Reading this languid, chapterless novel is like spending the summer in Tuscany. The plot drifts along, punctuated by a few sharp shocks, just as a day at the villa might combine exquisite lethargy with a brisk dip in the pool or sumptuous meals. Sometimes there’s an obvious sting in the tail for such indolence: the cost, the sunburn, the extra calories consumed. In Esther Freud’s latest, set in the Tuscan hills, the sting is more subtle, less conclusive: avoiding responsibility can have consequences.
Lara is invited by her historian father Lambert to stay a few weeks at the villa of an old friend. Even though Lara is now 17, she has spent little time in Lambert’s company. For most of the book she remains gawky around him. The accidental touch of his feet revolts her, although by the end of the novel such things faze her less. Partly this is due to her sexual awakening at the hands of Kip Willoughby, who is staying with his family in a neighbouring villa (more a converted village), and whom Lara finds compellingly familiar.
Anyone who has read Freud’s first novel, Hideous Kinky, will know how superbly she captures the thrills and frustrations of childhood. Fast forward a few years, and Lara is the essence of early 1980s adolescence, a bundle of hormones, naivety and impulsive bravado, at once opinionated (she detests Lady Di’s pre-wedding hair-cut) and tongue-tied. Reading this, I found myself wistful for those heady teenage days when you could be satisfied with hours of kissing: ‘Anything more would have involved talking. Contraception, a lock for the door.’
But there’s something unattractive about Lara and Kip’s acutely observed self-centredness, neatly highlighted when Kip drops an egg on the floor and can’t be bothered to clear up the mess. Lara’s loyalty to Lambert is tested when he breaks a toe, but there are no prizes for guessing the choices she makes. The adults are no better. Lambert’s absent parenting, his dalliance with married Isabelle, father-to-be Roland’s rape of Lara, and Andrew Willoughby’s ongoing infidelity reflect a pattern of casual emotional cruelty which left me feeling as queasy as if I’d spent too long in the sun. After the rape, Lara’s subsequent self-loathing rings true, but I struggled more on her repeated unprotected sex with a chap who may or may not be her half-brother. There’s easygoing, and there’s irritating recklessness.
Love Falls brings out Esther Freud’s terrific sense of place and her scenes at the Palio in Siena are full of passion and clarity. I also revelled in her delicious descriptions of the meals prepared by Ginny, the hired help. But in the end, like after a good long holiday, I was happy to close the book and leave her characters behind. (The following day, like a travel junkie booking her next trip, I rather fancied I might like to read about Lara and Kip in a sequel).
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