.

The realisation that here is a character that you don’t want to see snuffed out yet comes at roughly the same time he realises he no longer loves Sophie.

But he also understands that Sophie was in some way the key to the mystery of his mother’s suicide so creates one last scene pretending to love her to prise open his grandma. This time she tells the truth and the pieces of the jigsaw fall into place. Not just about his mother but also about the true nature of what being loyal to the family firm involved.

The final few pages are taken up with the voice of the drugged out bum that had been living with Alban at the start of the novel. Quite why this character was needed escapes me Fielding could have worked just as well for a different standpoint. Anyway the reader is left with all the loose ends tied up.

This type of sprawling family epic had its attractions but I’ll save my thoughts for the review…