Staff Pick: The Cazalet Chronicles

For me the sign of a good book, or series of books, is that you want to know what happens, yet you never want it to end.  Elizabeth Jane Howard’s series of books, collectively known as The Cazalet Chronicles, is just such a series. I came to them late and wondered how I had missed out on them for so long. 

The five novels, tracing the fortunes of an upper-middle-class family, are set in Sussex and London in the period surrounding the Second World War. Why should I care about the trials of the affluent you might ask? However, the themes are universal, and coupled with the gorgeousness of the prose, the humour, intelligence, razor sharp observation and seamless technique, I found them to be gripping and downright addictive. 

The first book, The Light Years covers the period just before the outbreak of the war. There is a convivial, domestic, almost cosy atmosphere with descriptions of sumptuous country meals, a house full of children and teenagers who are depicted as being absorbed in their own worlds – worlds made up of picnics, games, friendships, fears, and anxieties and trying to make sense of the adults around them. I don’t think I’ve ever read better depictions in fiction of what it feels like to be a child or a teenager. Howard was one of those rare adults who never forgot what it feels like to be young.

It would be a mistake to view the novels as cosy fiction though.  Things turn dark for each in turn, some of the Cazalets hovering on the brink of destitution, while the women are vulnerable both emotionally and financially, marriages are often troubled and there is a lot of ‘stiff upper lip’ on show. Well-bred people don’t make a fuss or make a noise regardless of suffering and pain. 

From the second novel, Marking Time and the third, Confusion, the war becomes a hard reality. The lost opportunity for many of the Cazalets to have the childhood or adulthood they had hoped for comes through strongly. The mouth-watering descriptions of family meals in the Light Years are replaced with a recurring theme of grey food, bright yellow margarine and insipid coffee. Everyone is cold, the world is grimy and unkempt and there are more mentions of hot water bottles than any book I’ve ever read. The descriptions of providing food for each meal, preserving clothes and rationing fuel for heat says so much about the struggle for everyday essentials during these years.

Howard wrote the novels to chronicle the changes in women’s lives, brought about by the war and they definitely do that but they also do more. The novels are panoramic, intriguing as social history and engaging as stories. The books are written with great skill but in a minor key, dealing chiefly with private not public life. They cover themes such as marriage, family life, the uncertainty, fear and boredom engendered by the war, the limited opportunities for women and ultimately the sweeping changes to British society that the war put in motion. 

For me though, what make these books so engaging is the depiction of the rich, layered interior lives of the family members, each of them in turn dealing with grief and other demons, desperately trying to keep their dark secrets hidden.

At more than 500 pages per book, the author has scope to let the large cast of characters develop at a languid pace and you truly do get to know each and every one of them. I found myself fully invested in their lives with all their ups and downs. At the end of 5 books there is a warm familiarity about the Cazalets, I have to say I miss them.

The Cazalet Chronicles books are available in our libraries, and also as an eBook and Audiobook for library members.

Angela Cassidy, Divisional Librarian, Pearse Street Library