Knockfane is Homan Potterton’s first novel and I wondered what style he would adopt. The back cover promises “Knockfane is a Big House novel for a new generation”.
That does not sound promising. I feared crumbling castles lived in by delightful, dim, drunk Anglo-Irish aristocracy, preyed on by property developers; an updated Castle Rackrent, Maria Edgeworth’s novel published in 1800. But Knockfane is a book of a different calibre.
There are no titled folk, there are no comic characters, there are no Big Houses and the characters are abstemious. Yes, the novel is set in Ireland but it could be Barsetshire. The medium-sized houses are described inside and out in broad brushstrokes that economically bring them to life. The characters living in them likewise come alive. The similarity to Trollope is striking, not least the device employed by Trollope in Doctor Thorne: an ambiguous Will. I was also reminded of Wilkie Collins as I read Knockfane: Victorian melodrama in 20th century Ireland. It is written with great care, as you would expect, and I enjoyed it immensely, reading it in the course of a single day.
Is there anything that rings false? The weather is improbably fine.