Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido

Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido

published 1982

I came back to this book because I wanted to do a post on fictional families, and you can see the more general results here:

Falling in Love with the Whole Family

 

I loved Brother of the More Famous Jack with all my heart when it first came out in the early 1980s, and over the years I have given or lent it to many people (I note with narrowed eyes that the copy I have now is not my original one, but a much later reprint – someone kept mine). And the strange thing is that everyone who reads it thinks the heroine is exactly their age, their era. You would also assume that the author is the same age as Katherine, if feels autobiographical, but she very much isn’t.

Barbara Trapido was born in 1941.Reading the book again now, it is very clear that it starts in the 1960s, when the heroine would be around 18 -  with a few time-anomalies if I’m honest. Katherine wears an extremely short mini-dress, actually a rugby shirt, for her university interview, which did not sound likely to me. [For clarity - and see comments below - it is wearing it for an interview that I am arguing with, not its existence or Katherine wearing it in other circs]

There isn’t much fixed by time in the book, except later going to see the film of Women in Love, which came out in 1969. But Katherine can be any age, whatever suits you…

She is unofficially adopted by the family of her tutor, Jacob, who lives a Bohemian life with his wife Jane and their raft of children, including eligible sons. It is a wonderful description of family life in all its many directions. And then there is an interlude in Italy - but she is drawn back to the Goldmans as we all are to our families.

There are a few moments that make you grit your teeth in 2026 – the book is, as I like to say, very much of its time. There are some shockers, such as a ‘pretend’ game in the car where the children choose people to fake shoot. If a character says that the feminist magazine Spare Rib is ‘for raped lesbians’, and that is exactly the outrageous remark that that person would have said in the early 1970s, is that OK or not?

Other bits of shocking dialogue are weirdly exhilarating.

Jane tries to persuade Jonathan – who is 16 or 17 - to apply to university. He says – this is to his mother – ‘It’ll take you a lot of f…ing Smarties to get me to write that exam, lady.’

She is unmoved but tells him not to get anyone pregnant.

‘I’m not stupid’, Jonathan said.

‘Someone has yet to prove that bright young men are less capable of impregnating women.’

Later on, a visitor objects to the way Jonathan talks to his mother: ‘a chap oughtn’t to… Not in my book.’

‘And what book is that?’ Jonathan said. ‘Biggles? Who are you anyway?’

Katherine has fallen in love with Roger, who is probably the least appealing family member to the reader. He has featured before on the blog, interestingly, for this remark, which he makes during a testy conversation after ‘exchanging a moment’s hatred’ with his father. (Don’t we all recognize that?)

‘To call a violin a fiddle is a form of name-dropping,’ he says coldly. ‘it’s a familiarity you earn the right to use – that’s if you like name-dropping.’ *** see below for deets.

Fashion features a lot – hats such as Katherine’s crocheted string hat (top pic), made it herself. Roger has a ‘remarkable floppy black beret which gives him a look of having come but late from Wittenburg’ – ie what is henceforward referred to as his Hamlet hat.

Katherine has

‘a great love affair with clothes. They are consumingly important to me and I often pull off a successfully Voguey look. Once when I was crossing Tottenham Court Road a team of Japanese photographers began to click their shutters.’

That has such a modern influencer-Instagram feel doesn’t it? – just what I was saying about the book fitting to any age.

Later she wears a maroon beret to meet a possibly-intimidating person who was headgirl at school, and who turns out to be nice enough: ‘there was no suggestion that she would report me for wearing my beret at a rakish angle.’

And she is a very keen knitter – Jane pays her to make a huge black sweater for Jonathan which makes him look like ‘the God of Thunder with a migraine’, and later she is able to earn money by making fancy designer knitwear.

this would look very well worn with the hat from the top picture

Roger gives her an embroidered butterfly patch from his jeans, and she attaches it to her bookbag. Now THAT is very much keyed to the times… though I was surprised to find that they are still freely available to buy.

This is a very satisfying book, and I was absolutely delighted to find that I loved it as much as ever on re-reading.

 

*** In a post on Noel Streatfeild’s The Apple Bough, I had this objection:

Throughout the book, the genius child and his violin-playing are referred to as a fiddler, fiddle-playing, a fiddle teacher, a fiddle. I thought this was the height of affectedness. Elly G [this is the legendary author of the Ruth books, Elly Griffiths – see how casually I refer to her] says that a character in Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido, an all-time great book, and can't believe it has never featured on the blog, takes the excellent line that you have to earn the right to be that affected… 

In The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue, a more recent favourite of mine, the titular Rachel becomes friendly with her tutor’s family, with rather different results. The Trapido book is mentioned - Rachel has a copy ‘heavily underlined’ on her shelves, so it’s a deliberate homage.

Most pictures from 

Vivat Vintage

Vivat Vintage: Archive 

others from my files