Meaning of the idiom 'a good egg': "Good egg is a friendly, old-fashioned way to talk about a good guy or a kind person. The expression originally came from its opposite, bad egg, British public school slang from the 1800's for someone who was not nice.”
Rebecca Hardiman's debut novel is about an Irish family in the midst of dysfunction. This is a character-driven story in which she has created some remarkable personalities. I consider the father, Kevin Gogarty, to be the hub of this family. He's a stay-at-home dad since he lost his high-level position with a celebrity magazine and at 50, he's caught in the middle between his fractious children and his elderly and somewhat demented mother. His wife Grace has a high-profile job of her own and, to Kevin's mind, is rarely home, so he's forced to deal with all the everyday problems that crop up. And boy, do they crop up!
They have four children: Gerard, their oldest child, is off to college; Ciaran, the youngest child, is still at that sweet little boy stage, but in the middle are two teenaged twins, Aideen and Nuala, who don't get along at all. Nuala is Miss Perfect--beautiful, talented, well-behaved--while sullen Aideen struggles with her self-esteem and her position in the family. Maybe acting out is her way of being noticed but it's gotten so bad that Kevin and his wife decide she should be sent to a boarding school and only come home on weekends--which only proves to Aideen that she is not really wanted.
And then there's Kevin's 83-year-old mother Millie who still lives on her own but is not doing well--having auto accidents, forgetting things. And now she's been arrested for shoplifting! What's a son to do? He convinces his mother she must have a caretaker if she's to avoid jail and hires an American named Sylvia Phenning to come in a few days a week to help out. Soon Sylvia is indispensable to Millie but she's no Mary Poppins!
And then there's the Gogarty marriage--can it handle the strain of all these problems and a bit of mid-life crisis as well? These scenarios all come to a head, about to explore. If all this sounds rather desperate, it's not really. The story is actually quite amusing and heart-warming. I enjoyed meeting the delightful Gogarty family who are all 'good eggs!'
Rebecca Hardiman's debut novel is about an Irish family in the midst of dysfunction. This is a character-driven story in which she has created some remarkable personalities. I consider the father, Kevin Gogarty, to be the hub of this family. He's a stay-at-home dad since he lost his high-level position with a celebrity magazine and at 50, he's caught in the middle between his fractious children and his elderly and somewhat demented mother. His wife Grace has a high-profile job of her own and, to Kevin's mind, is rarely home, so he's forced to deal with all the everyday problems that crop up. And boy, do they crop up!
They have four children: Gerard, their oldest child, is off to college; Ciaran, the youngest child, is still at that sweet little boy stage, but in the middle are two teenaged twins, Aideen and Nuala, who don't get along at all. Nuala is Miss Perfect--beautiful, talented, well-behaved--while sullen Aideen struggles with her self-esteem and her position in the family. Maybe acting out is her way of being noticed but it's gotten so bad that Kevin and his wife decide she should be sent to a boarding school and only come home on weekends--which only proves to Aideen that she is not really wanted.
And then there's Kevin's 83-year-old mother Millie who still lives on her own but is not doing well--having auto accidents, forgetting things. And now she's been arrested for shoplifting! What's a son to do? He convinces his mother she must have a caretaker if she's to avoid jail and hires an American named Sylvia Phenning to come in a few days a week to help out. Soon Sylvia is indispensable to Millie but she's no Mary Poppins!
And then there's the Gogarty marriage--can it handle the strain of all these problems and a bit of mid-life crisis as well? These scenarios all come to a head, about to explore. If all this sounds rather desperate, it's not really. The story is actually quite amusing and heart-warming. I enjoyed meeting the delightful Gogarty family who are all 'good eggs!'