The Ha-Ha by Jennifer Dawson

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As I have mentioned before, there is a long tradition of women writers depicting crushing mental health conditions in fiction, from Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s unforgettable short story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) to Emily Holmes Coleman’s account of a woman’s experiences of post-partum psychosis in The Shutter of Snow, to Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar (1963), surely the most widely read novel in this genre. Now we can add Jennifer Dawson’s The Ha-Ha (1961) to this list, a striking modernist novella which explores society’s treatment of a young woman who simply doesn’t fit in – someone who finds social interactions and the rules of life a complete mystery and whose behaviour is considered odd or grossly inappropriate by conventional societal standards. In today’s language, some might consider Dawson’s protagonist, Josephine Traughton, to be neurodivergent or ‘on the spectrum’; but in 1961, the year of the novella’s publication, such women often found themselves in mental institutions undergoing treatment with the aim of rehabilitation and a potential release back into society. (The Ha-Ha was written in the year following the introduction of the 1959 Mental Health Act, which encouraged a shift away from institutional confinement to community-based care.)

Alongside many other women writers working in this area, Dawson drew on her own life as inspiration for her fiction. While studying history at Oxford University, Dawson experienced a mental breakdown, spending several months in hospital as a result. After graduating, she worked as a teacher in France and as a social worker in a psychiatric hospital in Worcester; and it is her experiences here, alongside those as an in-patient in a similar institution, that inspired The Ha-Ha. The novella, which focuses on a young woman trying to navigate severe mental health challenges, possibly schizophrenia, was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1966 and went on to be adapted for the stage and by the BBC.

While much has changed around the specific treatment of mental illness since the book’s publication in the early ‘60s, the protagonist’s experiences of feeling out of step or disconnected from conventional societal norms remain entirely relevant today, particularly in a world where the treatment of mental health conditions remains sub-optimal and underfunded. It’s a remarkable book, capturing its protagonist’s fractured state of mind in haunting and perceptive prose.

Dawson’s story focuses on Josephine Traughton, a socially awkward twenty-three-year-old who has always been somewhat disconnected from the world around her. As the novella unfolds, we learn how her childhood was shaped by her domineering, conventionally-minded mother, now deceased following a freak accident with an electric blanket. A period at Oxford University duly follows for Josephine, but it is here that her idiosyncratic behaviour becomes problematic for polite society. While the other students find university life an enjoyable whirl of social activities, afternoons spent punting on the river, informal coffee parties, talking until midnight and frequent crises over essays, Josephine remains unsure about how to behave. For her, Oxford is a bewildering environment full of potential traps – social situations in which she simply doesn’t know how to react, where uncontrolled nervous laughter is her default response. In effect, she experiences a rupture between the reality of her private world, populated by hallucinatory visions of animals, and the socially acceptable conventions of the university environment in which she is situated.

As we sat there I could see the even-toed ungulates marching through the waste, and files of armadillos with scaly shells, and hosts of big black flies. (p. 8)

Following a particularly embarrassing incident at the Principal’s tea-party, Josephine finds herself committed to a psychiatric hospital, where, in the fullness of time, progress in her condition is made. Now the hospital is making preparations for her release back to the ‘real world’ despite its myriad of risks.

It was they, the Sister, the Doctor and the social worker who talked about getting back to the ‘real world’ as though there were two; one good and one to be avoided. To me it did not seem as though there were these two, and I would have been as pleased if instead of handing me back my private clothes and giving me town-parole, and money for lunches and bus fares, the authorities had left me to wander round the grounds all day, explore what lay beyond, or just to gaze out of my side-room window on to the other side of the hospital where everything was unfamiliar. (p. 17)

With this transition back to the community in mind, the hospital finds Josephine a part-time job helping a Colonel and his kindly wife to catalogue their sizeable collection of books. While the role offers Josephine some opportunities to step beyond the confines of the hospital, gently reconnecting her with the external world in measured steps, she remains bewildered by every social situation she encounters. For instance, a chance meeting with Helena, her only real friend from university, leads to an invitation to a cocktail party – a perfectly enjoyable situation for many young women but a minefield for someone like Josephine who struggles to converse.

It was so hot. I could feel sweat trickling down my face. The music blared and stopped. Faces popped on and off like lamps. Mouths clapped up and down; words shot in and out, but the room full of people seemed to have escaped me. I could not reach in to it. I tried to stretch out and get caught up in it, but each time my turn came to lay a contribution. I found myself catapulted into this empty space in the middle of nothing, discussing with no one but myself the longevity of badgers or Myra’s thorny spider. (p. 73)

In the end, she leaves the party early, knowing full well that her re-entry into the world she was privy to at Oxford has not been a success.

The party was over, though it sounded from the noise upstairs as though it would not be over for a long time. It was just my début into the real world that was done. (p. 77)

Back at the hospital, Josephine continues to seek solace by lying in the ha-ha, a grassy slope next to the hospital wall, where she chats with fellow inmate, Alasdair, her one friend amongst the other patients. With his cavalier response to authority figures, Alasdair is rather dismissive of the hospital’s methods, pushing back against its infantile approaches while also encouraging Josephine to broaden her horizons. Somewhat inevitably, Josephine is strongly attracted to Alasdair, opening up to him about her deepest feelings and ignorance of life’s unwritten rules.

‘You asked me once why I was here and I couldn’t tell you.’ I trembled. ‘But now I see why – after going to the party I see what’s wrong. It’s because I don’t belong anywhere else. I don’t know the rules of life, and if I kept a phrase-book for twenty years I would not know the right answers. It’s a thing I shall never learn. I am odd, incorrect, illegitimate…’ (p. 87)

But Josephine is more vulnerable than Alasdair, and a day outside the hospital together ends in a breach of the trust she has placed in him. While Josephine seems to be pinning all her hopes on a future with Alisdair, her expectations are not reciprocated. As far as Alisdair sees things, their relationship is fleeting, a source of pleasure and distraction as he waits to be released.

When Alisdair is suddenly discharged, Josephine is distraught, prompting her to flee the hospital in search of the slivers of existence ignited by Alasdair. I couldn’t help but think of Barbara Loden’s critically acclaimed Wanda here, a film in which the titular working-class protagonist breaks away from a stifling marriage, only to drift from one perilous situation to the next in a state of disconnection from conventional society. There’s a similar sense of dislocation in The Ha-Ha as Josephine stumbles from one predatory encounter to another with no clear destination or objective in mind.

Sometimes as I was walking cars purred softly up in felted smoothness and men with cool velvet accents offered me lifts and cigarettes and then suggested drinks at roadhouses as we sped towards the roaring trunk roads. I thought I wanted nothing more than that, an assurance as we sped forwards that I was alive, that I was not flying through unpeopled regions and grey wastes of space, never to be touched or crossed at any point. (p. 126)

I won’t reveal how Dawson’s arresting novella plays out, save to say the ending is open to interpretation, both terrifying and empowering all at once.

