Top Ten Books of 2014

StuckinaBook All 29 Comments

Every year when I put my top ten reads together, I start by thinking that the year hasn’t been all that brilliant for reading, and then discover it’s been amazing. Seriously, it’s pretty great that I’m lucky enough to read such fab books every year. This year I had a 24 book shortlist, but have whittled it down to ten (and, as always, no re-reads and only one per author). And… here they are! In reverse order, for funsies. Also fun is that half of them were read for Shiny New Books (in those cases, the title links straight to SNB; the others link to SIAB reviews).

I think my main surprise is how few of them come from the first half of the 20th century… two are even from 2014; imagine!

Do let me know your end of year lists in the comments, please!

10. The Listener (1971) by Tove Jansson
Her first collection of short stories shows how great she would become – and she was great straight from the off. Some very deft and poignant tales here.

9. Marrying Out (2001) by Harold Carlton
Another wonderful memoir from Slightly Foxed, this one is about a young boy’s Jewish family disintegrating when one of his uncles wants to marry a girl who isn’t Jewish.

8. Mr Fox (1987) by Barbara Comyns
One of my favourite authors doesn’t disappoint with this quirky novel about a naive woman and the spiv whose life she is tangled up in.

7. The Optimist’s Daughter (1972) by Eudora Welty
A really stunning novella about how a daughter copes with her stepmother and neighbours after her father’s death.

6. Charlotte Mew and Her Friends (1984) by Penelope Fitzgerald
I loved Fitzgerald as a novelist; I vaguely knew of Mew – I couldn’t have known how gripping and involving this exceptional biography would be.

5. My Salinger Year (2014) by Joanna Rakoff
A wonderful memoir of working at the literary agency that represented J.D. Salinger – utterly involving.

4. Home (2008) by Marilynne Robinson
I read Home and Lila this year, but it was the former that won out for my end-of-year-list. The middle book of a truly exceptional, beautiful trilogy by (for my money) the world’s greatest living writer.

3. Boy, Snow, Bird (2014) by Helen Oyeyemi
Oyeyemi goes from strength to strength (as well as being sickeningly young) and her fifth novel is a sophisticated exploration of the relationship between three related women.

2. Patricia Brent, Spinster (1918) by Herbert Jenkins
Entirely improbable and silly, but an unadulterated delight – Patricia persuades a young man to pretend to be her fiancée. Guess what happens next?

1. The Sundial (1958) by Shirley Jackson
An extremely funny and surreal novel about an extended family who will survive the apocalypse by staying in the family home together. Brilliantly, they are all rather unconcerned about the impending fire-and-brimstone, and Jackson gives us their squabbles and passive aggression instead. A superlatively inventive, amusing, and bizarre book.

My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes

StuckinaBook All , , 16 Comments

I was very excited to get an abebooks alert about an affordable copy of My Husband Simon (1931) by Mollie Panter-Downes (which is usually either unavailable or extortionately expensive). Her novel One Fine Day is (bold claim) one of the best I’ve ever read, and her war diaries are exceptionally good, and naturally I wanted to read more. After I posted about buying it, I was inundated with (ahem) two requests that I read and review it quickly. So, dear readers, I have.

I’ll start by managing expectations – it’s not as good as One Fine Day, London War Notes, or her volumes of short stories published by Persephone. But I still rather loved reading it. The heroine (with the extraordinary name Nevis – is this a name?) is a young wife and novelist, and the novel does, indeed, largely concern her relationship with ‘my husband Simon’. Nevis is literary, intelligent, cultured, and quite the intellectual snob; Simon is none of these things, but is charismatic and jovial (as well as fond of horse-racing). They are not temperamentally suited, but they do have rather a physical attraction – more than I would have expected to find in a 1931 novel, until I remembered The Sheik – and the novel negotiates Nevis’ attempts to write her third novel and manage her marriage. Oh, and she’s 24.

From what I can gather on her Wikipedia page (which isn’t a lot), My Husband Simon is intensely autobiographical. Both Nevis and Mollie had had runaway bestsellers while still teenagers (Mollie was only 17 when The Shoreless Sea became a huge success); both married at 21; Mollie was 24 when writing My Husband Simon – which was her third novel. As far as I can tell, it was all very much drawn from life – and it is nice to know that her real-life marriage lasted for many decades beyond the three-year-anxieties.

