Stepsons,: A novel

by Robert Liddell

It had now been broken to them that they had a stepmother. To Stephen, as yet, this meant but little; Andrew, however, knew that all stepmothers were wicked, and reasoned that a German stepmother was likely to be more wicked than most. It is 1916 and Elsa Blankenheim is determined to lose her German name by marrying Oswald Faringdon, a widowed army officer. To Oswald's young sons, Andrew and Stephen, Elsa is the delightfully terrifying 'Gerwoman', possessing all the charm of the forbidden. Andrew initially tries to like her, but Elsa soon proves herself incapable of gaining the boys' affection. Consumed with jealousy at her husband's love for his sons and his dead wife, and embittered by her failure to have a son of her own, she behaves with increasing vindictiveness towards the two boys, until her hatred brings her to the edge of insanity. One of Robert Liddell's finest novels, Stepsons is a compelling autobiographical study of two children caught in a web of adult intrigue and betrayal. The story of Andrew and Stephen Faringdon is continued in The Last Enchantments, which is also available from Peter Owen.

228 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

English literary critic, biographer, novelist, travel writer and poet.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liddell's novelized works on his childhood are strikingly well-written for such a terrible youth. Kind Relations is an earlier book in the trilogy, and is an overview of the family relations within which these two brothers suffered, eventually overcoming a truly demonic stepmother and ineffectual father. This second volume truly reveals the cruelty of their lives; the stepmother's conniving to marry a widower, and her continuing mistreatment of everyone around her. It is difficult to read.
Family name, social position, image, and respect trumped kindness and honesty. All the relatives knew the true family dynamic, the mean spirited nature at the center of the web, but did nothing. It reveals the broader context of social interaction and lives of upper-class Britons of the era, but what horrors to which it could lead.
Liddell is a brilliant writer, however, and that rescues the book from what could be a totally bleak picture. The eventual triumph of the grown men is pyrrhic, of course, because of death, unhappiness, and lack of self-awareness. The brothers escape, however, and are bright men helping each other.
I look forward to reading the last of the trilogy and then continuing to Liddell's other, better-known works.