NEVER A CLOUD

A group of intriguing people deals with relationships and art at a Scottish country house.

In this debut literary novel, Brunini blends the story of Violet Grey, an aging hippie in coastal Maine whose narration opens each chapter, with the tale of a group that gathers at Otyrburn, an estate in rural Scotland, in late December. The house belongs to George Lowell and Margot Reid, who is the half sister of Violet’s daughter, Ava. This is something Margot learns only when Ava arrives at her house during the party. Margot has reconnected with Owen Fowler, her boyfriend from her teen years who is now the gardener helping to renovate Otyrburn, and is thinking about leaving George to be with him. Meanwhile, George, a director at the Metropolitan Museum, is under suspicion for illicit activity. After setting the stage, the book jumps back several months to follow the characters’ actions that lead to the party, moving between Scotland, New York City, and Venice, where George’s brother, Will, is also part of the art world. They discuss art, meaning, creativity, and ethics as they make decisions about infidelity, relationships, and careers. Small decisions lead to surprising results as the book’s concluding chapters follow up with the group years and decades later. The novel often feels like the film Gosford Park populated by readers of the London Review of Books with its many intertwined storylines and frequent multidirectional conversations. The characters, who are distinct and well developed, have extremely strong and often melodramatic feelings about art (one painter’s brush strokes leave Will “rethinking atheism”). Brunini’s prose is often evocative (“The pair walked as the dogs leaped between them in the reach occupied by two lifetimes”), though the metaphors are sometimes over-the-top (“Your life reads like a sanctuary somebody spent twenty years cultivating into a lavender meadow filled with Chagall’s violins”). The high-flown rhetoric combined with the characters’ tendencies toward introspection over action (for instance, Margot and Owen’s emotional affair becomes physical at a glacial pace) will appeal to readers interested more in players and themes than in a fast-moving plot.

An engaging but slow-paced tale that explores art and relationships.