As far as plot goes, it is all fairly simplistic. It’s not really the love triangle that the ‘about this novel’ section promises; it’s more introspective and undecided than that. While Nevis’s problems are fairly self-indulgent, and perhaps look a bit ridiculous to anybody older than 24 (which she obviously considers a couple of steps from the grave), the novel is still engaging and enjoyable.

Mollie P-D’s greatest quality – in her finest work – is that of a stylist, I would argue. Particularly in One Fine Day, where the prose is like the most unassuming poetry. There was a 16 year gap between My Husband Simon and One Fine Day (in terms of novels); her attention was transferred to short stories. And so there is only a hint of what her writing could become. It is certainly never bad, but there are only glimpses of beauty. I did like this moment of looking out from a tram, that has the same observational stance as much of One Fine Day:

We climbed on top of the tram and away it snorted. A queer constraint was on us. We hardly said a word, but in some way all my perceptions were tremendously acute so that I took in everything that was going on in the streets. A shopping crowd surged over the pavements. In the windows were gaping carcases of meat, books, piles of vegetable marrows, terrible straw hats marked 6/11d. I though vaguely: “Who buys all the terrible things in the world? Artificial flowers and nasty little brooches of Sealyhams in bad paste, and clothes-brushes, shaped like Micky the Mouse and scarves worked in raffia?” A lovely, anaemic-looking girl stood on the kerb, anxiously tapping an envelope against her front teeth. Should she? Shouldn’t she? And suddenly, having made her decision, all the interest went out of her face and she was just one of the cow-like millions who were trying to look like Greta Garbo.
So, be comforted to know that the best of Panter-Downes’ work is easily available – but this is a novel that certainly wouldn’t disgrace Persephone covers, if they ever decided to publish more by Mollie, and a really interesting example of how she developed into the writer she eventually became.

Happy Christmas (and some goodies)

StuckinaBook All 10 Comments

I hope you have all had, or will have, a very wonderful Christmas. We’ve had a lovely day here – mostly playing games, eating, and opening presents (once we’d been to church, of course, some of us several times). And I did rather well for books this year… these photos were mostly taken as the day wended its way to a close, so apologies for the poor light quality. But, wow, lucky me with these books!

The Unexpected Professor by John Carey is a book I’ve had my eye on for a while – it’s about Oxford, after all – and was given to me by my dear friends Lorna and Will.
The next two came from Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife, and were (I believe) both recommended by bloggers. Closely Observed Trains by Bohumil Hrabal is a fascinating-looking novella, and The Great Indoors by Ben Highmore is an equally fascinating-looking history of the home.
I am also in a LibraryThing Virago Secret Santa, which has thoroughly spoilt me this year (my Santa being the lovely Christina):

Look at these beauties! Such lovely wrapping, and those are all Christmas decorations on top (now gracing our tree). And, when unwrapped…
From left to right…
Peking Picnic by Ann Bridge (a novelist I like a lot); God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam (an author I’ve been meaning to try), and a really, really beautiful edition of The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner.
This one deserves its own line: Out of the Red, Into the Blue by Barbara Comyns. My family had to cope with my squeals and excitement. I can’t believe Christina managed to find this. I’ve been on the hunt for years, and thought it would be forever hopeless. 
And, finally, from Colin – this beauty:

I spent an extremely happy day visiting Monk’s House once, and this book is a gorgeous history of the garden, from 1919 (when the Woolfs bought it) until the present day. The photography is absolutely stunning.

So, lucky me! What did Santa and/or your friends and family bring you, in the book world?

Out and about, bits and bobs, and suchlike

StuckinaBook All 18 Comments

I’m enjoying a lazy time down in Somerset, now that work has finished for Christmas, and was supposed to be getting down to lots of reading. But somehow I am a bit bored with everything I’m reading, so have reverted to an old reliable (which just happens to fill in one of the few gaps in my Century of Books from the first half of the year – 1932): The Provincial Lady Goes Further. It is my favourite of the Provincial Lady series (as well as being the first one I read), and I laugh aloud to myself despite having read it about a dozen times… particularly, for some reason, at this paragraph:

Door flies open and Pamela Pringle, of whom I have now given up all hope, rushes in, kisses everybody, falls over little dog – which has mysteriously appeared out of the blue and vanishes again after being fallen over – and says Oh do we all know on another, and isn’t she a frightfully bad hostess but she simply could not get away from Amédé, who really is a Pet. (Just as I have decided that Amédé is another little dog, it turns out that he is a Hairdresser.)
Yesterday some of my extended family came over to go to a football match. Well, obviously I didn’t go (I mean, come on) and Our Vicar’s Wife also didn’t fancy it, so we took a trip to see the new Paddington film instead. There were quite a few other mother-and-child(ren) groups there, but I think we were conclusively the oldest. And it was good fun! A little different from the books, but Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville are dependably great, and CGI Paddington was a wonder.

