Canadian author, Kate Hilton describes her latest novel as a divorce comedy, although there’s a wedding as well, and a treasure trove of family secrets. In the opening pages, Zoe is not looking forward to Christmas, as she is reluctant to reveal that she is getting a divorce. Christmas is tense enough, without dropping that bombshell.
Along with Zoe’s parents, who are hosting the festive meal, plus her brother Zack, we meet Zoe’s uncle and feminist icon Aunt Lydia, and Lydia’s daughters and grandchildren. Zack has won fame and fortune writing a TV sitcom loosely based on the lives of his famous aunt and her family, for which he has never been quite forgiven.
Lydia’s daughter, Beata, is particularly bitter about it, but she has enough to deal with with her teenage son, Oscar, discovering that he wasn’t the product of a sperm-bank after all and has already made contact with his father. Enter, Will, an old pal of Zoe’s from her university days, and also a colleague of Beata’s partner, Eloise. Eloise just happens to be the lawyer handling Zoe’s divorce.
Meanwhile, still on Christmas day, things are obviously not going well in Zoe’s cousin Mariana’s marriage to shiftless but charming Devlin. Things reach a crunch when Mariana snatches up Devlin’s phone and smashes it to bits in the kitchen.
Hilton gets her book off to a flying start, with so much going on with in the lives of Zoe, Mariana and Beata. They’re all great characters – engaging and interesting – while the impossibly high bar set by Aunt Lydia for the younger women in her family hovers in the background. No wonder they keep secrets from each other – secrets, which are due to all come out sooner or later.
The book reminded me a little of Emma Hope’s Expectation, in that we have the same well-meaning pressure from an older generation of feminist women on their daughters whose lives haven’t quite turned out as they’d planned. In Better Luck Next Time, we are reminded how hard it can be for women to ‘do it all’ – manage children, careers, marriage and be true to themselves. Mariana is a journalist who has had to sacrifice writing the important political stories she’s so good at so she can support her family. She ends up writing publicity for a ‘wellness’ company, an industry Hilton sends up beautifully.
There are plenty of amusing scenes, including a feminist rally that turns nasty and a bridal shower which makes you wonder why anyone would ever get married. The book gallops towards another, somewhat, happier Christmas, an ending where its characters have learned a lot about life, love and themselves. This is a funny yet thoughtful novel, with characters you really warm to and plenty of digs at the fads and obsessions of modern life. Just what you want in a comedy for our times. A four star read from me.
Judith McKinnon 