The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal (SPOILER alert)

[Lomaamina]

Has anyone read this - The Exiles Return - from Persephone Books? I found the ending not nearly as good as the rest: it seemed to lose track of some of the main characters and for those who were left, it was a profoundly depressing read. It seemed to lose the initially beautifully developed theme about returning to home, in order to focus on the most unappealing of the characters. Wondering what others think (and now off to re-read Eva Hoffman's Lost in Translation: Life in a New Language, which pursues this theme so much more coherently.)