Endicott, M. (2011) Good To A Fault. Allen & Unwin (2008)

 

Endicott, M. (2011) Good To A Fault. Allen & Unwin (2008)

 

Summary

Clara Purdy is alone, coping with her mother's recent death, trapped in a mundane job and bored with life. Then she drives into another car. Her car is dented, but the other one - home to an itinerant family - is ruined. It emerges that Lorraine Gage - mother of three and wife of undependable Clayton - has cancer and is admitted to hospital for treatment. Clara invites the rest of the family - father, two children, a baby and Clayton's mother (Mrs. Pell) - to live with her. They have nowhere else to go. Clara's life is changed beyond recognition, but after the initial shock and dismay, she finds her new life an improvement on her previous one, centred as it was on unresolved grieving for her mother.

 

 

My comments

At first, I thought that this might be another story about a newcomer taking over someone's life, in the style of Saul Below's 1947 novel, The Victim or Joseph Losey's 1963 film, The Servant. On the one hand it is, in that the family's arrival in her house changes Clara's life completely; on the other it isn't, because Clara regards the changes as positive and as widening her life, rather than narrowing it, as in the Losey and Below examples.

 

This isn't to say that Clara's experience is wholly positive! She wrestles with why she's doing what she's doing and, of course, at times she regrets her decision bitterly. Both Clay (Lorraine's husband) and Mrs. Pell (Clay's mother) are self-absorbed and self-pitying. Clara's frequent visits to Lorraine's bedside are emotionally draining, because Lorraine can't thank Clara for caring for her children, as this would mean admitting that she is indebted to the woman who wrecked her family when she wrecked their car.

 

As a result of the experience, Clara becomes stronger, loses much of her self doubt and feels that she is living life - with all its problems - rather than just existing. She has a brief affair with the local priest and ends it because she finds him boring and self-absorbed - just like she used to be! So is Clara's 'sacrifice' of her home and her (previous) life an expression of goodness and selflessness … or a way to build a new life that is more fulfilling than her previous one?