We got to Yeovil very early, so we did a bit of last-min Christmas shopping, and (since we were there) popped into Oxfam to have a look at the books. And – lo and behold – I managed to snare a copy of E. Nesbit’s The Lark! I went on an online hunt for it after reading Scott’s enthusiastic review, because I am always drawn to any novel with spinsters or boarding houses, and this one has both, but the only available copies were prohibitively expensive. Obviously buying books online is great, and it would be a foolish lie to claim I don’t do it, but there’s nothing quite like a serendipitous find in person, is there? (I’ve borrowed the photo from Scott’s blog, as it’s the same edition I bought and I can’t remember where my camera is…)

Also, have you seen that Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon has become a Christmas bestseller? It’s a British Library Crime Classics reprint of a 1930s murder mystery, and it sounds glorious (Harriet reviewed it for Shiny New Books, fyi). I haven’t actually read any of the BL reprints yet, but it’s exciting that they’re doing so well – and I think the cover designer has to be thanked in a large part (as well, of course, as the people selecting the books).

Christmas is always a time when I watch a lot more TV than usual. Partly because my parents tend to have it on in the evening, partly because of Christmas specials and the like, and perhaps mostly because it’s the only time I really see a TV guide. I’m excited about The Day We Sang (by Victoria Wood, with Imelda Staunton – what a wonderful combination!) and Esio Trot (Roald Dahl; Judi Dench!) not to mention the Christmas special (and final) of delightfully-silly-but-touching Miranda. And let’s not forget the final episode of Radio 4 comedy Cabin Pressure, that my friend Malie successfully got me into this year.

Speaking of Imelda, I’m going to go and see her in Gypsy next April, which is exciting. My other booked tickets for theatre next year include the musical Once and the play Peter Pan Goes Wrong, a Christmas version of the incredibly funny The Play That Goes Wrong, which I saw in Malvern and has now transferred to London.

A review round-up

StuckinaBook All , , , , , , , 19 Comments

I’ve made my peace with not getting to the end of my Century of Books by the end of 2014 – that’s fine; the rules are very flexible – but I will bolster out the list with some of the others I have read which don’t quite warrant a post to themselves, for one reason or another…

A Painted Veil (1925) by W. Somerset Maugham
I read this in the Lake District, and found it rather enthralling if a little overdramatic and a touch sententious. But it was borrowed from a friend, and I didn’t blog about it before sending it back…

The Listerdale Mystery (1934) by Agatha Christie
This was part of my Christie binge earlier in the year, but slipped in just after my other Christie round-up. This is a collection of short stories, some of which were better than others. It also has one with a novelist who complains that adapted books are given terrible names like ‘Murder Most Horrid’ – which later happened to Christie herself, with Mrs McGinty’s Dead.

It’s Too Late Now (1939) by A.A. Milne
One day I’ll write a proper review of this glorious book, one of my all-time favourites. It’s AAM’s autobiography and I’ve read it four or five times, but have left it too late this time to write a review that would do it justice. But I’m bound to re-read it, so we’ll just wait til then, eh?

Summer in February (1995) by Jonathan Smith
This novel is an all-time favourite of my friend Carol’s, and for that reason I feel like I should give it a proper review, but… well, it’s already seeped out of my head, I think. It was a good and interesting account of the Newlyn painters. I didn’t love it as much as Carol, but it was certainly well written and enjoyable.

The Blue Room (1999) by Hanne Ørstavik
I was going to review this Peirene translation for Shiny New Books, but I have to confess that I didn’t like it at all. But was I ever going to like an X-rated novel about submission? Reader, I brought this upon myself.

Making It Up (2005) by Penelope Lively
I wasn’t super impressed by my first Lively, I have to confess. I heard her speak about this book in 2005, so it was about time I read it – but it’s a fairly disparate selection of short stories, tied together with the disingenuous notion that all of them have some vague resemblance to sections of Lively’s life or people she saw once on the train. Having said that, some of the stories were very good – it just felt like the structure was rather weak. Still, I’m sure there are better Lively novels out there?

