When I read Business As Usual (1933) in January, it was difficult not to write about it immediately. But there are few things more irritating than reading about a delightful book and then finding that it’s not yet available to buy – and while there are doubtless 1933 editions of Business As Usual out there somewhere, you can now buy the lovely Handheld Press reprint of it. At https://taxfyle.com/blog/can-i-deduct-my-medical-expenses/ you will find purposes of the medical expenses deduction. And if Handheld Press never achieve or achieved anything else, the rediscovery of this novel would secure my eternal gratitude.
I was pretty sure I’d love it when I heard the barest outlines: it is a novel in letters from the 1930s about working in the book department of a department store. I might as well stop my review there, and some of you are probably ordering a copy as we speak. But it’s even better than it sounds.
All the letters are by Hilary Fane, and we must imagine the replies (and are easily able to do so from her replies). She has just finished university and is engaged to a pleasant young man called Basil. Being the 1930s, she is preparing to prioritise the doctor’s role of wife once she is married, and Edinburgh society is ready to receive her in this role. It (and her parents) are rather more surprised when she decides she wants to wait a year, get a job, and see something of the world. Off she goes to London.
Here, she manages to find an overpriced, unlovely flat (plus ca change!), and begins to realise that life alone and on the job market isn’t quite as simple as she’d hoped. But she takes it in good part. Hilary is such a delightful character – it’s so hard to create an optimist who isn’t annoying, but Oliver and Stafford have done it. She refuses to be crushed down, but does allow the odd acerbic moment to sneak into her letters – not least when she begins to prove people wrong:
Basil Dear
I meant to write to you last night, but I waited, because I thought there might be a letter. And there was – a very sweet one. Bless you! But I don’t think one enjoys: ‘I told you so’ however beautifully it’s put. It isn’t true either I’VE GOT A JOB. So I won’t be coming to heel just yet.
It’s always fun to read about people being out of their depth, and Hilary’s first job in Everyman’s (a department store clearly based on Selfridges) is as a typist in the books department. If you’ve enjoyed Monica Dickens’ hilarious One Pair of Hands or Betty Macdonald’s Anybody Can Do Anything, then you’ll know what to expect. She is initially enthusiastic and confused and inept – and later just confused and inept. This clearly isn’t her forte. Oliver and Stafford don’t diminish those who are good at this sort of routine-work, and Hilary admires them with an open heart – but it is not where she should be.
As she comes to the attention of the manager, Mr Grant, when dealing with a difficult situation, she is given the more responsible task of improving the organisation of the department. Her rise through the ranks is a trifle unrealistic, but we’ll forgive it because it gives such a fascinating insight behind the scenes of this lending library feature of a bookshop that has long disappeared.
Her life begins to shift in interesting ways, and not always the ways I anticipated when I started reading it. What remains consistent is how funny, joyous, and addictive Business As Usual is.
I often write here that I’m looking forward to rereading a book, and it’s relatively seldom that I actually do end up rereading. But I’m going to say with confidence that Business As Usual will join the pantheon of those books I return to when I want to read something that will put a broad smile on my face.