The Ha-Ha is written in a candid, immediate style with Dawson conveying what it must feel like to be Josephine as her untethered thoughts flow freely despite the physical restrictions imposed on her liberty. Stylistically, the novella seems to capture the fractured, bewildered nature of Josephine’s mind – a jumble of memories and hallucinations caused by her medical condition and the reality of her vulnerability.

As a title, The Ha-Ha has a dual meaning, nodding to the uncontrollable laughter Josphine defaults to in times of stress, while also representing the barrier between the relative safety of the hospital and the hazardous world outside. As Josephine climbs up the hospital wall, we sense the precarious tension between these two states, one imposing restrictions, the other promising freedom, albeit governed by society’s unwritten rules.

Dawson uses dreamlike imagery to great effect here, particularly when depicting Josephine’s hallucinations and by lacing the text with evocative descriptions of the nearby river.

The world was broken in two by this heavy, dark grey river that stained its banks, and unfolded thickly beneath me like the slow thoughts of an old man.

It was not like the Thames, but wider and deeper and pulling strongly against its banks, fighting to be free. The banks were dark grey, and bordered with fine grey sand and powdered shell, and at the edges tough beds of white, vegetable-like celery shot up in stiff spikes towards the sky. (p. 101–102)

Like The Shutter of Snow, the experience of reading this book feels very immersive, and while there is a narrative thread of sorts, largely driven by the hospital’s attempts to rehabilitate Josephine, the book is primarily an exploration of the nature of incarceration in a psychiatric hospital in the late 1950s/early ‘60s. As the novella unfolds, there are painful explorations of how a woman’s state of mind can sometimes be defined not by a rigorously diagnosed condition but by her lack of adherence to conventional societal norms. Nevertheless, there are moments of poetic beauty here too, shards of light that contrast starkly with the fragile nature of Josephine’s existence. It’s also a book where the modernist prose style and the protagonist’s fractured state of mind fit together in perfect harmony. Very highly recommended, especially for readers with an interest in these themes.

(My thanks to the publisher for kindly providing a review copy, which I read for Karen and Simon’s #1961Club.)

Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson

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Unashamedly charming and cosy, Miss Buncle’s Book is an ideal comfort read – a throwback to simpler times when life was less complex and demanding than it is today while also presenting its own particular challenges. I had been looking forward to reading this one for a while and am delighted to confirm that it did not disappoint!

First published in 1934 and reissued by Persephone in 2008, Stevenson’s novel revolves around life in the fictional English village of Silverstream, which might at first sight seem a picturesque idyll, but is in fact seething with discontent. Central to the story is Barbara Buncle, an unmarried gentlewoman, much like those excellent women one finds in Barbara Pym’s novels. (Pym started writing fiction in the 1930s, which does make me wonder whether she might have read and been inspired by Miss Buncle’s Book as she embarked on her literary career. It’s an intriguing thought!)

As her parents are no longer alive, Miss Buncle lives in Tanglewood Cottage with her housekeeper and former nursemaid, Dorcas, who is now elderly but still reasonably fit. Their lives are modest, funded by share dividends Miss Buncle inherited from her parents; but the recent stock market crash has eroded their value, leaving the pair in dire financial straits.

Having ruled out hen-keeping and paying guests as potential sources of income, Miss Buncle decides that the only viable option is to write a book; but because she lacks any form of imagination, our heroine can only draw on her own knowledge – namely  the inhabitants of Silverstream and life in the village – as inspiration. The book, initially titled Chronicles of an English Village, features almost everyone in Silverstream, albeit thinly disguised with different but related names. For instance, Colonel Weatherhead becomes Major Waterfoot, Mrs Bold is renamed Mrs Mildmay and the village of Silverstream itself is disguised as Copperfield. Moreover, the novel’s narrative gives each character the storyline they truly deserve – those who are kind and considerate are appreciated by those around them, while the wicked and meddlesome are pulled up short. To keep her true identity a secret, Miss Buncle submits her book to the publishers, Abbott & Spicer, under the nom de plume, John Smith, hoping they will consider it further.

On reading the manuscript, the publisher, Mr Abbott, is duly impressed and sufficiently intrigued to learn whether its author is in fact a ‘very clever man writing with his tongue in his cheek’, or ‘a very simple person writing in all good faith’. So, imagine his surprise when he discovers that ‘John Smith’ is in fact a woman, and a unassuming one at that! By the end of his interview with Miss Buncle, Abbott is convinced that the novel is not a satire; rather, she has simply drawn on her own knowledge of Silverstream’s inhabitants to depict them as they really are. A contract is drawn up for the publication  of the novel under Abbott’s suggested title ‘Disturber of the Peace’, which Miss Buncle happily signs.

The fun really starts when Disturber of the Peace is published and swiftly becomes a runaway success. Everyone seems to be reading it, not least the inhabitants of Silverstream who soon begin to recognise themselves as characters in the novel. Somehow, John Smith seems to have seen each individual for who they really are, highlighting their hopes, preoccupations, idiosyncratic habits and deepest failings for all the world to see. Mrs Agatha Featherstone Hogg, the self-appointed queen of the village, is revealed by John Smith to be the domineering, power-hungry creature she truly is. Moreover, Agatha’s former life as a chorus girl (prior to her respectable marriage) is scandalously revealed, threatening her social standing in the village! Meanwhile, Mr Bulmer, who makes his family’s lives a complete misery, also gets his comeuppance as Disturber unfolds!

Agatha Featherstone Hogg is convinced that ‘John Smith’ must be a Silversmith resident – how else would he know everyone so intimately? – so she embarks on a campaign to discover his true identity with a view to punishing the scoundrel. There’s a hilarious residents’ meeting chaired by Mrs F. H., during which very little is actually achieved, save a false accusation made against Sarah Walker, the doctor’s intelligent wife, chiefly because she is the only Silverstream resident who doesn’t feature in the book. The main accuser is Vivian Greensleves, a ruthless gold-digger of a woman who is after the vicar’s money and will stop at nothing until he proposes marriage. Moreover, Vivian dislikes Sarah Walker and is quite willing to believe that her mischievous sense of humour and inside knowledge of the villagers (gained from her GP husband) have been channelled into the book.

As unrest mounts within the village and Mrs Featherstone Hogg threatens a libel action, Miss Buncle realises that she must intervene, but I’ll leave you to discover how this scenario plays out should you read the book. It’s all very cleverly done as art imitates life and life begins to imitate art, thereby creating a kind of cycle as one influences the other and vice versa!

Something D. E. Stevenson does extremely well here is to depict the dynamics of a quintessential English village in the 1930s, the type of place where everyone thinks they know everyone else’s business and few secrets are safe. We see how the impact of Disturber of the Peace (an apt title if ever there was one!) seeps into the social fabric of the village, destabilising the secure and comfortable atmosphere these residents have grown accustomed to. On the surface, village life might seem fairly innocuous to the casual observer; nevertheless, there is darkness lurking beneath the veneer of respectability here, much of which is exposed by Miss Buncle’s perceptive novel. While Mr Bulmer submits his compliant wife and children to crippling domestic abuse, Mr Featherstone Hogg is clearly under the thumb of his domineering wife – not pleasurable positions for anyone to be trapped in.

