The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus
My rating: 2/5 cats
okay, we’re going to ease back into this whole “reviewing” thing with something that is more of an excuse than a review. here’s the thing – i have absolutely nothing useful to say about this book. it’s very unlike me to walk away from a book and have no opinion on it whatsoever. and maybe it is because i read this in the middle of a lot of very exhausting personal crises, and i had to keep picking it up and putting it down and forcing myself to stay engaged and not finding anything in the book to hold tight to, but whatever the reason, this one left absolutely no mark on me.
it follows the lives and circumstances of an old-money family living in the bit of connecticut that affluent people who still maintain a manhattan presence live in with their fancy cars and boats and the protection that only money can buy. cece is the elderly matriarch, still holding on to the antiquated etiquette of a bygone time in a bubble of noblesse oblige and well-manicured lawns. her grown son george lives in the house next door – a weak and petulant man who has been insulated by wealth his whole life, unable to hold down a real job, counting on his mother and his family name to pave his way through life. and so far, so good. he is married to iris, a woman completely outside of his social sphere whom he met when she was a coat check girl at the country club, and of whom his mother disapproves, despite iris’ genuine goodheartedness and sweet awkwardness. cece has covered up george’s lifetime of missteps, be they financial, criminal, or involving his frequent employment terminations, but when she suddenly becomes very sick with a disease similar to parkinson’s, and removes herself to a clinical research institute, which she calls a “sanatorium,” for a pharmaceutical trial, george is finally allowed the freedom to ruin his life.
the story moves from the POVs of cece left all alone at the institute facing her gilded past and her own mortality, george and his “I don’t want to be a grown-up” attitude as he takes advantage of the maternal absence to fulfill (and finance) an artistic pipe dream, and iris, a down-to-earth woman who has somehow stumbled into the distorted funhouse mirror of the ultra-rich.
i think the problem i had with this book was the tone. i couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a tragedy or a satire. it has elements of both, but it’s definitely not funny enough to work as a satire, and for it to be tragic, the reader has to give a shit about the characters, and i just didn’t. george is just reprehensible in every way, but he’s not reprehensible in an interesting way, he’s just an overindulged manchild who expects the world to bow down to him and cannot handle criticism or resistance. cece is somewhat less reprehensible because she at least grows as a character. left to her own devices in the clinic, abandoned by george and forced to mingle with other patients; people she considers “vulgar,” and weakened by illness, she at least manages to let go of some of her brittleness and cruelty and develop some genuine humanity. iris is the only likable character – an outsider who is made uncomfortable by her husband’s wealth and perfectly capable of doing without the trappings that come with it, yet she still shields george from his own bad judgment and is as emotionally indulgent as cece is financially indulgent towards him. their relationship is completely inexplicable, and doubly so because she’s the only character who is sensible, or practical.
i thought a story about a family in “opulent decline” would be right up my alley, but this was just a big bowl of beige unpleasantness. maybe it’s just wrong book, wrong time, but yeah – unfortunate indeed.
