The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt

 

This extended saga follows the lives of the Wellwood family in Victorian times up through WW I.  The Wellwoods live in the country and are artists.  Olive writes children's books while Humphrey writes political articles and they delight in putting on plays with their large family of children and friends.  A famous potter lives nearby and other friends are jewelry makers, artists, puppeteers and sculptors.  The eldest son along with a friend whose father runs the soon to be opened Victoria and Albert museum find a runaway boy hiding in the workshops below the exhibits.  They take the boy, Philip, home and he becomes an apprentice of the potter.  Other families in the surrounding area related or not work in business or teaching.  

But there are secrets in the family and friends.  As the children get older they discover that both their mother and father have various illicit relationships and the children are not all full siblings.  Some are, while some have Olive as a mother but someone else as a father and others have Humphrey as a father with a different mother.  This causes some consternation but the family continues as the children grow.  Other women are seduced outside of marriage in a time that still regarded children born out of wedlock with suspicion but each seems to find peace within this artistic community.  The children grow and start to decide what will be their lifework.  Some of these decisions are approved by their parents and others are not.  

This book was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2009 and it is a marvelous novel.  The stories are interesting and entwined and the reader will delight in watching the children grow up and make their own lives.  There is the rise of art noveau and the Paris Exhibition that highlights this trend, there is the rise of socialism which appeals to some of the younger characters and there is the foreboding of war.  All in all, this is one of the most satisfying reads I've had lately.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.