The Man Who Unleashed the Birds (2010) by Paul Newman
This biography of Frank Baker (author of Miss Hargreaves) has been on my on-the-go shelf for about four years, and I finally finished it! The awkward shape of the book was the main reason it stayed on the shelf, I should add; it wouldn’t fit in my bag! It was a brilliantly researched biography, with all sorts of info I’d never have been able to find elsewhere – most particularly a fascinating section on his relationship (er, not that sort of relationship) with Daphne du Maurier after he’d accused her of plagiarising ‘The Birds’.

The Siren Years by Charles Ritchie

StuckinaBook All , , , 15 Comments

One of the greatest pleasures I have had in blogging is getting to know Claire’s blog. We all know and love her as The Captive Reader, and I am lucky enough to have very similar taste to Claire – we have both followed up each other’s suggestions, and have only had the occasional mishap. When I received Charles Ritchie’s The Siren Years: A Canadian Diplomat Abroad, 1937-1945 (1974) as a gift in the post, I was very touched – and a little nervous. I trust Claire. But… I thought she might have made a mistake. A book about politics? Me? And the cover did nothing to convince me… Lucky for me, I was wrong and Claire was right. Which makes a total of no recommendations from her that have turned out to be duds.

Ritchie often seems more like a society gossip than a diplomat, and that – you will not be surprised to learn – makes him much more up my street. He describes the people around him with a catty tone, albeit one au fait with national and international politics. Not to mention literature; Elizabeth Bowen was a large part of Ritchie’s life, and he is a sensitive interpreter of people.

And who can fail to be moved by any war memoir? The experiences of war, even on the home front, are so foreign to those of most of us today that any description of life then is both fascinating and poignant. Indeed, it is perhaps more so on the home front – because the places, relationships, and roles are recognisable, but thrown into extraordinary relief.

Since it’s been far too long since I read this wonderful diary, I shall just give you a series of quotations I noted down from it. After all, I am only going to say ‘I love this’ after each one, if I elaborate any further.

On public figures from Eton…
What happens to them at Eton? However innocent, stupid or honest they may be they always look as though they had passed the preceding night in bed with a high-class prostitute and had spent the earlier part of the morning smoothing away the ravages with the aid of creams, oils and curling tongs.

On politicians
[…] a few senators and political big-shots whose faces give one a feeling of familiar boredom like picking up an old twice-read newspaper.

On work rituals
Being a Private Secretary is a busy unreal sort of life – unreal because it makes one’s day such a programme of events. One does things in a certain order not because one feels like doing them at the time or even because this is the order of their importance, but because they appear in that order on the day’s programme. This programme is dictated by the engagements of the Chief, who is in turn a victim of his engagements and spends most of his day in doing unnecessary things which he does not want to do. Yet neither of us is unhappy. We feel that the ritual of our lives is obligatory – we grumble but we submit with satisfaction to the necessity. A day of telephone conversations, luncheon parties, notes acknowledged, visitors received, memoranda drawn up. Exhaustion is merely staleness – we return with zest to the game. What an extraordinary amount of time is spent in saving our own face and coddling other people’s vanities! One would really think that the people we deal with were a collection of hypersensitive megalomaniacs.

On war in London
Never has there been such a colourless war – not a drum, not a flag, not a cheer – just sandbags and khaki and air-read shelters and gas-masks and the cultivated, careful voice of the B.B.C. putting the best complexion on the news. London is waiting for the first raid like an anxious hostess who has made all the preparations to receive formidable guests – but the guests do not seem to be going to turn up. Every time the door-bell rings she thinks, “At last there they are,” but it turns out to be the grocer’s boy delivering a parcel. So the day pass. We look at our watches, turn on the wireless, pick up a novel and wait.

On Oxford, and a building I used to work in
The moment I stepped out of the station I smelt the familiar smell of Oxford. What nonsense the woman was talking the other day when she said that it did not matter if a city were destroyed physically, if its soul lived. Cities are nothing without their bodies. When you have destroyed Paris and Oxford what happens to their souls? Oxford rebuilt in this age! It would be easy to see what it would be like by looking at the new Bodleian Extension – that blankly commonplace hulk which they have dared to plant in the face of the Sheldonian. That is the most distressing thing about Oxford – for the rest the changes are temporary.

