I have really loved some of Macauley's trenchant, hilarious satirical books and was looking forward to this immensely. It left me a little nonplussed. Macauley sets up a series of stories within a story structure, with a bunch of middle-aged friends taking a weekend away together to disconnect from the world and tell each other stories. The stories told are compelling and the atmosphere of foreboding builds as they find themselves trapped by bad weather, but the group are quickly revealed to be self-indulgent middle class liberals whose lives have been wasted on food, booze and complaining and whose lives are sad, empty and frustrated. It's a brutal book, giving its (at times interchangable) characters a frightful kicking. ( )

This book did not turn out to be what I expected at all. I was intrigued by the idea of friends coming together for a weekend of cozy story telling. I found the stories detracted from the frame of the book rather than pulling it together. ( )

This book did not turn out to be what I expected at all. I was intrigued by the idea of friends coming together for a weekend of cozy story telling. I found the stories detracted from the frame of the book rather than pulling it together. ( )