Oh, look at that. Looks like I’m the first person to properly (extensively) review it. Ok then…
A serious literary novel through and through, Glassworks follows four generations of the same family connected by blood and circumstance. A heavy multi-generational drama featuring a variegated cast of characters. Not of who are particularly happy. But complex, and that’s what one most likely wants in serious literary fiction.
Most auspicious debut, this novel features some first class writing and it makes the story and its characters come alive in the most vivid ways. But then again, it’s heavy and not just in its page count/volume/weight, but in the way spending close to 400 pages with a bunch of profoundly unhappy and not overwhelmingly likeable characters can be.
Besides we only et so much time with each. The novel spans four generations, so just as you get into one story, it ends and propels you forward in time. And sure, the old characters get revisited still directly and indirectly, through flashbacks and memories and side appearances, but it isn’t quite the same.
And while the characters’ fallibility is rendered exceptionally, the sheer volume of it eventually weighs the novel down. Mind you, I don’t mind sad or tragic stories, but something about this novel was ever so slightly…oppressing. Just one devastation after another as all these people are scrabbling through life that doesn’t seem to offer much. All these private quiet devastations. And the stubborn determination to go on anyway. I suppose there’s something admirable about that. But also profoundly Sisyphean.
At any rate, a very well written novel. Moving, poignant, depressing. Not the sort fo thing to easily recommend, but worthy. Thanks Netgalley.

I really enjoyed each little novels in the story but the end was the best. I found the characters charming and their stories called out to the sadness held within us all.