‘It’s a kind of – a kind of allegory,’ continued Sally gravely. ‘Here’s this horrible little village, full of its own affairs and its own importance, all puffed up and smug and conventional and satisfied with itself, and then suddenly their eyes are opened and their shackles fall off and they act according to their real natures. They’re not shams anymore, they’re real. It’s simply marvellous,’ Sally said, turning a shining face upon the astonished author. (p. 108)

A little like the transformative storyline in Vicki Baum’s excellent novel Grand Hotel, everyone in Silverstream is changed by the experience of reading Miss Buncle’s book. Mr Bulmer, for instance, is shaken by the lonely fate that awaits his doppelganger in Disturber, and he vows to be more considerate towards his family in the future. Meanwhile, Mr Featherstone Hogg is emboldened by all the fuss his wife is creating and swiftly threatens to alter his will if she pursues her farcical libel action – after all, no lawyer worth his salt would dream of taking on such a ridiculous case.

She [Agatha Featherstone Hogg] explained, somewhat incoherently, that the character of Mrs Horsley Downs was a horrible character and not in the least like her, but that it was obviously intended for her, because it was exactly like her, and that therefore it was a libel and as such ought to be punished to the upmost rigour of the law. She said the same thing a dozen times in different words, but always loudly, until Mr Spark [a lawyer] thought his head would burst. Her language became more picturesque and less polite every moment. Mr Spark began to wonder whether she really had been in the chorus when Mr Featherstone Hogg had been so misled as to marry her and elevate her to a higher sphere of life. (pp. 129–130)

Alongside the domestic abuse storyline, D. E. Stevenson also draws our attention to other social issues, some of which must have felt very progressive in the mid-1930s. Somewhat surprisingly, the villagers seem very accepting of the two unmarried women, Miss King and Miss Pretty,  who live together in the same house. While the exact nature of their relationship is never explicitly stated, it is clear to the reader that Miss King cares deeply for Miss Pretty, especially when the latter falls ill. There is also a glancing reference to the publication of Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness, the groundbreaking novel about love between two women that created such a stir some years earlier.  Once again, the book is not named, but anyone with a knowledge of literature from this period would be able to identify it.

Post-natal depression is also touched on through references to Sarah Walker’s illness following the birth of her twins. Happily, Sarah has rallied since then, but Stevenson makes it clear that Dr Walker – a sympathetic, compassionate and caring man – was very worried about his wife’s physical and mental health following the birth. There’s also the issue of poverty, of course, explored firstly through Miss Buncle’s financial situation, and secondly, through another storyline, in which the vicar, who is actually very comfortably off, tries to live on the church’s stipend for a whole year. By doing so, he hopes to gain  a better appreciation of the challenges facing the poor, even though he struggles to survive on such a meagre income.

In Miss Buncle, D. E. Stevenson has created a most unlikely heroine, a woman that everyone in Silverstream has simply dismissed as a dull, frumpy simpleton – certainly not someone capable of writing a novel, especially one as scandalous as Disturber! Nevertheless, the reader knows that Barbara Buncle is extremely perceptive as she has sized up each Silverstream resident very accurately.

Barbara sometimes wondered what it was that gave Mrs Featherstone Hogg her social position in Silverstream. Why did everyone flock to her dull parties and consume the poor fare provided for them there? Why did everybody do what she told them to do? Why did old Mrs Carter produce her best china and linen for Agatha’s delectation? Was it because of her rude manner? or was it because she bought her clothes from the most expensive place in London? (p. 62)

The villagers, too, are delightfully drawn, from the mercenary Vivian Greensleeves and the overbearing Mrs Featherstone Hogg, to the lonely Colonel Weatherhead and the equally solitary Dorothea Bold, a match made in Heaven through Miss Buncle’s endeavours with Disturber.

In summary, then, Miss Buncle’s Book is an utterly delightful read, that type of book in which the good will be rewarded for their kind efforts while the wicked will get their comeuppance. Without wishing to give anything away, the book’s ending is perfect, showcasing a most surprising metafictional dimension to Miss Buncle’s literary talents. Highly recommended, especially for fans of The Fortnight in September, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day and The Enchanted April!

Lucy Carmichael by Margaret Kennedy

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The English novelist and playwright Margaret Kennedy is probably best known for her second novel, The Constant Nymph, which swiftly became a bestseller on its publication in 1924. Nevertheless, I think I prefer her 1950 novel, The Feast, a delightful social comedy / morality tale set in Cornwall after the war. Faber scored a hit with this novel when they reissued it a few years ago, and you can read my thoughts on it here – it really is a treat!

Lucy Carmichael swiftly followed in 1951, and while it’s a more uneven novel than its predecessor, there’s still much for fans of Kennedy’s fiction to enjoy here. In short, Kennedy shows us how the titular Lucy Carmichael manages to rediscover herself by finding a new purpose in life following a bitter blow. Resilience is a key theme, but the novel is not without humour, with Kennedy’s flair for wit being evident throughout, despite noticeable moments of disenchantment and despondency. My feelings about this book waxed and waned somewhat as I was reading it, mostly because it would have benefited from some sharper editing; nevertheless, Lucy’s tenacity and spirit won through by the end.

While the novel revolves around Lucy, a bright, principled Oxford-educated young woman, we first glimpse Kennedy’s heroine through the perspective of her college friend, Melissa, as she discusses Lucy with her fiancé, John.

When she is well and happy she is extremely beautiful. When she is out of sorts or depressed she is all nose, and dashes about like an intelligent greyhound after an electric hare. […] She is incautious and intrepid. She will go to several wrong places, and arrive at the right one, while I am still making up my mind to cross the road. She is my opposite in character. She is cheerful and confident and expects to be happy. She taught me how to enjoy myself. (p.10)

Lucy, we soon learn, is also engaged, but Melissa is worried about her friend’s imminent marriage to the botanist / explorer, Patrick Reilly, whom she considers inferior to Lucy. Rumours of a rekindled affair between Patrick and an old flame, Jane Lucas, have reached Melissa’s ears, casting a shadow over her feelings about the wedding. When Lucy’s mother detects that Melissa is harbouring misgivings, she offers the following response:

‘I don’t let myself worry about Lucy,’ she said. ‘I think that, whatever happens to her, she’ll come through it all right. She’s very…very true to herself, if you know what I mean.’

Melissa nodded.

‘She doesn’t deceive herself. She is the more in love of the two. I think she knows it. I am not sure that she is going to be happy. But she will never deceive herself. […] She may be sorry she married him, but she will never be sorry that she loved. (p. 32)

But despite Melissa’s concerns for her friend, Kennedy lets us know that Lucy is entering this marriage with her eyes open, having already learnt of Patrick’s shortcomings.

