Separate Beds

by Elizabeth Buchan

Tom and Annie's kids have grown up, the mortgage is do-able, and they're about to get a gorgeous new, state-of-the-art French stove. Life is good- or so it seems. Beneath the veneer of professional success and domestic security, their marriage is crumbling, eaten away by years of resentment, loneliness, and the fall out from the estrangement of their daughter, and they've settled into simply being two strangers living under the same roof.

Until the economy falls apart.

Suddenly the dull but oddly comfortable predictability of their lives is upended by financial calamity-Tom loses his job, their son returns home, and Tom's mother moves in with them. As their world shrinks, Tom and Annie are forced closer together, and the chaos around them threatens to sweep away their bitterness and frustration, refreshing and possibly restoring the love that had been lying beneath all along.

Genres: Fiction, Chick Lit, Audiobook, Womens Fiction, Contemporary, Novels, Family

439 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Elizabeth Buchan began her career as a blurb writer at Penguin Books after graduating from the University of Kent with a double degree in English and History. She moved on to become a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prizewinning Consider the Lily – reviewed in the Independent as ‘a gorgeously well written tale: funny, sad and sophisticated’. A subsequent novel, Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman became an international bestseller and was made into a CBS Primetime Drama. Later novels included The Second Wife, Separate Beds and Daughters. Her latest, I Can’t Begin to Tell You, a story of resistance in wartime Denmark, was published by Penguin in August 2014.

Elizabeth Buchan’s short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She reviews for the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes, and also been a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and of The National Academy of Writing, and sits on the author committee for The Reading Agency.

Reviews

[Elise Hamilton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started reading this on 2/22/11. It took a lot longer to read than my usual pace. Way too many pages of a very predictable and boring book. You're told from the very beginning that the eldest daughter (a fraternal twin) has stormed out after an argument with the family and has been estranged from them for years. Throughout the book, there’s much handwringing and wishing she just call, let them know where she is…boo hoo. The narcissistic father, a big wig at the BBC World News, loses his job and falls into a whiny funk, while his doormat wife continues to work as a hospital administrator, BUT now has to also do all the housework, shopping, and cooking (having let the housekeeper go as a expense cutting measure). (Oh, and she sells off her jewelry and clothes to keep them going.) There’s a spoiled younger daughter who’s still living at home, supported by the parents while she plays at being "a writer". Then the son moves back home with his baby daughter after his wife leaves him (I would too, if I was married to him), and the now jobless guy’s mother has to be brought home to stay with them because it’s too expensive to keep her in the retirement home she doesn’t like anyway. I didn’t feel any sympathy for even one of the characters. They were all too pathetic and self-centered, except for the doormat wife, who was unlikeable precisely because she was a doormat. I will never be tempted to read another book by Buchan. Honestly, I don't know why I bothered to finish this one.

[Alix · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, let me preface this with saying that I won this in a First Reads Giveaway. I thought it might be an interesting and timely story...

Well, I was disappointed. I just couldn't get into the book at all. I didn't care about any of the characters, couldn't develop any kind of sympathy for them - and in some cases developed a distaste of reading about them (Tom, especially). Maybe that was the author's intent, but after the 10th chapter, I was pretty sick of the whole thing. The story moved v e r y s l o w l y and I was just ready for it to end.

[Sally906 · Rating 4 out of 5]

To outsiders, Annie and Tom are a middle-aged couple who appear to have it all. Tom works for the BBC World Service and Annie is an Admin manager at a nearby hospital. They have a nice house, three grown up children, two of which are no longer at home. They are, however, a couple in crisis. Tom and Annie have been sleeping in separate beds for a while, ever since unnamed dramatic circumstances years before had resulted in their oldest daughter leaving the house and severing all ties with her family. No-one in the family speaks of the circumstances and the underlying resentment and blame game continues to simmer and influence their present life. Then it all changes in an instant.

Tom comes home and announces that he has been made redundant and that their financial situation will be very dire without severe cutbacks. Their youngest daughter Emily is told they can no longer support her and she has to find a job; Tom’s elderly mother has to move in with them as they can no longer affords to keep her in her nursing home; and then their son Jake is abandoned by his wife and returns home with his one year old daughter. Tom and Annie now have a full house and have to share a bedroom again. Can they survive with four generations under one roof? Can they build bridges over the past and grab another chance at happiness if it is at all possible?

