Apologize, Apologize

I finished Apologize, Apologize by Elizabeth Kelly last night and I wish I hadn't. I didn't want it to end!

Apologize, Apologize is about the quirky Flanagan family living in a big house on Martha's Vineyard. Anais Flanagan is the daughter of Peregrine Lowell, a newspaper magnet who funds her anti-establishment lifestyle. Anais is married to an Irish immigrant, Charlie Flangan, and is such a dog lover that she names her sons Collie and Bingo.

The novel is told from the perspective of Collie who takes after his grandfather in his rule-following, conservatism rather than his free spirited mother and brother. Bingo is the one his mother adores, the beautiful and risk taking son. As the boys grow up in a house overrun with big and little dogs and with a drunk father and uncle providing comic relief, one minute you are laughing at the absurdity of the household and then thinking "oh my, how did they survive" the next.

Kelly's writing is wonderful and the wit that runs through the novel makes it so enjoyable, but when it is over it is the emotional connection with Collie that had been created in ~300 pages is surprising.