She [Lucy] had loved him from the first meeting, long before she knew that inner history, his disgust, his self-contempt, his degrading infatuation for Jane Lucas, his half-hearted schemes for escape, for another life. She did not love him because she knew all this: she knew all this because she loved him. (p. 38)

As revealed in the first line of the novel’s blurb, Patrick fails to show up at the church on his wedding day, abandoning Lucy and her family to clear up the mess. In spite of her obvious devastation, Lucy is sufficiently level-headed to know that a move to pastures new would be the best way to start afresh – somewhere where no one knows her relationship history and humiliating rejection.

Through a tip-off from a college friend, Lucy lands a job at an Arts Institute in Ravonsbridge, a small town in Severnshire, well away from the gossips of Goring. In her new role with the Institute’s drama department, Lucy is plunged into a complex web of petty internal politics and underhand manoeuvres involving the organisation’s staff, Council members and longstanding patron, Lady Frances Millwood, who is likened to Jane Austen’s Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but ‘with heart’. Having been established by Lady Frances’ late husband, Matthew Millwood, the Institute aims to provide first-rate concerts, plays and arts education to the local community.

As the novel unfolds, there is no shortage of developments to keep Lucy occupied, from managing the Institute’s production of Hamlet when a senior colleague goes abroad, to a romantic entanglement with Lady Frances’ son, Charles, who becomes increasingly smitten with the new arrival as the weeks pass. In particular, she derives genuine satisfaction from helping quite ordinary people to produce something remarkable in a small, provincial setting. But internal politics at the Institute prove particularly trying for all concerned, and before long, Lucy, with her upstanding principles and values, ruffles some feathers amongst the powerful higher-ups, much to their annoyance.

Central to the novel is the question of whether Lucy should settle for the security of marriage with someone she doesn’t truly love, or hold out for ‘the one’, even though her ideal match might never come along. (Frustratingly, she would have Patrick back in a heartbeat if he ever reappeared.) Kennedy keeps us guessing about Lucy’s future until the closing chapters; nevertheless, fans of a hopeful ending will find it satisfying, I think.

The class divide is another key theme, and Kennedy explores this through tensions between Owen Rees, a talented actor from the working class sector of town, and Lady Frances’ son, Charles, firmly a member of the upper-class milieu. Both Owen and Charles are attracted to Lucy, albeit in different respects, which adds to the antagonism between them.

The novel is at its strongest, however, when focusing on human nature, particularly Lucy’s inner feelings as she tries to recover her sense of self. Kennedy has a keen understanding of human behaviour, and there are several perceptive insights into rejection, resilience and happiness, hiding amongst the pretty politics at Ravonsbridge and other secondary storylines.

But Lucy’s heart was unoccupied, since the sorrowful ghost of Patrick had ceased to haunt it. Friends lodged there and enjoyed its generous hospitality, but no one called it home. (p. 430)

Lucy’s relationship with Melissa is lively, caring and beautifully drawn, so much so that I would have liked less Ravonsbridge politics and more interactions between the two college friends to add spark and genuine insight. At Melissa’s wedding, for instance, everyone remarks on how well Lucy is looking, the unspoken implication being that she is bearing up adequately despite the trauma of being jilted at the altar. Nevertheless, these well-meaning comments have the opposite effect, as they leave Lucy wondering if she will ever be free of this awful stigma.

He [John], like everybody else, was determined to remember her trouble just when he had every excuse for forgetting it. There was to be no escape. Where she was known, she must take it about with her like a label which nobody would allow her to remove. She had thought that she would remember long after everyone else had forgotten, but it seemed as though things might turn out the other way. She herself could now go for days at a time without any painful recollections, while to all these people she was permanently an object of compassion. (p. 209)

There are also some beautifully poignant scenes in the novel’s opening section as Lucy realises that her frequently irritating younger brother, Stephen, is trying to fill their father’s shoes by stepping up to the plate in a time of crisis. It’s heartbreaking for her to observe, particularly as the shock of being abandoned by Patrick is still sinking in at this point.

Nevertheless, the lengthy sections on the Institute’s internal politics lack focus and are too drawn out. There’s the makings of a good novel here, but it seems in need of a ruthless edit to strip away the unnecessary fat.

While the novel in its entirety is something of a curate’s egg, I enjoyed spending time with Lucy and Melissa, and Kennedy’s observations on life, love, and the nature of happiness are undoubtedly perceptive. I’ll finish with a passage from the novel’s closing chapters, which are beautifully done.

She had been perfectly happy by herself. He had seen that in his first glimpse of her. All alone and perfectly happy, flying through the wintry fields. And now he had come tumbling down the bank, wanting to shatter this solitude, wanting her never to be happy again unless he was there. It was, he felt, rather tough to be planning to sweep her off her feet in a week. It was hardly fair to a girl who could manage to be happy, all alone, in spite of so much sorrow, defeat and humiliation. I must never forget it, he told himself. If she comes, I must never forget what she gave up for me. (p. 471)

Lucy Carmichael is published by Penguin Books; personal copy.

Woman in the Pillory by Brigitte Reimann (tr. Lucy Jones)

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A few years ago, I read and very much enjoyed Siblings, an edgy and evocative novella by Brigitte Reimann, one of East Germany’s foremost writers from the mid-20th century. Somewhat surprisingly, especially given the quality of her prose. Siblings was the first of Reimann’s books to be translated and published in English; but now we have another novella to enjoy. Woman in the Pillory, also ably translated by Lucy Jones.

When Siblings came out in 1963, it illustrated Reimann’s ideological belief in the possibility of an egalitarian socialist future in the GDR following the turmoil of the Second World War. Woman in the Pillory is, however, an earlier and more straightforward novella than Siblings, but if anything, I found its clarity of focus and underlying message even more compelling. In essence, the book is a testament to the importance of showing compassion and humanity to other nationalities in the most testing of circumstances, while also illustrating the devastating consequences for families when these values are extinguished – in this instance, cruelly overridden by heinous nationalist rhetoric.

Published in Germany in 1956, Pillory is set in a rural German community in 1943, the type of village where everyone closely monitors everyone else’s business, especially during wartime. Reimann’s primary focus is Kathrin Marten, a sensitive, self-effacing woman in her late twenties. Pale, thin and delicate by nature. Kathrin and her husband Heinrich have been married for five years, but they are not terribly well-matched. Heinrich, who we soon discover married Kathrin to gain access to her farmland, is stocky, crude and prejudiced, the very opposite of his wife in appearance and temperament. While Heinrich is away at war, fighting the Russians on the Eastern Front, his equally overbearing sister, Frieda, rules the roost back at the farm, bossing Kathrin around as if she were a maid and the property were Frieda’s own.