Elizabeth Buchan knows what it is like to be an older woman in a youth focused world. SEPARATE BEDS is a book to settle down and really enjoy, it is clever and perceptive fiction, with completely believable situations. This is a snapshot on the life of a real family dealing with true-to-life problems which have affected many other families. It is not all happiness and fluff, but it is not all doom and gloom either, there are failures, there are successes, there are many bad times to get through before better ones can start.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down as I was hooked from the first page to the last. The only reason I allowed myself to put it down, was I hated for it to end. I fell in love with the characters and their personalities. I loved how they began as an indivual piece of a broken puzzle and the journ the author took them on to put them back together. Tom was a broken man due to the loss of a job, a job which had been responsible for his fractured relationship with his wife Annie and children Jake, Emily and Mia. What began as a house empty of warmth was soon filled with two children, a young granddaughter and his mother all filling it with themselves as well as their own problems. Each member of the family lived so much in their own world, that I could not imagine how they could all come together as one. I love how the author developed each character so well that it was easy to become so thoroughly immersed in their lives. The airport scene between Jake and Jocasta about baby Maisie was especially poignant. I also enjoyed how the author unearthed the love and friendship of Annie and Tom, which both had tamped down so deeply due to Mia. This book will tug at your heartstrings and you will find yourself cheering for this family till the last page, which will complete the puzzle begun on page one.

[Myckyee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the cover of this book but it’s another one that threw me off the real content of Separate Beds. For some reason, I expected more humour in Separate Beds. That cover strikes me as a bit funny in a 'chick-lit' sort of way - but I don't think it was meant to be that at all. I'm not sure if that's my (wrongful) misinterpretation or more the fault of whoever chose the cover. In any case, what I read was a thoughtful and intense family drama. Despite not being the read I expected this was a great book.

This book was set in the UK and I think that reflects in the author’s non-sparing dialogue. The characters responses are short and to the point – the diaglogue treats the reader intelligently and does not overly describe the action. The characters are both good and faulted and it’s difficult to dislike them – even the absentee (and judgmental) daughter.

Elizabeth Buchan paints a very real picture of a family in crises dealing with true-to-life problems that have plagued many families, especially so in recent years. Unemployment, parenthood and marriage are some of the issues the Nicholsons face. How they deal with these problems as a family and individually present very interesting scenarios. There is good and the bad, maturity and childishness. I didn’t like the behaviour of some of the characters (and at times felt frustrated at their reactions to their problems and to each other) but nevertheless, I could understand them. And honestly, I couldn’t claim to behave any better given the same circumstances.

The plot was well done and whenever I put the book down I was anxious to get back to it. I rooted for this family and was pleased at their successes and disappointed at their failures. It’s a story everyone can relate to.

I recommend to all who enjoy a good family story intelligently done.

[Beth Peninger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a really hard time being captured by this book. Most of the time it felt very tedious trying to read it. In fact, due to a library check out, I actually put it aside one day and devoured a whole other book while this one sat on the backburner. I was rather relieved to be done with it.
The book isn't bad, per se, but neither did it draw me in. It's the story of a family that has fallen apart and how they are forced to knit themselves back together again. Usually that's a story I love to read and explore but Buchan's writing style, or something, made it hard for me. She is a British author and the whole book was very, well, British! Perhaps that had something to do with it. Brit's are a more distant, standoffish culture and that really comes through in the book and the way this family interacts with each other. I found them to be SO frustrating to relate to and to sympathize with. Even when, especially when, sympathy was the feeling that should have been invoked. I was more annoyed than anything else. The end of the book ends with how you hope it will the whole way through and that was maybe the best thing about it. I really wanted to like this book but found I just didn't.

[six · Rating 3 out of 5]

So the last book I read I went into with high expectations and was disappointed pretty badly. This time, I went in with no expectations at all--even telling myself that if the book wasn't working after 30 pages, I would give it up--and I ended up liking it. It's not a brilliant book, or a life-changing book, or anything like that, but Separate Beds is a book about people, dealing with life, and it was interesting enough to keep my full attention for over 300 pages.

It's not without it's problems. I had trouble relating to the upper-middle class existence, including the morbid fear of debt and the idea of having jewelry that's worth anything on the resale market. The youngest daughter, Emily, liked to call various retrenchments 'false economy' and I wanted to break in with 'You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.' And Annie was somewhat weedy at times.

But, overall, it was entertaining, and worth reading.

