The Four of Us

April 11, 2005
A house in the Cornwall countryside reunites four old high school friends in Pemberton's feel-good latest (after A Many Splendoured Thing
). When widowed, 50-year-old Primmie Dove is bequeathed a small Cornish farm, she decides to try to reconnect with her long-lost chums. Flashing back to 1962, when the girls first met, Pemberton traces their divergent paths up until 1978 before skipping forward to their present-day meeting in 2003. She paints a touching portrait of four flawed women whose friendship survives time, distance and tough life predicaments, including some they inflicted on each other. Scholarship girl Primmie, who was the steadiest, triumphed over an early heartbreak to lead a happy, fulfilling life, if not the one she planned. Elegant, determined, upper-class Geraldine did the same, though in a deeply unconventional way. Artemis, the chubby girl-turned-swan, and Kiki, the self-absorbed rock star, both live through the demise of their fondest dreams. Kiki is Pemberton's best character, for though she's what must pass for a villain in this soft world, she's still sympathetic, and readers will root for her redemption. Too-easy wrapups to the women's stories fail to mar a lovely beach read.