Former actress Elfrida Phipps, 62, flees London for a cottage in the small English village of Dibton where she is befriended by the Blundell family.

Retired college professor and organist Oscar Blundell turns to Elfrida when an auto accident claims the lives of his wife, Gloria, and 12-year-old daughter, Francesca.  Grief-stricken Oscar leans on Elfrida who convinces him to return to his grandmother’s estate in Scotland where he retains half-ownership in the Estate House.  Since he has nowhere else to go and Gloria’s sons have put The Grange up for sale, Oscar agrees.

When her affair with a married man turns sour, Elfrida’s second cousin, Carrie Sutton, leaves Austria and returns to London.  There she finds her niece, Lucy, refusing to accompany her mother and male friend to Florida for two weeks. Grandmother, Dodie, also has plans to spend the holidays in Bournemouth with friends leaving the 14-year-old bereft of friends or family for winter break.

Called back to London by his company chairman to revive a defunct Scottish textile mill, Sam Howard, shows up at the Estate House during a blinding snow storm.  While trying to enter the building with a key from Oscar’s cousin and co-owner, Sam discovers an ailing Carrie who invites him to come in out of the cold.

In two short weeks, these five people from three generations begin to put their lives back together and find something to celebrate.

While most readers reacted favorable to this novel of hope and renewal, some reviewers found fault with Pilcher’s unrealistic time frame for Oscar’s grief process.  Gloria and Francesca have been dead for two months and Oscar and Elfrida are definitely a couple in every sense of the word.

Others found the players stereotypical:  the grieving widower, the neglected child, the broken-hearted  lover, the cold-blooded socialite and pleaded for multi-layered character development.

Most readers will find the plot predictable, but don’t let that keep you from enjoying the rich descriptions of domestic detail, exquisite depiction of Scotland in winter and that sure-to-please happy ending.

Discussion Questions follow:

1. Elfrida made many friends in the small village of Dibton, but the Blundells became her favorites.  Discuss what attracted Elfrida to each one in turn:  Oscar, Gloria, Francesca.

2.  Both Oscar and Elfrida have spent much of their professional lives in London, yet find Dibton a comfortable place to live.  What makes Elfrida comfortable? Oscar?  How did the tragic auto accident affect their comfort level?

3. Sam retains fond memories of Radley Hall, his boyhood home, and Oscar remembers Corrydale, his grandmother’s estate.  What memories do you carry with you of your childhood home or hometown?  Good or bad?

4. Taking into account Elfrida’s admission that, “She liked Oscar immensely; perhaps too much,” how would you characterize her relationship with Oscar before and after the tragic accident?

5. Elfrida declared that she had to set limitations and reservations so she would not be absorbed by or be beholden to the Blundells.  Discuss the above reference and explain what she is so afraid of.

6. Compare and contrast the two young girls (Lucy & Francesca) especially in  their reaction to the merging of the pagan festival surrounding Winter Solstice with the Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth.

7. Why do you think Pilcher chose Winter Solstice as her book title?

8. How accurate is the author’s portrayal of the grief  process?  Some reviewers found it unrealistic that Oscar asked Elfrida to marry him just two months after the death of his wife and daughter.  Do you agree?

9. What part does fate play in Winter Solstice?  Did you find the plot believable?  Did Pilcher’s use of fate lend to or detract from the novel’s believability?

10. Discuss Pilcher’s use of setting to propel the action of the novel.  One reviewer felt that the setting assumed the position of an additional character in the book.  Agree/Disagree?

What other Rosamunde Pilcher novels have you read and enjoyed?

” Programs, here! You can’t tell the players without a program!”

Just like the avid baseball fan, readers of Back When We Were Grown Ups would  appreciate a program or even a score card to keep track of the sheer number of characters strolling in and out of Anne Tyler’s 15th book.

First off, the jovial Joe Davitch married Tina and begat three daughters:

1. Bridget (Biddy)
2. Patricia (Patch)
3. Elinor (NoNo)

As the novel opens, we meet Rebecca (Beck) Davitch, 53, a dimpled grandmotherly type whose loose style of dress resembles that of a bag lady.

Widowed at 25, this proprietress of a 19th century Baltimore row house/party rental, inherited a ready-made family when Tina abandoned Joe and their three children for a career as a New York night club singer.

The eldest Davitch daughter, a  part-time nutritionist who dreams of being a gourmet chef, habitually refuses to taste her own concoctions for the Open Arms clientele. With her fiance’ dead of an asthma attack, the newly pregnant Biddy, 20, moved in with his gay brother.

Together, she and Troy have parented Dixon, the black-haired, brown-eyed heart throb who waits tables and aspires to attend John Hopkins.

The middle daughter, a gym teacher with a sharp freckled face and chopped black hair, looks and acts 14.  She and husband, Jeep, the big-footed runner have produced three children of their own.

1. Danny, a natural athlete
2. Emmy, the long-legged pixie
3. Meredith, an exact replica of Patch

When the youngest, tiniest and prettiest stepdaughter marries corporate lawyer, Barry Sanborn, she becomes the mother of Peter, 12, whom Tyler describes as a puny runt of a boy.

Before Joe’s untimely death at 38 in a freak car accident, he and Rebecca produced a fourth daughter, Minerva aka Min Foo.

Her children include:

1. Joey, 8, the product of her union with Drake, a 60-year-old college professor who has since moved to a Greek Island.
2. Lateesha, 4, the offspring of her African-American husband, LaVon, an aspiring musician who teaches fourth grade.
3. Baby Abdul, the son of her present husband, cardiologist Hakim Abdulazim.

Is your head spinning yet?  Then add in Poppy (Paul Davitch) Joe’s almost 100-year-old uncle of the white bushy mustache and college degree who lives with Rebecca.

Plus, there’s Zeb, Joe’s younger brother, a gangling, bespectacled pediatrician who may or may not be a love interest for Beck. After all, they call each other every night before going to bed, alone.

Feeling that life had passed her by, Beck reconnects with her college sweetheart, Will Allenby, head of the physics department of a local university.  But Rebecca’s futile attempts to rekindle their bygone romance fails and she rejects him for a second time. (How could anyone eat chili seven days a week for dinner?)

In the end, the matriarch of the Davitch family accepts her role as the go-to person, the problem solver and moves forward from that point.

Readers of Back When We Were Grownups will discover a  well-crafted character study of a large dysfunctional family.  The plot meanders along, rises to the celebration of Poppy’s 100th birthday and flat lines after that.  Nothing of great importance happens, and for that reason, some may rate Tyler’s novel as boring.

However, others describe her work as a superb chronicle of ordinary life, the tiny daily events which fill our waking hours. Beck Davitch is as familiar as our next-door neighbor or best friend.

One reviewer thought that the opening line:

“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”

hinted at great life-changing events that never found their way into the novel’s narrative.

A complete listing of Tyler’s novels can be found here.

Discussion Questions for Back When We Were Grownups can be found at this link.