A confusion of bright feathers…

‘A confusion of bright feathers like a Sitwell poem lay on the sill...’ In Molly Keane’s 1935 novel Full House, the feathers, which are waiting to be made into flies as fishing bait, offer a metaphor of deception and entrapment that runs throughout the novel. Set at Silverue, the Irish mansion home of Sir Julian and Lady Bird, the novel ambles through the days of early summer flooded with domestic detail and the trappings of country life. The narrative jumps between the perspectives of all the major characters, Julian, Olivia, their children, John, Sheena and Mark, and the downtrodden and miserable governess, Miss Parker, but the key perspective is that of Eliza Blundel, an old family friend who carries dangerous secrets.

The pivotal event of Eliza’s visit is the return of the eldest son, John, who has been away to England where he has suffered a nervous breakdown and spent time recovering in an institution. John’s mental health problems are embedded at the centre of the novel but are never explained. His family, himself included, acknowledge that he has ‘gone mad’ while most of the neighbours refer to his prolonged absence in much more euphemistic terms. His return to leisured but closeted Anglo-Irish country life is initially difficult and uncomfortable for those around him as the stigma attached to mental health issues in the 1930s makes itself felt. The tendrils of that stigma reach out and damage other members of the family in ways that lead to the major crisis of the novel.

The discomfort of John’s illness is nonetheless glossed over by most of the family. His mother, the dreadful Lady Bird, while aware of it, is convinced that close proximity to her will complete her son’s cure. It does not. He finds quite a different antidote. Denials, deceptions and secrets are threaded through the pages, some revealed early, others saved until the closing lines. There are a lot of women with painted faces in this book. There is much that they aim to conceal using another effective metaphor.

This is Molly Keane’s world, the one that she grew up in and its recreation in the novel is compelling if not always sympathetic, and some of the writing is captivating. I felt this book was teaching me about how to use language, imagery, metaphor. Keane’s writing effortlessly shows the reader the roots of unhappiness, the passions of youth, and the compromises of middle age that bind this eclectic mix of people together. Eliza sees through it all; all the family turn to her for solace when forced to confront their realities.

It's one of the joys of reading to be transported into a different world, even if the reader wouldn’t want to inhabit it. Molly Keane does this expertly and with precision, engaging with emotive issues such as mental health, loneliness, and aging, that are as relevant today as then.