Balancing Act

“Susie Moran is a success. She has founded and run her own highly profitable company, and now her three daughters are all involved in the business. Rooted in the traditions of the Stoke-on-Trent potteries, and producing charming, useable objects of distinctive design, Susie is justly proud of her family and her achievement – and has no intention of letting it change…”
Oh my. Joanna Trollope. Queen of the Aga Saga and mirror to the countrified chattering classes of  Middle England. I usually enjoy her books. I save them for nights when it is icy cold and the wind is battering at the windows and then I lose myself in other women’s lives. Truths succinctly described. Changing times reflected in each book she publishes.

But this one is a worry on my mind. You see I am never comfortable when a character in a story seems to closely resemble someone who really exists. And in Susie Moran we happen across a woman described in one review as a fusion of Cath Kidston and Emma Bridgewater. Ahem. Major bummer. At least to me, because now I will not be able to help myself projecting what I know about those two women on to this fictional person. Rooting for them because they are real. Even though Susie Moran is not. Already feeling affronted on their behalf in case Trollope isn’t generous in her depiction. Can you see the problem here?

This is obviously ludicrous. Joanna Trollope is a gifted writer and I am sure she wouldn’t dream of taking liberties with real people’s emotions (would she?) but still I feel uncomfortable and really rather desperate for the heavens to open so I can crawl into bed with Balancing Act and pretend I am running a business producing charming, useable objects...

Damn it. If only hypocrisy did  not become me.