[Jessica Cocita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Readers will be able to sympathize with the characters in this book on multiple levels. The story is realistically told and adequately conveys the feelings associated with the different hardships without making them seem ridiculous. The end of the book was very predictable; however, since the reader's life could potential mirror the lives of the characters, the predictability and tidiness of the ending become assets instead of liabilities.

The two-star rating is the result of eventual boredom that comes when a book has become long-winded. While the story is a relatable, it takes its time coming to the point, and one of the most important (arguably the most important) story lines, while permeating every other aspect of the book, is only superficially dealt with towards the end of the book.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read all of this author's books and enjoyed them all. I thought this book was particularly good. I felt it honestly caught the emotions and inner thoughts of a middle aged woman dealing with many stresses in her own life and in her family. I think she left things open for a sequel and I hope there is one.

[Rachelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I may have to read this one because I feel like some essential part of the story slipped through my attention. Very dry and uneventful story.

[Priscilla Herrington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! This was one amazing book. A married couple have been sleeping in separate rooms, estranged after their older daughter left home and cut off all contact. The husband loses his job which was not only a lucrative and prestigious position with the BBC but also provided his sense of self worth. The wife, who is a hospital administrator, must know shoulder the financial burden of supporting the family, and this changes the way she feels about her job. More calamities piles up. As the world reels from the financial crisis and collapse of banks and investment houses, this family tries to stay afloat. Their younger daughter still lives at home, rent free, in order to try to find herself as a writer. Her parents have to tell her they can no longer afford to support her and in fact, she must help out bu getting a job. Their son returns home with his year old daughter; his wife has left him and he can't afford to keep up with his mortgage as his business is not doing making much income. And then there's the husband's mother, ensconced in a retirement home which they can no longer afford to keep her in because her stocks haven't been doing well and they can't afford to make up the difference. Troubles continue to stack up - and the author manages to make this feel completely real! Like most of us, we don't get to solve one problem before the next one hits, and this piling on relentlessly is what so many of us experience.

As the book opens, it is clear that the couple may have once had a good marriage but they've grown apart. What happens when so many crisis threaten a family, when the couple has lost whatever the glue was that once made them a couple? Can they possibly get back any sense of themselves as a couple? And can everyone survive the various crises, including a severely overcrowded house?

This is the first book I've read by Elizabeth Buchan; it won't be the last.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so absorbed by this story: I couldn't stop reading. I read a lot and I read fast and furious so sometimes I wake up and I can't remember the names of the characters. Not so with Separate Beds. Here's a review I wrote over at the Book Lovers message board: http://bookloversresource.com/book-lo...

Here's the full review from the other site: Separate beds? “Can this marriage be saved?” When I was growing up and kicking my heels in a waiting room, I would always reach for Ladies Home Journal and their marquee monthly column on marriage, Can This Marriage Be Saved. The kicker about this perennial favourite? Not every marriage could be saved! Unlike reading a new romance novel, where an HEA is pretty much a guarantee, one never knew if the couple between the covers of LHJ would earn and talk and change their way to a Happily Ever After.

When I grew up and life happened, I turned to the novels of Roberts and Macomber and Balogh. Even more than good stories, I was looking for assurance. As a more *ahem* mature reader, I realize now that every good author writes about life on life’s terms. What intrigued me about Separate Beds was the author. I follow British author Elizabeth Buchan on Twitter @elizabethbuchan (although I had never read her) because I like her impassioned tweets about the changes in English society, particularly as those changes affect the bedrock of British life, like going to a library in your village. A society without libraries is soulless. Then one day, as I was sitting in a dentist’s waiting room, looking at People, I saw that her latest novel had received a very favourable review. Wow! Someone I followed on Twitter was a Famous Novelist. I had to tweet that and Ms. Buchan kindly offered to send me her latest book. Great! But … and this is the last all about me sentence … the title scared me. Who wanted to read about a couple sleeping in separate beds?