With the women in need of additional labour to maintain the farm, Heinrich arranges for a Russian prisoner of war to be sent to help – after all, the captive can be locked in the barn at night to ensure he doesn’t escape. Consequently, Horst Lange, the local overseer, allocates a Ukrainian prisoner named Alexei to the Martens’ farm. At first, Kathrin is wary of Alexei, having heard rumours of brutality elsewhere, a misguided view fuelled by Frieda’s determination to brand the Russians as half-human, no better than animals who need to be watched. If anything, Frieda seems to enjoy working Alexei to the bone, admonishing Kathrin for suggesting they give him a blanket to keep out the cold at night – there will be no mollycoddling of prisoners as long as Frieda is in charge of the house. Meanwhile, Alexei simply accepts his fate, working hard and saying as little as possible to avoid rocking the boat.

One day, when Alexei spontaneously helps Kathrin with a heavy load, she sees the humanity behind the veneer of his status as a POW. Despite losing his entire family to the war, Alexei remains idealistic – touchingly hopeful for the emergence of a new, more positive kind of society once the conflict is over. These glimpses of benevolence give rise to a dilemma in Kathrin’s mind. Should she show some compassion towards Alexei, even though he is Russian and an enemy of her country? Or should she side with Frieda by treating him like a slave? Unsurprisingly, particularly given Kathrin’s sympathetic nature, decency and morality win through, and she warms to Alexei, treating him with dignity as they go about their work.

He looked at her and, for a moment, the apathy and stoicism vanished from his face. He smiled. Confused and shocked, not knowing where to look, Kathrin quickly turned away. The man left, and she could hear his footsteps on the flagstones in the entrance hall alongside the hammering of her heart. […]

The Russian was singing. Kathrin hadn’t sung for a long time, not since she was a little girl. But ever since she’d moved to this house, she’d fallen silent.

In the yard, the stranger’s song was dark, mournful. It seemed both familiar and unfamiliar to Kathrin at the same time. (p. 12)

Slowly but surely, a tender relationship develops between Kathrin and Alexei, mostly through shared private moments when Frieda is out of sight. In due course, this friendship blossoms into love, throwing the emotionally strained nature of Kathrin’s relationship with her husband, Heinrich, into sharp relief. In short, Alexei is everything that Heinrich is not – sensitive, loving, compassionate and humane.

From then on, the prisoner of war and the farmer’s wife sat on the upturned trough next to the pump every evening, talking or sitting together in silence. There was a lot of work to do in May, and time was racing on, but despite their exhaustion, they still found time for that one hour of the day and spent the other twenty-three hours living for it. They called what they felt for each other friendship, and sometimes they even believed that friendship was what they felt for each other. (p. 46)

When Kathrin receives word of Heinrich’s achievements on the front – the remorseless slaughter of entire villages, women and children included – she is disgusted and pledges her heart to Alexei in a shared vision of their future.

But despite these glimmers of hope, we sense a reckoning on the horizon of Kathrin and Alexei, especially given the novella’s ominous title. As talk of the pair’s closeness spreads throughout the village, it is only a matter of time before the lovers are discovered in a compromising position, cleaving open their privacy to the condemnation of others…

When Kathrin Marten walked down the road to the baker’s, she was followed by furtive looks. She’s got a skip in her step today! She’s got her chin up! What a bright blouse she’s wearing! Some women stopped her and tried to draw her into conversation, not bothering to hide their insinuations: How was the prisoner getting along? Was she satisfied? (p. 69)

Reimann skilfully exposes the inherent hypocrisy in German society here. Why, for instance, is it considered an honour for German women to sleep with SS officers and bear their children, while relationships with prisoners of war or foreign nationals are branded as betrayals? Surely, emotions as natural as love and desire should transcend national and racial boundaries? Otherwise, what hope for humanity remains in a strictly segregated world? There are other references to double standards too, not least Heinrich’s determination for his own farm to prosper while he willingly destroys the lives and livelihoods of his Russian contemporaries on the battlefield.

Kathrin said harshly, ‘Can you make sense of it all? Heinrich takes care of his fields and when he’s on leave, he slaves away to keep everything running smoothly – only to set off and destroy fields in another country and burn down other people’s farms…It’s all so hard to understand.’ (p. 56)

Despite the slim nature of this book, Reimann manages to convey some excellent character development here, especially in her portrayal of Kathrin, who blossoms from a slight, submissive creature to a stronger, more assertive woman as her relationship with Alexei deepens. It’s a joy to see her standing up to Frieda, who has grown increasingly bitter and small-minded as her own prospects for happiness have dwindled.

Kathrin said,’ I’m the head of the house, not you [Frieda]! You’re only here on sufferance, you understand? For far too long you’ve been ordering me around – and now that’s over, for good! I’m the one who’s going to run things around here from now on and I say that the Russian eats at our table. If you don’t like it, you can leave.’ (p. 36)

Moreover, Reimann carefully avoids making her characters seem too black or white. Both Henrich and Frieda are shown to experience conflicting emotions from time to time, hinting at more morally complex and nuanced values than might be apparent at first sight. There are glimmers of soul-searching and remorse here, even if these regrets are secondary to racism. The minor characters are nicely drawn too, particularly Kathrin’s friend, Trude, the local district nurse who has lost loved ones in the war. More worldly-wise than Kathrin, Trude warns her friend of the dangers of forming any kind of attachment to Alexei, not because she is prejudiced (in fact the opposite is true) but because she doesn’t want Kathrin to be tortured, a cruel inevitability if a transgression is suspected.

‘But still, Kathrin, you have to be careful. In this country, among these people, even friendship is dangerous. He’s a Russian, after all, and people hate Russians here. They don’t see them as human and call them an inferior race…It’s like there’s a toxic gas in their heads, so that they can’t see clearly any more and believe the craziest nonsense.’ (pp. 63–64)

‘…you probably hate me now. You think I despise these women because they fell in love with Russians. Yes, I wanted to give you a shake. I wanted to show you the terrible things people do in blind hatred and show you what you’re up against if someone pins something on you, or finds out about your relationship with Alexei. Yes, even if it is just a friendship – who’s going to believe that?’ (p. 65)

The novella’s sense of place and descriptions of life on the farm are suitably vivid, and there’s a blunt, raw quality to Reimann’s prose, which somehow feels in keeping with the powerful emotions portrayed in this story of forbidden love in the face of jingoistic nationalism. In truth, no nation should be considered superior to any other, and there are compassionate and heartless Germans, just as their equivalents exist in every other country on earth.

Highly recommended, especially for readers interested in the moral complexities of war and their impact on families. Fans of Sally Carson’s excellent novel Crooked Cross might find this an interesting companion piece from the East German perspective, and there are resonances with other stories from this period, too. My thanks to Penguin Classics for kindly providing a review copy, and I hope to see more of Reimann’s work being translated in the future!

The forthcoming #1961 Club – some recommendations for books to read

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In a few weeks’ time, Karen and Simon will be hosting another of their hugely enjoyable ‘Club’ weeks, focusing in this instance on 1961. Starting on Monday 13th April, the #1961Club is a week-long celebration of books first published that year. These reading events are always great fun, with various tweets, reviews and recommendations flying around the web, giving readers an overview of the relevant period in literature.