On Elizabeth Bowen
“Take it from one of the best living novelists that people’s personalities are not interesting,” Elizabeth said in a dry voice; “except,” she added, “when you are in love with them.” Her books show much that you would expect if you knew her only as an acquaintance, he intelligence, her penetrating eye, her love of houses and flowers. These things you would have gathered from talking to her in her drawing-room. But there are certain passages in which her peculiar intensity, her genius, come out, which would be hard to reconcile with this cultivated hostess. That purity of perception and compassion seems to come from another part of her nature of which she is perhaps not completely aware.

On wartime
We have long ceased to find the war thrilling – any excitement in the movement of historic events is gone. There is a vague but persistent worry in people’s minds about the coming air raids this winter, but like everything else this is accepted as inevitable. The truth is that the war has become as much a part of our lives as the weather, the endless winter, and when the ice does break there will be no cheering in the streets.

Bits and Pieces

StuckinaBook All 5 Comments

It’s not the weekend, so I can’t call this a Weekend Miscellany, but here are a bunch of things I’ve been meaning to link to or mention…

1.) My doctoral supervisor Sally Bayley is writing a book called The Private Life of the Diary, from Pepys to Tweets and is publishing through publishing house de jour Unbound. It’s one which is pledge-based. Find out more about the fascinating-sounding book…

2.) I can’t remember whether or not I’ve shared this video before, but it’s by one of the vloggers I sometimes watch (kickthepj) and an example of how creative young ‘content makers’ can be…

3.) I wrote the rules for a lolcat geneator on the OxfordWords blog, believe it or not.

4.) The Thomas family made their annual Christmas Show outing… in a Dickensian Great British Bake Off.

5.) Maggie Smith Festival at the BFI. I’m hopefully going to something in the new year… maybe The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, which means I need to get busy and read the book first.

6.) And I’ve hit my 2000th post! In fact, I think this is the 2004th. Gracious!

The Midnight Fox by Betsy Byars

StuckinaBook All , , , 3 Comments

A little while ago I got a very nice email from someone called Vicki, saying how much she enjoyed reading Stuck-in-a-Book, and asking if she could send me one of the books she loved as a sort of thank you. Well, I was very touched, and – not one to turn down a book recommendation or, indeed, a book – said yespleasethankyouverymuch. And shortly afterwards Betsy Byars’ The Midnight Fox (1968) arrived.

I hadn’t heard of it, but I think The Midnight Fox is well known in some circles. Yet again, having only read Enid Blyton for years on end means that I don’t know that much about other children’s classics. But now I have read, and very much enjoyed, this sweet and touching tale of a holiday on a farm.

The premise has a surprising number of similarities with Philippa Pearce’s much-loved children’s book Tom’s Midnight Garden, published ten years earlier. In both, a boy named Tom must reluctantly go and stay with his aunt and uncle, and greatly misses a boy called Peter. In both, a certain midnight aberration becomes an obsession, and changes the stay into a much happier event; Peter is written to from a distance, and becomes an accomplice in the discovery. I doubt that Byars plagiarised the book, but the similarities amused me.

The story is simple – Tom is beguiled by the beauty of this unusual fox, who is entirely black. He starts to look out for her, and becomes increasingly keen to observe her playing with her small fox cub; he is almost bewitched by this elegant, elemental life lived near to him – and must find a way to stop his hunting uncle from trapping the fox.

What makes it such a special little book? The style, I think. It’s not told with the gung-ho naivety of some children’s books, but treats Tom’s anxieties and concerns seriously – not least because we read it in the first person. Here is the opening…

Sometimes at night when the rain is beating against the windows of my room, I think about that summer on the farm. It has been five years, but when I close my eyes I am once again by the creek watching the black fox come leaping over the green. green grass. She is as light and free as the wind, exactly as she was the first time I saw her.

Or sometimes it is that last terrible night, and I am standing beneath the oak tree with the rain beating against me. The lightning flashes, the world is turned white for a moment, and I see everything as it was – the broken lock, the empty cage, the small tracks disappearing into the rain. Then it seems to me that I can hear, as plainly as I heard it that August night, above the rain, beyond the years, the high, clear bark of the midnight fox.
Thanks again, Vicki, for sending me this book; it was so generous and kind of you. I really enjoyed reading it – and I especially think this would be good to read aloud to a child, if any parents are on the look-out for something!