Me, that’s who. I was hooked from the first chapter. Separate Beds is the story of a couple and their marriage but it’s also about their family and their world and the society they live in. Annie is a harried, attractive, organized middle-aged woman who is a capable administrator at a large hospital. She has three children, one of whom, Emily, an aspiring writer, still lives at home. Her older children, twins, Jake and Mia, have left home. Tom, Annie’s husband of a lifetime, is a successful, busy, producer of radio documentaries. There’s a BFF, Sadie, married for the 3rd time to an MP, a mother-in-law, Hermione, in a nursing home, a daughter-in-law, Jocasta and a grand-daughter, Maisie. Quite a cast of characters but the opening feeling is of intense loneliness: a woman in a darkened kitchen speaking with her longtime cleaner, Zosia. At first the language and the objects and the milieu seemed to smack of otherness. What did prelapsarian mean? What was a package of mange-touts or early Jersey Royals? But then I was plunged into Annie’s world. A patient has died on a gurney, in a corridor, while waiting for medical attention. Her husband Tom loses his job of 25 years. Jake’s wife Jocasta, a cold, driven, banker, leaves him and their daughter for the greener pastures of the United States. What could be worse than what has happened?

It is Elizabeth Buchan’s magic as a writer that she makes you realize oh no, there’s a lot more worse things to come – but that those things, a son moving home, a mother-in-law moving in with you because she can’t afford to stay at her nursing home – are still not the nadir. What if your son not only lost his marriage but was threatened with his ex-wife taking away his daughter? What if your mother-in-law’s arrival was followed by her getting desperately sick and ending up in the hospital? Annie and Tom are “every-family” but an “every-family” buffeted by the harsh winds of a world-wide economic collapse. We know about the collapse of Lehmann Brothers in New York City but in Separate Beds the detritus is at a micro-level: Annie has to sell her precious diamond ring to pay for a new stove that she can’t afford now that her husband isn’t working. We ache for Jake, a talented creator of be-spoke furniture when his contracts and ability to make a living dry up. These are people who become real to us and we empathize with their suffering.

Perhaps this sounds like the antithesis of a book that is enjoyable and thought-provoking but it is a life-affirming and ultimately joyous book. A middle-aged woman’s empty house is filled with family, so filled in fact that she has to make room for her husband in her bedroom, ending a physical separation of five years. Parents get a 2nd chance to parent their children, children take ultimate responsibility for their lives, and a family is healed. Often I finish a book and the next day I can barely remember the names of the characters but not so with Separate Beds. Everyone is so vividly real and I find myself wondering how life is working out for them all. I cannot recommend this book more highly. It will not only transport you, but it will make you re-examine and treasure the truly enduring and valuable parts of your own life: your relationships within your family and with the world that surrounds you. Elizabeth Buchan may have been a new-to-me author but no longer. I’m looking forward to exploring her backlist!

[Kristin Steffen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and well read audiobook. It's one of those books that has major problems all the way through and it only wraps up in the final few chapters. If you're up for a long book full of problems, this is for you...

[Terry Lander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads First Read - This isn't a genre that I normally read, but after looking at the book details I felt it was an easy situation to slip into for many married couples and thought I would investigate the insinuated mindset of the couple involved.

The story and characters are very strong and it is easy to sympathise with those involved. Readers are instantly aware of the authors writing ability, which is a blend of experience and good imagination. The 'meet the writer' style interview at the end of the book is a great inspiration for budding authors and would be useful for anyone who is looking at putting fiction together.

For other readers this book promises a compelling tale by incorporating fantastic imagery throughout as well as a skilful narrative. I don't get a lot of time for reading but I found myself making time whenever possible, even if it was just to take in a couple of pages.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I finished this book, I felt emotionally drained. And relieved.

Why isn't Buchan more popular? Her books are smart, insightful, how-to-live-during-trying-times books: Revenge of the Middle-aged Woman, The Good Wife Strikes Back, Everything She Thought She Wanted, Wives Behaving Badly---some of my favorite books ever.

Her titles give the impression of cheap, fun lit, BUT let me assure you that they're much more than that. Buchan knows what it means to be human--it's complicated and and sad and messy and wonderful and sometimes all at once.

And Mr. Franzen, if you're reading, here's the part that made me think of you and the NY Times Book Review:

"As far as she could judge, men regarded fiction, particularly popular fiction, as a substratum of pulp, the exception of being the crime genre. For some reason, violence and death on the page achieved an intellectual credibility that love and hope did not."

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Picked up another old book on the shelf just bc it was large print! Enjoyed this family saga! Buchan writes so well—loved her word choices—and it’s like you’re right there living with this family with grown children who arrive home just as the husband loses his job. The couple can’t afford the assisted living anymore for the critical mother-in-law, so they must move her in too—and add a dog. In addition to the depleted finances of the newly crowded house, they’re also hurting, reeling from an unkind estranged adult child who has cut them off for years and they’re dealing with that deep painful hole. Its a family story with a cast of believable, ordinary characters, not over-the top people but instead relatable with problems of their own, and it’s well-told. Choked up a few times. Kudos to the author, Elizabeth Buchan.

