Casting Off

A new era of freedom and opportunity for the Cazalet family begins as peacetime approaches in the fourth novel in Elizabeth Jane Howard’s magnificent Cazalet Chronicles.

The Cazalet cousins, now in their twenties, are trying to piece together their lives in the aftermath of World War II, while having to engage, painfully, with their parents as fellow adults for the very first time. Louise is faced with her father’s new mistress and her mother’s grief at his betrayal. Clary is struggling to understand why her beloved father chose to stay in France long after it was safe to return to Britain. And Polly and her father are still grieving the loss of her mother.

Meanwhile, the young women’s own affairs are far from straightforward. Both Polly and Clary have fallen madly in love with much older men, both wildly unsuitable for different reasons. And Louise, stuck in a loveless marriage, is candidly considering her own options, as well as tending to her own, very private grief.

As Polly, Clary and Louise face the truth about the adult world, their fathers—Rupert, Hugh and Edward—too must make choices that will decide their own, and the family’s, future.