A SURREY STATE OF AFFAIRS (Ceri Radford)

I am SO far behind with writing this blog that I feel I will never catch up!  I'd better write this while the book is fresh in my mind.

If you are looking for a light, funny read, look no further.  A Surrey State of Affairs is written as a series of blog entries.  The author is a technologically challenged, 53-year-old wife and mother whose main concerns in life are proper etiquette, cleanliness, maintaining a beautiful home for her lawyer husband, Jeffrey, the well-being of her children, Rupert and Sophie, her parrot, Darcy, and her hobby, bell-ringing.  Her blog is more of a personal diary, not meant for the public, and it usually doesn't occur to her until AFTER she has posted that maybe she ought not to be letting all of her private thoughts and feelings out into the blogosphere.

Connie is what most of us would think of as clueless.  She is exasperated by her ineffective Eastern European housekeeper, Natalia, who keeps leaving her underwear, presumably to dry on the radiator, in Jeffrey's office.  Her son Rupert resists her constant efforts to find him a nice girl to marry, finally spreading a rumor that he has leprosy in a desperate attempt to fend off one of his mother's more ardent fix-ups.  Daughter Sophie surreptitiously auditions for and wins a part on a tawdry TV reality show while pretending to be spending her gap-year summer on an ecology project.  Still, Connie manages to maintain her her dignity and decorum, always wearing a crisp linen blouse and maintaining her hair and home to exacting standards until, one by one, the people and traditions that she holds dear begin to crumble around her and she is forced to make difficult choices about what is really important.

I know that you are probably thinking that Connie doesn't sound like too appealing a character.  Who wants to read the musings of an uptight, middle-aged woman who seems oblivious to the realities of life around her?  What keeps Connie from being a caricature and makes her so endearing as a character, in my opinion, is her great love for those around her.  She would do anything, give anything, to see her family and friends happy and fulfilled, even if it is on HER terms, but she comes through every crisis and revelation with flying colors because of her love.  It's a treat to be inside her head.