Apologize, Apologize!, by Elizabeth Kelly (Alfred A. Knopf Canada), 324 pp.

During an interview with Kelly, the author said that she didn't think of the Flanagan family as dysfunctional. "But that's how the publisher read it and that's how it's been marketed. A lot of people have responded by commenting on how wild the family is. But you can't check your sense of humour at the door." She agreed that the interaction of the family members was a type of loving-needling: "That is exactly what it is. You can't interpret it in a very serious way because it's teasing. It's the way the Flanagans express their affection and entertain one another."

The five slapstick influences in Collie's family life are his mischievous Irish twin Bing, born nine months after Collie, his hot-tempered mother who doesn't hide the fact that Collie isn't her favourite child, his charismatic father with a forked tongue and womanizing ways, his uncle Tom, the family's full-time chef whose sense of humour is as sharp as it is demeaning, and finally there is the Falcon, Collie's maternal grandfather, who begrudgingly foots the bill for the Flanagan family freeloaders who depend upon him.

"I cannot say I consciously set out to write a black comedy," Kelly said. "But I wanted to write a book about life. I wanted it to be a story of two brothers in a family situation. And because I think I'm the biggest chicken in the world, I wanted to write a story about bravery and courage. And I knew I wanted the book to have an evil mother in it. But I didn't want it to be a dreary story. There's a perception that literature always has to be serious and heavy. But I really enjoy being entertained and that's what I set out to do."

But readers beware, the teasing and sarcasm that prompts so much joy early on in the novel turns tragic in a flash. Elizabeth Kelly's prose is both light-hearted and touchingly sad, and it's what makes Apologize, Apologize! such an entertaining novel.

 
 

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