Unsurprisingly, given my fondness for the 1960s, I’ve already reviewed a few 1961 books on the blog, and they’re all interesting in one sense or another. So, if you’re thinking about taking part in the Club, here are some recommendations for books to consider.

Bird in a Cage by  Frédéric Dard (tr. David Bello)

With an output bordering on that of fellow crime writer Georges Simenon, Frédéric Dard was one of France’s most popular and productive post-war novelists. First published in French in 1961, Bird in a Cage is one of his ‘novels of the night’, a dark, unsettling mystery with a psychological edge.

As the novella opens, our narrator, Albert, has just returned to his former home in Levallois, a suburb in Paris, after a six-year absence. His loneliness and sense of unease are palpable from the outset as he enters a damp, empty flat, the place where his mother died some four years before. In an attempt to reconnect with his life and memories of happier times, Albert heads out into the streets of Levallois, which are bustling with activity on Christmas Eve. At a restaurant, he catches sight of an attractive woman, someone who reminds him very strongly of a girl he used to know from his dark and mysterious past. The woman is with her young daughter, but there is no man on the scene, and in some ways, their shared loneliness strikes Albert as being even more tragic than his own. After exchanging glances a few times during their meals, Albert and the woman end up leaving the restaurant at the same time. It could be a coincidence, but maybe it isn’t…

At the centre of this story is a crime which is fiendishly clever in its execution. I don’t want to say too much about what happens here, save to say that poor Albert finds himself caught in the middle of it. As this fateful night unravels, there is at least one occasion when he could walk away from this situation, removing himself from imminent danger in the process. Instead, Albert chooses to remain close at hand, almost as though he is fascinated by this woman and everything she appears to represent. This taut, dreamlike novella has also been adapted for the screen as Paris Pick-Up (1962), and I can heartily recommend both!

No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym

I love Barbara Pym, an author whose humane explorations of unrequited love among the genteel middle classes are both charming and quietly poignant. She creates an idiosyncratic yet oddly recognisable world of ‘excellent’, well-meaning spinsters, fusty academics and other befuddled men, which I find thoroughly engaging. No Fond Return of Love was Pym’s sixth novel, the last one to be published by Jonathan Cape before their well-documented rejection of An Unsuitable Attachment, which ushered in her ‘wilderness years’, a period that eventually ended in 1977 following prestigious recognition from Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil.  

No Fond Return revolves around Dulcie Mainwaring, a thirty-something spinster who works as an indexer and proofreader from her home in the London suburbs. As the novel opens, Dulcie has just arrived at a ‘learned conference’ for indexers, a gathering she hopes will enable her to meet some new people, particularly as a recent break-up with former fiancé, Maurice, has left her feeling conscious of her status as a lonely, unattached spinster.

On the first evening, Dulcie meets Viola Dace, a fellow indexer who happens to be in the room next door. At first sight, the two women present quite a contrast to one another – Dulcie looks rather dowdy in her tweed suit and brogues, while Viola appears more confident with her black dress and rather unruly hair. As the two women get talking, it becomes clear that Viola knows one of the speakers at the conference, the rather handsome editor, Dr Aylwin Forbes, with whom she has an interesting history.

The suitability or not of various ‘matches’ is a key theme here with Pym using Dulcie’s observations on the nature of relationships, particularly those between men and women, as a recurring thread. On two or three occasions, Dulcie thinks back to her time with Maurice and wonders if it is sadder to have loved someone unworthy of her affection than to never have loved at all. As ever with Pym, there’s much to enjoy here – not least, the beautifully drawn secondary characters and humorous set-pieces, two of this author’s main strengths. To summarise, it’s a delightful novel in which maybe, just maybe, there will be a fond return of love after all!

Call for the Dead by John le Carré

Le Carré’s debut novel, Call for the Dead, was also the first outing for his most famous creation, George Smiley, a career spy within the British overseas intelligence agency, commonly known as ‘the Circus’ due to the specific location of its London base. This very enjoyable mystery serves as a good introduction to Smiley and certain elements of his backstory, particularly the troublesome nature of his relationship with flighty ex-wife, Ann, who is often referenced in le Carré’s books, though rarely seen in depth.

Following a routine security check by Smiley, Foreign Office civil servant, Samuel Fennan, apparently commits suicide, triggering a meeting between Smiley and Maston, who heads up the Circus. All too soon, Smiley realises he is being set up to take the blame for Fennan’s death, something he finds both troubling and suspicious, particularly as his interview with the civil servant had ended quite amicably.

The arrival of a letter from Fennan, posted shortly before the man’s death, adds to the mystery, suggesting that he had something pressing to pass on to Smiley following their initial meeting. When Smiley is warned off the case by Maston, he begins his own investigation into Fennan’s network, which brings him into contact with the East Germans and their agents.

Le Carré clearly has points to make here about the intelligence agencies – for instance, the way they use people as pawns on a chessboard, illustrating a lack of humanity at the heart of the system. While Call for the Dead might not be the author’s most polished novel, it’s still highly compelling and convincing – a well-crafted literary spy novel with some memorable moments of tension along the way. Plus, it’s a great introduction to Smiley with his quiet, perceptive disposition and expensive yet ill-fitting clothes. I liked it a lot!

Voices in the Evening by Natalia Ginzburg (tr. D. M. Low)

The award-winning Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg has been a major discovery for me over the past seven years, largely due to Daunt Books’ and NYRB Classics’ sterling work on reissuing her books. Much of Ginzburg’s fiction explores the messy business of family relationships, the tensions that arise when people behave selfishly at the expense of those around them. In contrast to characters in many British and Irish novels, Ginzburg’s protagonists don’t keep their feelings under wraps; instead, they express them openly, typically using the blunt, direct language that characterises this author’s work.

In many respects, Voices is an episodic book, a series of interconnected vignettes that depict the lives and loves of various members of one particular family, all set in a small Italian village, viewed from the perspective of the years following WW2. Central to the novel is Elsa, an unmarried twenty-seven-year-old woman who lives with her parents in the watchful village community, a place where gossip and arbitrary judgments are prevalent. The narrative is bookended by two ‘conversations’ between Elsa and her mother. I use the term ‘conversation’ with caution, as the dialogue is in effect a monologue with Elsa remaining silent in the face of her mother’s barbed musings and pointed observations. These opening and closing vignettes set the tone for the novel, emphasising the sense of distance between Elsa and her mother, a feeling of separation between the generations.

Voices is a simple yet subtle novel, one that explores the tension and discontentment in various conflicts  – those between mothers and daughters, men and women, and ultimately between different values and ideals, particularly in a small, close-knit community. There’s a strong sense of estrangement running through the story, a feeling of separateness and isolation in a shifting world; meanwhile, the shadow of war looms ominously in the background, accentuating a feeling of unease and instability.

Ginzburg’s prose is direct and unadorned in a way that leaves quite a bit of space in the narrative, and in some instances, what is left unsaid between individuals can seem just as significant as what is shared. It’s a book I’d like to revisit sometime, now that I’ve read almost all of Ginzburg’s translated work.

Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers

Set in 1953 in a small town in Georgia, this excellent exploration of interracial tensions focuses on four men whose lives are connected by past and present events. As the novel opens, thirty-nine-year-old J.T. Malone, owner of the local pharmacy, learns that he is suffering from leukaemia and is given only twelve to fifteen months to live. This news prompts the unassuming Malone to reflect on his life and its disappointments: for instance, the lack of intimacy and love in his stilted marriage, and a sense of bewilderment as to how he lost his way.

Malone’s closest friend and confidante is Judge Fox Clane, a rambunctious former congressman who has suffered his own tragedies, including the loss of his son, who continues to haunt his thoughts.

Judge Clane believes in white supremacy and the ‘noble standards of the South’. Firmly in favour of maintaining racial segregation in all aspects of civilised life, the Judge holds views in direct opposition to those of his grandson, the sensitive Jester Clane (the third of our four main characters and Johnny’s son).

The story moves up a notch when Jester befriends a local black boy, Sherman Pew, a bright, confident and articulate orphan who was abandoned on a church pew as a baby. Sherman, who is unaware of the identity of either of his parents, is connected to Judge Clane in more ways than one; he once saved Clane from drowning and is now in his employ as an ‘amanuensis’  to write letters and attend to his needs. At times, Sherman revels in his position as Judge Clane’s ‘jewel’; he considers himself a cut above the other household help and often behaves in a rude or fickle manner towards Jester, whose feelings for Sherman run deep.

As the narrative unfolds, we learn more about past events, which shed a different light on the connections between these characters. The circumstances surrounding Johnny’s suicide become clear to Jester, prompting him to choose a particular path for the future. And when Sherman discovers information regarding the identity of his parents, the consequences of subsequent events touch all the main players here.

With great insight and understanding of the human condition, McCullers focuses on interracial tensions and injustices and how these ‘sit’ alongside our beliefs and principles. The novel’s title is also significant; racial integration would move the clock forward, but Judge Clane seems content for the South to remain in the early-‘60s, or even to revert to bygone days. It’s an excellent introduction to Carson McCullers’ work, a writer I’d like to explore in more detail.

The Wycherly Woman by Ross Macdonald

Ostensibly a ‘missing girl’ story, albeit one with many, deeper layers to reveal, The Wycherly Woman is an excellent entry in Macdonald’s Lew Archer series. Based in LA, Archer is a private eye with a conscience, a fundamentally decent man in pursuit of the truth, who finds himself battling against the systemic violence and corruption that frequently exist in dysfunctional families, corrupt organisations and other powerful institutions.

While the novel delves into many of this author’s favourite themes – twisted, dysfunctional families with dark secrets to conceal; highly damaged individuals with complex psychological issues; and finally, elements of greed, murder, blackmail and guilt – there’s something very melancholic about this one, a tragic sadness that’s hard to shake.

As ever, Archer approaches these tangled networks of crime, corruption and cover-ups with his usual world-weariness and dogged pursuit of the truth. In some respects, the intricacies of the plot are not particularly important here (for me, least); rather, much of the pleasure stems from observing Archer doing his job, which Macdonald conveys in his trademark hardboiled style. The writing is excellent throughout, very much in tune with the mood of this genre.

Recommended, especially for fans of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett – or any crime fiction with a moody atmosphere and strong sense of place

Do let me know if you like the sound of any of these books – and your thoughts if you’ve read any of them. Or maybe you have plans of your own for the #1961Club. If so, feel free to mention them here.

The Levant Trilogy (Books Two and Three) by Olivia Manning

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One of my informal reading aims for 2026 is to read Olivia Manning’s Levant Trilogy, which, together with her earlier Balkan Trilogy, forms The Fortunes of War, a superb, largely autobiographical series of novels based on the author’s experiences during the Second World War. Viewed as a whole, the series offers a unique insight into lives lived on the advancing edges of war as the Germans closed in on Eastern Europe and North Africa. Moreover, it also provides an acutely perceptive portrait of the early years of a fraught marriage unfolding against the backdrop of displacement and uncertainty. In these books, we meet Guy and Harriet Pringle as they embark on married life, firstly in Bucharest, where Guy is employed by the British Council as a University lecturer, then in Athens, and finally in Cairo, where he initially finds himself sidelined with fewer opportunities to put his teaching skills to good use. The Pringles are, of course, based on Manning and her husband, Reggie Smith, and the fictional couple’s movements across the Balkans and the Levant mirror those of the author and Smith.

While this post covers books two (The Battle Lost and Won) and three (The Sum of Things) in The Levant Trilogy, I’m going to keep major plot developments to a minimum to avoid spoilers. Instead, this piece is more about the characters, along with some thoughts on Manning’s themes. (I wrote about the first Levant book, The Danger Tree, back in January; so, if you need a refresher, just click on the link.)

As The Danger Tree ends, the Pringles are still in Cairo, but their marriage appears to be in more trouble than ever, with Guy continuing to put the emotional needs of his friends, acquaintances and students ahead of Harriet’s. Meanwhile, Guy wonders if Harriet would be better off in England, particularly as her physical health seems to be suffering in Egypt.

Developments come thick and fast in these novels, taking in adulterous affairs, chance encounters, dramatic separations, numerous close shaves, a murder in the ex-pat community, severe fevers that sometimes end in tragedy, and death in the desert conflict. At one point, a character is declared missing (presumed drowned) following a tragedy at sea, but to say any more would be a spoiler, I think.

While the Pringles remain the beating heart of Manning’s trilogies, we see less of Guy in books two and three of the Levant than in earlier instalments of the series, partly because Guy’s insensitivity over a personal matter prompts Harriet to strike out on her own. 

Dissatisfaction – chiefly Harriet’s – was eroding the Pringles’ marriage. Harriet had not enough to do, Guy too much. Feeling a need to justify his civilian status, he worked outside of normal hours at the Institute, organizing lectures, entertainments for troops and any other activity that could give him a sense of purpose. Harriet saw in his tireless bustle an attempt to escape a situation that did not exist. Even had he been free to join the army, his short sight would have failed him. He thought himself into guilt in order to justify his exertions, and his exertions saved him from facing obnoxious realities. (p. 241)

Harriet’s spur-of-the-moment travels take her to Syria and Palestine, where she demonstrates impressive levels of independence on limited resources while also seeing more of the Levant. Meanwhile, Guy continues to be Guy, throwing himself into his work, partly as a means of justifying his existence. (Again, it’s tempting to say more about the Pringles, but I’ll leave it there to avoid spoilers.)

Manning is especially adept at capturing the social circles in which Harriet and Guy move, including Dobson, the British Embassy official with a comfortable Garden City flat which becomes home to the Pringles, and Edwina Little, a bright young thing with a string of eligible suitors at her fingertips. In truth, Edwina is something of a gold-digger, setting her cap at Peter, an Irish peer stationed in Egypt with the army.

