Everything Will Be All Right: A Novel

When thirteen-year-old Joyce Stevenson's family moves to the south of England to live with her aunt Vera, she enters a household shaped by contrasting worldviews. Joyce's mother Lil, a widow, believes in séances, while Vera, a teacher, trusts in education and reason. Despite their differences, the two sisters create a close family unit. Joyce observes an absence of men in their lives and fears becoming like her aunt Vera, whose husband is emotionally distant. She discovers art at school, drawn to the Impressionists and eventually to one of her teachers. Determined to avoid her aunt's fate, Joyce commits herself to making marriage and motherhood succeed. When Joyce's daughter Zoe reaches adulthood and has a child, she rejects domestic life and pursues a strikingly different direction. Spanning five decades of transformation in women's lives, the novel examines how each generation believes it can correct its parents' mistakes, though the reality proves more complex. The narrative traces the intricate relationships within a family navigating profound social and personal change.