Novel set on Aegina, Greece

12th August 2019

Honestly, We Meant Well by Grant Ginder, novel set on Aegina, Greece

A snapshot few weeks into the lives of the dysfunctional Wright family. Mum and wife Sue Ellen (nothing like the Dallas Sue Ellen) has been invited to lecture to an older demographic of tourists, travelling under the auspices of Golden Age Adventures (think Swan Hellenic). She is at the top of her game as she is a Classics Professor.

Dad Dean is a writer and intends to read and write whilst in Greece but he has been having an indiscreet liaison with one of his students and actions have consequences.

Young Will, their son, is just getting over the ending of his relationship with Rajiv and is drawn to scrolling through the latter’s Instagram account. Rajiv has clearly found a new love and he has also purloined the job which had Will’s name on it. All rather irksome and upsetting for him. He himself has taken one of his dad’s earlier pieces and presented it as his own work. Oh oh, he is going to get into deep water. Not to mention that he reads his Dad’s major book and discovers that once again, his Dad has also lost his moral compass! Life father, like son, perhaps….

“They are, if nothing else, a family of books: books they read, books they study, books they collect. Books they dream of someday writing; books they stress over and abandon; books that win fortune and fame….”

Oh what a convoluted life these guys lead. Boundaries are shot and tensions are high. The author is great at depicting the minutiae of family life, peppering his prose with humorous observations. Greece too, with side trips to Delphi and Athens, comes alive in the capable hands of the author. His great writing style shores up a fairly prosaic storyline with which I struggled to engage for the most part.

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