Pitch-Perfect Wry Charm: All Together Now by Gill Hornby

cover imageSome novels put the quirky charm front and center and try to win the reader over too quickly, but Gill Hornby’s All Together Now plays it cool in that stiff-upper-lip, British, deadpan way. The author wins over the jaded reader with irony, wit, humor, and a bit of pathos before getting the feel-good vibes really going.

The suburban, commuter village of Bridgeford is losing its small-town charm and identity to chains, superstores, and outside developers. At the same time, the members of this novel’s ensemble cast find themselves individually in flux – whether by their children growing into independent adults; their unhappy spouses asking for divorces; or their employers making them redundant. As a reader, I rooted for caustic Tracey, steady Lewis, do-gooder Annie, and bemused Bennett, while also seeing their annoying sides and sometimes wanting to shake them – because that’s what you do when you fall in love with a story and its characters!

The title comes from the Bridgeford community choral group that Lewis and Annie are in, which needs an influx of new voices and enthusiastic support to keep it from dying the death from attrition that seems imminent. Enthusiasm is in extremely short supply, but most of the characters are overflowing with guilt and self-reproach, so that works almost as well to keep them coming to rehearsals.

The author (wife of novelist Robert Harris and sister of novelist Nick Hornby) focuses on the personalities and drama within the community chorus/choir, much as she did with a group of school mothers in her first novel, The Hive. The St. Ambrose School and a couple of characters from The Hive make cameo appearances here, but this isn’t a sequel or even really a companion novel.

If you like novels by Anne Tyler, Ann Leary, Rachel Joyce, JoJo Moyes, and other wry observers of human nature you will enjoy spending time with the good (and not-so-good) people of Bridgeford.

All Together Now
Hornby, Gill
Little, Brown
July 21, 2015
9780316234740
336 pp.
$26.00 US/$29.00 CAN

Disclosure: I received a free advance reader’s copy for review from Library Journal, where I also gave it a rave review.

Other opinions:
Tales from the Reading Room

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Tina
8 years ago

I love your introduction to this book & will put it on my Want-to-read list at Goodreads.

Care
8 years ago

Ok, I will add to tbr. I go back and forth abt reading Nick H, so maybe I will stick with the sister.

BermudaOnion(Kathy)
8 years ago

I love all the other authors you mentioned so this book’s going on my wish list.

Kim (Sophisticated Dorkiness)

I’m glad to see positive feelings about this one! I got it in the mail awhile back and thought it sounded really charming, but I guess was a little nervous to pick it up in case it ended up not working. Sounds like it did!

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[…] All Together Now by Gill Hornby Little Brown, 2015 A feel-good story for the heart and the brain! A dying community choir comes back to life in a suburban English village. […]

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