We meet Rosie Kitto, our Cornish heroine, on her arrival in New York. She turns up to a job interview in a fancy Manhattan apartment soaked from the rain, wearing a blue suit, hat askew and red brogues. From the off she is clearly full to bursting with life and optimism and she has set out to say yes to the world. Rosie is a bit like a ray of sunshine breaking into the household and throwing light on the cold corridors and wall of staged photographs.
Rosie has travelled to New York with the intention of saying yes. She is running away. The opening pages give a brief glimpse into her previous life. A relationship loved and perhaps lost, and a child never conceived despite being wanted so badly. Having endured the pain of trying and failing to get pregnant Rosie is breaking away. A primary school teacher in her thirties she soon finds herself being interviewed by the imperious and intimidating Glen Wilder – Bingham for a nanny position.
The setup is clear from the beginning. Rosie is all bright colours, vibrancy and life emanating from her. In clear contrast is Glen Wilder – Bingham. The family matriarch she is stiff and perfectly presented in everything she does. However the family are not as impressive as the name would suggest. Glen rules the roost. Then there is her husband Thomas, who refuses to fully retire in his 80s, terrified by the knowledge that death is coming and he seems unlikely to have sex again. Next is their alcoholic, spineless son Kemble who has been broken by his divorce and the relentlessness of his mother’s expectations; an older grandson Teddy who has largely managed to escape it all and the two sparky young twins Red and Three.
Rosie quickly becomes a vital part of the young boy’s lives and bit by bit becomes immersed into the comings and goings of the whole family. Presented with the convoluted lives of the wealthy, of those who have never had to think much further than their own needs, Rosie brings a much needed openness and curiosity to the household. As her relations develop with the male members of the Wilder – Bingham family it starts to seem as though Rosie is a time bomb with one more ‘yes’ setting off an explosion that will echo through this Manhattan Upper East Side family. A life of embracing ‘yes’ can have unexpected consequences. Rosie finds her life altered dramatically in her short American adventure.
The characters verge on the exaggerated and there are a few scenes that seem a little staged. Although Rosie is there to say yes to life some of the situations that she enters into seem unlikely and out of character. The first two thirds in particular were funny and kept the reader amused. There is a change of pace in the final third as the results of her saying yes come to term. Things become a little more serious although the absurd fringe remains. This is something that some reviewers have had a problem with it however when opening the novel for the first time if one sets aside your sense of disbelief it is easy to be carried away and find the hours fly by. French has a flare for writing and will hopefully continue. This is her third novel, and each of them offer something completely different. It would have been easy for her to take the simple route and offer up cheap recycled laughs however each novel shows research and a keen eye for capturing people. It is just a minor point but that a novel that has been through the editing process should not really have any spelling mistakes and grammatical inaccuracies. Hopefully this will be improved upon for French’s next effort. The Amazon and Good Reads reviews are a mixed bag and it probably falls somewhere in between.
According To Yes book came into my life when I needed something entertaining and humorous with heart and did the job excellently.
Dawn French, According to Yes (Michael Joseph, UK, 2015). ISBN 9780718159177. 365pp., Hardback.
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