 instructions for a heatwave by maggie o farrell britain s furious heatwave of 1976 cracked earth water shortages yellowed grass and the fraying of tempers and patience and in the frantic midst of it all the vanishing of a husband maggie o farrell s latest novel takes us back to that unbearably hot summer and encloses us in the drama of the tightknit riordan family gretta the archetypal irish mammy is up early baking soda bread she refuses to let the hot weather dislodge her household traditions whilst her husband robert strolls off to get a morning paper he doesn t come back and gretta gathers her scattered offspring to the family home to help in the crisis none of her three children are particularly happy to be summoned as all are battling with their own private demons but the ties of the irish catholic family are too tight to be shrugged off so each dutifully returns home michael whose wife is ruffled unhappy and on the verge of mentioning divorce monica who is struggling to find acceptance from her new husband s sulky daughters and aoife the rebellious one trying to invent a life in new york despite being burdened by a secret all three children arrive back on the welltrodden doorstep dutiful and good but at the same time suffocated by motherlove sibling tensions and the insatiable heat so begins the family campaign to track down their missing father maggie o farrell is obviously a gifted storyteller and when you open her novels you are guaranteed a good read she reels off this family drama with prose that shimmers like a heat haze but i felt it was at times too ambitious she uses a narrative technique which dips and dives between the points of view of so many characters that i felt the novel would have been better served had she restricted herself to one or two instead we weave between the viewpoints of gretta michael monica and aoife this means we are offered glimpses into the backstory of each but with never enough time or narrative space to delve deeply into them michael s segments in particular are fascinating he is torn between love for his family and the teasing ambition which he can t quite snuff out to finish his phd and escape to american academia meanwhile his wife smarts at having to surrender her own freedom to be a wife and mother or what about aoife s story fleeing the family to start again in new york working with a famous photographer shielding her draftdodger lover all whilst struggling with an oppressive secret there is so much material which we are only permitted a glimpse at i feel the novel would have been stronger had it been done on a smaller canvas but with more detail however it s still a great read entertaining atmospheric and with flashes of fine humour instructions for a heatwave is published by tinder press book review maggie o farrell archive o 