"Exploring female friendship, old age, generational dissonance, and hostility towards migrants, this engaging literary gem boasts an abundance of suspense and humanity."
Centred around the lives and friendship between three octogenarian women who’ve retired to Tuscany, Amanda Craig’s The Three Graces presents a rich, multi-dimensional tapestry of generational dissonance, of clashes between the old and the new, of older-age strains and regrets, and younger lives struggling to find their best course.
“What would you like to be different about your life?” So asks one of the characters towards the end of the novel, a question that almost cuts to its core. In addition, through its unexpected turns, The Three Graces also explores whether we’re more united by commonalities than divided by difference and prejudice as it takes in the post-COVID, post-Brexit world, the migrant crisis, the war in Ukraine, and a generation of young adults who can barely afford to pay rent.
“Both Ruth and Marta were retired on excellent pensions and the proceeds of their homes in North London, but Diana told them that she and her husband now lived on the State Pension. The former owners of Fol Castle in Cornwall, they had passed it on to their son to avoid inheritance tax”. Alongside this difference in financial circumstance, the three women lead very different day-to-day lives. After spending her early married life with her philandering husband in the land formerly known as Rhodesia, these days Diana cares for him through his advanced dementia, wondering “how much longer she could continue without putting a pillow over her husband’s face and suffocating him while he slept.”
Meanwhile, musician Marta is determined to keep playing, and insists, “I do not think about what I can’t change…That is the secret of happiness, you know. To live in the present and never look back, like Orpheus.” Then there’s Ruth, whose hedge fund manager grandson Olly has come to Tuscany to marry damaged Tanya, a “living doll” vlogger influencer. Despite their differences, the three women are each other’s lifelines.
As the plot skilfully winds to the wedding day, Tuscan Enzo, a friend of the women, is beset by bigotry and shoots an illegal migrant, while a Russian oligarch hides from Putin in his high-security palazzo.
Reflective, surprising and thought-provoking, and infused with mystery and tension, with The Three Graces Amanda Craig has created an enthralling, entertaining story world that’s quick to have you in its multi-layered, character-driven thrall.
| Primary Genre | General Fiction |
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