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    Separate Beds: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Separate Beds: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Separate Beds: A Novel
    Audiobook14 hours

    Separate Beds: A Novel

    Written by Elizabeth Buchan

    Narrated by Sarah Le Fevre

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A story of economic breakdown and romantic recovery from the author of Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman.

    Tom and Annie's kids have grown up, the mortgage is do-able, and they're about to get a gorgeous new, state-of-the-art French stove. Life is good- or so it seems. Beneath the veneer of professional success and domestic security, their marriage is crumbling, eaten away by years of resentment, loneliness, and the fall out from the estrangement of their daughter, and they've settled into simply being two strangers living under the same roof.

    Until the economy falls apart.

    Suddenly the dull but oddly comfortable predictability of their lives is upended by financial calamity-Tom loses his job, their son returns home, and Tom's mother moves in with them. As their world shrinks, Tom and Annie are forced closer together, and the chaos around them threatens to sweep away their bitterness and frustration, refreshing and possibly restoring the love that had been lying beneath all along.

    In Separate Beds, Elizabeth Buchan has captured the concerns and joys of contemporary women, and her timely, warm, and funny novel tracks the ebb and flow of family, fortune, and love that is familiar to so many readers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 20, 2011
    ISBN9781101484463
    Unavailable
    Separate Beds: A Novel

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    Reviews for Separate Beds

    3.5/5

    39 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A story of family strife brought on by the banking crisis of 2008. The characters are interesting and the reader is drawn in to care about them and to discover their fates. Buchan is good at portraying emotional turmoil and how it is (or fails to be) reconciled. Some the characters' key decisions seemed unrealistic and unlikely to happen in the real world, but some of this is done with an artistic license to support the sub-theme of intrusive institutional materialism. This can be read simply as a family drama, but can also be understood as a commentary on how powerful corporate forces have interceded into family life.
    • 3/5
      Annie and Tom share a house in London, but not a bed. Ever since their eldest daughter, Mia, huffed out five years previous with radical boyfriend in tow, things have never been the same. Annie blames Tom; Tom immerses himself his job with the BBC; neither is willing to bridge the ever widening gap. But their silent domain is about to get a lot noisier. Tom loses his job and seems to have nothing to do but putter around the house lamenting his bad luck. Youngest daughter, Emily, lives upstairs while she attempts (unsuccessfully) to write a novel. Then Tom’s outspoken mother, Hermione, moves in when the funds to pay for care at the nursing home dry up. And when son, Jake, finds himself without a wife and solely responsible for his young daughter, he shows up on Tom and Annie’s doorstep seeking refuge. With all the bedrooms taken up, Tom is forced to move back into the spousal bedroom…and confront the separation head on.Elizabeth Buchan’s latest novel once again explores middle-age relationships, as well as parenting, with humor and insight into how love changes over time, especially if it is not nurtured. Emily, perhaps, best captures the sadness which accompanies estrangement when she muses that love “had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with mayhem, which left you sad and damaged.” But, although the book takes a hard look at love, it also allows for redemption and healing.Another major theme of the novel revolves around the recent economic crisis and the loss of security and stability. All the characters are dealing with loss of some sort, and the economic crash is symbolic of the fear and insecurity that comes with loss.I didn’t love the characters in Separate Beds – Tom was whiney, Annie almost too pulled together, Jake was weak, and Emily came off as a bit of a spoiled brat. But I did enjoy Hermione – a fiercely independent woman who must now depend on others as her health declines.Through the glass, she appeared more diminished than he remembered from the last visit. When he was small, she had always been whippet thin, but strong, and a Turkish cigarette would have been in evidence when she played her cards (smoked fastidiously down to the stub). – from Separate Beds, page 71 -The novel is not without its flaws – namely the glacially slow pace of the plot. Buchan includes the minutest of details of the Nicholson family’s lives and depends on their daily interactions with each other to carry the story. Most of the characters are unhappy or struggling with the changes in their lives, but inertia seems to claim them all – mostly they internalize their struggles and remain coldly polite with each other. There were times in the novel I wanted to see more emotion.I thoroughly enjoyed Buchan’s previous novel Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, so I was surprised I did not love Separate Beds, which left me oddly unsatisfied at its conclusion. That said, I think this is a novel which will appeal to women in their middle years who may see themselves in Annie, a competent woman who struggles to balance her role as wife and mother, and wonders why she is not happier.
    • 5/5
      Well....I just read it for the second time because somehow I missed that I had read it back in 2011 when I searched through my listing for Buchan.... It was still GREAT and I really didn't remember reading it at all. What does that say for maybe rereading any book for this brain of mine?? Anyway, great characters, great story.
    • 4/5
      I like the cover of this book but it’s another one that threw me off the real content of Separate Beds. For some reason, I expected more humour in Separate Beds. That cover strikes me as a bit funny in a 'chick-lit' sort of way - but I don't think it was meant to be that at all. I'm not sure if that's my (wrongful) misinterpretation or more the fault of whoever chose the cover. In any case, what I read was a thoughtful and intense family drama. Despite not being the read I expected this was a great book.This book was set in the UK and I think that reflects in the author’s non-sparing dialogue. The characters responses are short and to the point – the diaglogue treats the reader intelligently and does not overly describe the action. The characters are both good and faulted and it’s difficult to dislike them – even the absentee (and judgmental) daughter.Elizabeth Buchan paints a very real picture of a family in crises dealing with true-to-life problems that have plagued many families, especially so in recent years. Unemployment, parenthood and marriage are some of the issues the Nicholsons face. How they deal with these problems as a family and individually present very interesting scenarios. There is good and the bad, maturity and childishness. I didn’t like the behaviour of some of the characters (and at times felt frustrated at their reactions to their problems and to each other) but nevertheless, I could understand them. And honestly, I couldn’t claim to behave any better given the same circumstances.The plot was well done and whenever I put the book down I was anxious to get back to it. I rooted for this family and was pleased at their successes and disappointed at their failures. It’s a story everyone can relate to.I recommend to all who enjoy a good family story intelligently done.