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really cool book. I was really concerned at first because it was so heavy with everything occurring in the lives of the main characters, from job loss to disinheritence by a daughter, it was depressing. The book turned out to be a really sweet, enjoyable read that was actually uplifting in looking at how the family reacted to the cruddy things occuring in their lives. I was really happy I choose to follow through with this first reads loss and pick it up at the library. I really wish Goodreads would come out with 1/2 stars because this one would have been 4.5 stars.

[Vicki Loves to Read · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was interesting in the fact that it tackled the uncomfortable situations we can find ourselves in with a bad economy. But, this book was really slow going and very depressing. I may have enjoyed it more reading it another month than December. But, I thought the whole Mia story line was bizarre and I also felt frustrated that no one spoke about real things that mattered to each other.

[Vannessa Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Separate beds did an impressive job showing the complexities of the family relationships: husband and wife; mother and son and daughters, daughters-in-law and mother-in-law; father and son, husband and wife, brothers and sisters, father and daughter. Elizabeth Buchanan made every voice relevant.

Separate Beds was a good read.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a bad story, but all that middle-class angst drove me mad at times. Having to sack the cleaner and not being able to afford a full time nanny - how the rest of us mere mortals manage I have no idea!

[Marisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had a bit to much filler, could have been less, it had the British demeanour throughout, however still a good read. I recommend to others.

[Pippa Catterall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was published in 2010 and the backdrop of financial crisis provides a framework for the book. Annie, in many ways the central character, works in the NHS as a senior manager and her life is full of the challenges of healthcare at the time from MRSA to never events. In other words, this is in some ways a zeitgeist novel. The crisis of the nation (which seems as nothing to the trauma that followed) is mirrored by crises in Annie’s family. For me this crisis became an exploration of the attempts of Annie’s husband Tom to express his masculinity, as he had been brought up to do. The consequences, and the collective failure of the family to communicate and talk through the resulting trauma, have long-term effects. The journey towards healing is nicely and subtly delineated here.

[Adeline Kam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every marriage hides a secret.....A beautiful portrait of family relationships.....An intimate, compelling dissection of a family in crisis.

I've attempted to read this book a few times but never got round to it until now. The mood strikes. Not a bad book after all. Storyline a bit draggy but there is something important to learn from this novel.

No matter how busy we are in our lives, never forget our Family. It takes Tom to lose his job and Jake with a marriage problem to bring the family back together. Yes, times are tough, the road ahead is not easy but as long as family sticks together, the impossible becomes possible. This is what I learned from this story.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking forward to reading lots more from this author.

This was a fabulous well-rounded story about a marriage who, through the decades, their love and connection grew complicated and tense- especially because of a difficult relationship to their eldest. I loved it because instead of choosing divorce, they navigated it with slow and steady rediscoverY and listening. They behaved with kindness and honesty. It seems plausible. As a difficult daughter myself, I was surprised how much I detested the eldest daughter character. I would love to read a book about her side of the story, because I know we have one 😉. The book did share view points of the other 2 adult siblings.

[Astrid DK · Rating 4 out of 5]

In typical fashion, Elizabeth Buchan puts the struggles of married life and family under a magnifying glass. While it may feel a bit slow paced, I like how each of the 4 main characters gets a chance to have their perspective on the page while they deal with a trials and tribulations of an economic crisis, marital crisis and the (occassionally stiffling) close proximity to family that comes from kids and parents living together again.

[Shriti Chatterjee · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story of the Nicholsons' ran a bit too long for me. The eventual happy ending was the only thing I liked about this one, although I must admit that the author is on-point while narrating any of the family members' POV. That kind of perception about dysfunctional families is definitely remarkable, if not rare.

[Laurena Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was the first book by Elizabeth Buchan I have read, and on the strength of this I will be looking for more. (My Kindle has helpfully already suggested some titles!) The book looks at the stresses and strains within a multi-generational household: it is affectionate, and makes some observations about relationships which have a ring of truth about them.

[Mary Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Elizabeth Buchan. It’s nice to read about the challenges of middle-aged people, the difficulties of long term marriages, young adult kids struggling to find their way, and the messiness of real life.

[Deborah Sigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her characters always seem so sad and challenged, but there's always the promise of hope and better things to come by the end.

[Terri C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rated 7.5 out of 10