Grown Ups by Marie Aubert

 

Grown Ups by Marie Aubert.

Translated by Rosie Hedger.

Published 3rd June 2021 by Pushkin Press.

From the cover of the book:

Ida is a forty-year-old architect, single and starting to panic. She's navigating Tinder and contemplating freezing her eggs, but forces these worries to the back of her mind as she sets off to the family cabin for her mother's sixty-fifth birthday.

But family ties old and new begin to wear thin, out in the idyllic Norwegian countryside. Ida is fighting with her sister Marthe, flirting with Marthe's husband and winning the favour of Marthe's stepdaughter. 

Some supposedly wonderful news from her sister sets tensions simmering even further, building to an almighty clash between Ida and her sister, her mother, her whole family.

Exhilarating, funny and unexpectedly devastating, Grown Ups asks what kind of adult you are without a family of your own.

*******************************

Grown Ups is told from the point of view of forty-year-old architect Ida, who we meet just as she is off to the lakeside family cabin in Norway to celebrate her mother's sixty-fifth birthday.

Right from the word go, we are aware of the deep feelings of panic that have taken over Ida's every waking moment, as she dwells on her life as a single, childless, career woman painfully aware of the ticking of her body clock, and her plans to freeze some of her eggs as soon as this little family trip is over. Not surprisingly, she feels rather uncomfortable at the thought of sharing the next few days with her younger sister Marthe, her partner Kristoffer and his daughter Olea, especially since they have been trying for a baby of their own.

Almost as soon as Ida is through the door of the cabin our perception that this is going to be far from a cosy little family reunion is confirmed. You can almost cut the atmosphere with a knife when Marthe shares some unexpected news with her sister that brings all the old tension and rivalry to the surface - and seems to elicit the worst in them all. 

Jealous of what Marthe has apparently come by so easily, Ida can't help herself from taking pot-shots at every opportunity, doing her best to come between her sister and her partner, and her sister and Olea, in order to prove that she is far more deserving of such domestic bliss, and Marthe responds to every jibe with petulant ripostes of her own. Matters only seem to get worse when their mother and her partner Stein turn up to complete the family party, and as the fur begins to fly, the edginess builds to a massive bust-up that has consequences for everyone in the firing line.

This is such a potent little gem of a novel that paints a sharply observed picture of the perfect dysfunctional family, with a twist of Norwegian intensity, impressively translated by Rosie Hedger. Almost everyone here feels the weight of expectation placed upon them by family, friends and notions of how they should be living grown up lives, and Aubert weaves the resulting tension beautifully into a tightly constructed framework shaped around the age old rivalry between siblings. I think anyone with brothers or sisters reading this book will recognise much of the pattern of events at the heart of this story, but my goodness, the savagery between Ida and Marthe is way off the scale of normal sibling dynamics.

The beauty of this novel lies in the way Aubert sprinkles observations of grown up behaviour throughout, with some wonderfully emotive reflections on pivotal coming of age moments, and how she provides insight into exactly how the relationships between her characters have been allowed to deteriorate to the point of, potentially, no return. Ida's flashbacks into the past reveal a childhood filled with unresolved issues around her parents' divorce, that have influenced not only the relationships between the two daughters and their mother, but also their relationships with men in general. Ida in particular seems doomed to swing constantly between desperate neediness and distant coolness with unavailable men, while Marthe is used to being pandered to in her whims and expects everyone to go along with her demands. There is no doubt that this is a family desperately in need of some therapy, as a group and individually - except perhaps for the intriguing Stein, who sees all and treats us to the occasional sage comment on the proceedings.

For a short novel, at just over 150 pages, Grown Ups has the delicious atmosphere of a dramatic stage production that packs a powerful punch, and it takes you through a whole gamut of emotions all the way to the unsettling knife edge of an ending. It's outstanding! 

Grown Ups is available to buy now from your favourite book retailer.

Thank you to Tara McEvoy at Pushkin Press for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Marie Aubert made her debut in 2016 with the short story collection Can I Come Home With You, which sold more than 10,000 copies in Norway. Grown Ups is her first novel, and won the Young People's Critics' Prize (Norway's equivalent to the Goncourt des lyceens) and was nominated for the Booksellers' Prize. Rights have already been sold in ten other countries.