A ghost story for Christmas…

StuckinaBook All , , , 3 Comments

….but perhaps the least scary ghost story you will ever read! It’s R.A. Dick’s The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947) which I read for Shiny New Books. Here’s the beginning of my review…

Nobody loves a good reprint better than I do, and so I was quite excited to see a series from Vintage called ‘Vintage Movie Classics’, wherein they republish the books that were adapted into great films. (This series may only be available in the US; I have to confess that my conversations with Vintage did not entirely illuminate the matter.) I expected to see Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Godfather, and those sorts of texts – it was a surprise to see entirely books and films I’d never heard of (Back Street, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Cimarron etc.) which doubtless says more about my filmic knowledge than anything else. It was a lovely surprise, though – what better than reprints that will be unknown gems?
The one title I had come across before was R.A. Dick’s The Ghost and Mrs Muir, as I had had my eye on it during doctoral research – and found it too difficult to track down. So I was certainly grateful that a new copy was forthcoming – and The Ghost and Mrs Muir was every bit as enjoyable, silly, and entertaining as I’d have hoped.

A Day in Summer by J.L. Carr

StuckinaBook All , , , 6 Comments

Quite a few of us in the blogosphere are fans of J.L. Carr’s 1980 novel A Month in the Country – that gentle tale of a man who goes to help restore a rural mural. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that rhyme.) But I don’t remember seeing reviews of any of his other novels – and had thought he might be rather a one-trick pony.

So, I was glad when my book group opted to read A Day in Summer (1963), Carr’s first novel – and evidence that he was fond of A [Time] in the [Situation] titles early on. But, except for similar titles, these novels have very little in common – except, that is, for quality. Both are very good.

A Day in Summer sounds a very halcyon title, but this is belied by the opening few pages. Peplow is on a train, coming into Great Minden. He has an imaginary conversation with his Manager; one of several in square brackets throughout the novel, from different characters’ perspectives, that give a very open access to their imaginations and projections:

[“I wonder if you’d mind very much if I take Friday off?””I suppose not. Is someone ill? Is it urgent?”No – well, it is and it isn’t. As a matter of fact I have to go off to a place in the country and shoot a man. Yes, that’s right, a man. They call it Great Minden. Perhaps you know it?””Really! Great Minden! I had an aunt living near there. If you wouldn’t consider it an impertinence, may I ask who – whom?””It’s the man who ran down my boy last summer. He’s with a fairground outfit, and on Friday he’ll be at the Fair there I understand. So it would be very convenient.””Naturally! Shall we see you again on Saturday? Monday?””Well, no. I’ve more or less decided it would be better for me to finish myself off too. In comfort, on the way back, all being well. It would by-pass the embarrassing formalities that usually follow. I’m sure you understand.”]
This isn’t precisely the tone that the rest of the novel takes – although it would be rather fascinating to read a whole narrative in this style. He isn’t really flippant about his action, and it is the thread that pulls the novel together, but Peplow isn’t really the leading character of A Day in Summer. And that is because, more than any other novel I can remember, this is an ensemble piece. Once Peplow arrives in Great Minden, the narrative flits from character to character, weaving their stories together so that the baton naturally passes from person to person.

There is a lascivious young schoolteacher who is having an affair with the vicar’s wife; the teacher is rightly terrified of the elderly spinster who runs the school with an iron fist. The vicar is desperate to hold his marriage together, but his wife despises him. There is a poor family with too many children, also with marital troubles; there is a dying man whose young son wonders why his mother left the family years ago. And, taking the cover on my book, is the man in a wheelchair, invalided by war, who happens to have been in action with Peplow.

There are, you see, too many characters to describe all that goes on; the plot is planned perfectly, and yet it feels less like a plot and more like observing villagers living their lives. Their unhappy lives, it should be said; misery is widespread, and marriages seem incapable of being content. Indeed, Peplow’s paternal grief seems perhaps less vivid than the teacher Croser’s sickness of being in a frustrating job, of the vicar’s pain.

Throughout, Carr’s tone is quite darkly witty, and I really loved it. Fans of A Month in the Country may find little to recognise, but this is by no means a weak first effort at novel-writing. Carr has a very impressive confidence even at this early stage, and handles a difficult tone and potentially unwieldy plot extremely well. Although A Month in the Country is a better book to curl up with for comfort, this is a stark, moving, and (yet) very amusing novel that is arguably equally good, in a very different way.