Perhaps sharpest of all is Manning’s portrayal of the wealthy and rather louche British ex-pats determined to carry on dining and drinking in the best restaurants in Cairo, irrespective of the war. Lady Angela Hooper, a good friend of Harriet’s, is a case in point. To the Pringles’ initial surprise. Angela begins a passionate affair with Bill Castlebar, a married poet and lecturer colleague of Guy’s. However, with his possessive wife, Mona, stranded in England, Castlebar is uninhibited by his married status and spends most afternoons closeted together with Angela in her room at Dobson’s Embassy flat. As Harriet reflects at one point:

She had seen common-place English couples who, at home, would have tolerated each other for a lifetime, here turning into self-dramatizing figures of tragedy, bored, lax, unmoral, complaining and, in the end, abandoning the partner in hand for another who was neither better nor worse than the first. Inconstancy was so much the rule among the British residents in Cairo, the place, she thought, was like a bureau of sexual exchange. (pp. 336–337)

As ever, the sense of place here is superb. Manning excels at portraying the cultural feel of her settings, and her depictions of the different pockets of Cairo are especially vivid.

The taxis had taken them past the Esbekiyah into Clot Bey where women stood in the shadows beneath the Italianate archers. From there they passed into streets so narrow that the pedestrians moved to the walls to enable the taxis to pass. No one, it seemed, needed sleep in this part of the city. Women looked out from every doorway. It was here that the squaddies came in search of entertainment and every café was alight to entice them in. Loudspeakers, hung over entrances, gave out the endless sagas relayed by Egyptian radio, while from indoors came the blare of nickelodeons or player pianos thumping out popular songs. (p. 230)

Of all the characters in this trilogy, Simon Boulderstone is the one who grows and develops the most over the course of the story. After arriving in Egypt as a new junior officer barely out of his teens, Simon must cope with the senseless loss of his brother, Hugo, who bled to death in the desert. Despite his recent marriage, Simon gives little thought to his new wife while in Egypt. (In truth, they only had days together before he had to leave for the war.) Instead, his mind turns to the attractive young socialite, Edwina Little, whom he still thinks of as Hugo’s girl. Now that Hugo has been killed in action, Simon wonders if he might stand a chance with Edwina himself, especially given the family resemblance…

As Simon drove back, Edwina was still on his mind. He tried to order her away but she stayed where she was, smiling down on him from the balcony. The desert to air was a sort of anaphrodisiac and he and the other men were detached from sex, yet he could not reject the romantic enchantment of love. (p. 262)

Simon’s story is a coming-of-age of sorts, one that requires him to face emotional and physical challenges in the most trying of circumstances. However, by the end of The Levant Trilogy, he is a new man, free of the burdens that have been holding him back for months.

She [Edwina] had been a fantasy of his adolescence but now he had not only reached his majority, he was verging on maturity. He had been the younger son, Hugo’s admirer and imitator, and Edwina’s attraction had lain not only in her beauty but the fact he had believed her to be Hugo’s girl. He had wanted to be Hugo and he had wanted Hugo’s girl, but now he was on his own. And Edwina had been no more Hugo’s girl then she could be his. (p. 538)

War has changed Simon beyond his wildest expectations. Now he wishes to stay in the army, preferably in the thick of the action. After all, what else can he do? The thought of home doesn’t appeal to him anymore. He knows he would feel out of place there because too much has happened for him to go back.

Thinking of his return to a wife he had almost forgotten, Simon wondered how he would fit into a world without war. He would have to begin again, decide on an occupation, accept responsibility for his own actions. What on earth would he do for a living? He had been trained for nothing but war. (p. 357)

As this wonderfully immersive series draws to a close, there are hints that Guy might be more conscious of Harriet’s emotional needs than he was before, but in practice, one wonders if his day-to-day behaviour will ever change. (Probably not!) Nevertheless, Manning absolutely succeeds in portraying both Pringles as complex, authentic and flawed individuals – just as we all are in life. I’ve loved spending time with these characters and will miss them greatly. Both trilogies are very highly recommended, especially for readers interested in this period.

The Levant Trilogy is published by NYRB Classics in the US and by W&N in the UK; personal copy.

Through a Glass, Darkly by Helen McCloy

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The American writer Helen McCloy is completely new to me, but on the strength of this intriguing mystery, I’d be open to reading her again. First published in 1950 and recently reissued by Penguin as part of their ‘Mermaid’ series, Through a Glass, Darkly reads like a cross between a psychological thriller and a detective novel, with the latter element featuring McCloy’s serial sleuth, the psychiatrist and assistant District Attorney, Dr Basil Willing. There’s a dark, creepy feel to this tale of psychological suspense, an atmosphere made all the more unsettling by the suggestion that supernatural forces might be at play in this story of unnerving sightings at a prestigious girls’ school. In short, I liked it a lot.

Central to the novel is Faustina Crayle, a newly appointed art teacher at Brereton, a renowned girls’ boarding school in Connecticut, New England. As the story opens, Faustina is being dismissed from her role by the school’s headmistress, Mrs Lightfoot, who refuses to give a specific reason for the teacher’s removal after five weeks. There are vague allusions to Faustina not fitting in with the school’s spirit and ways of doing things, despite the sense that her work as a tutor has not been called into question. Nevertheless, Mrs Lightfoot creates the impression that the school could be ruined if Faustina remains there as a teacher. Naturally, Faustina is upset, especially as Mrs Lightfoot refuses to provide her with a reference for any future teaching roles, leaving Faustina with limited options open to her.

When Faustina’s only friend at the school – fellow teacher, Gisela – hears about the firing, she calls upon her boyfriend, the psychiatrist and amateur sleuth, Dr Basil Willing, to help out. Having won Faustina’s trust, Basil meets Mrs Lightfoot to discuss the dismissal, a tale that involves all manner of inexplicable occurrences since Faustina’s arrival at Brereton. In short, two teenage pupils and a handful of the school’s maids claim to have seen Faustina in two different places at virtually the same time, fuelling speculation that she has a mysterious ‘double’ or ‘doppelganger’, possibly rooted in the supernatural. Faustina, too, is aware that almost everyone at the school has been treating her strangely – either avoiding her, watching her closely or appearing to be scared of her. Moreover, the hysteria is spreading as news of the disturbing events at Brereton filters through to pupils’ families. Some girls have already been removed by their parents as a protective measure, and two of the maids have left after being unnerved by Faustina’s double. Naturally, all these incidents are reflecting badly on the school, whose upstanding reputation Mrs Lightfoot is determined to preserve.

I can’t go down the upper hall after ten, when the blue night-lamp is the only light, without looking back over my shoulder and expecting to see…I don’t quite know what, but something distinctly peculiar and unpleasant. (p. 14)

As Basil examines the events at Brereton and Faustina’s personal history, further mysterious incidents come to light, touching on family secrets, confidential wills, potential murder and, of course, the possibility of a doppelganger being part of the mix.

‘You see a figure ahead of you, solid, three-dimensional, brightly coloured. Moving and obeying all the laws of optics. Its clothing and posture is vaguely familiar. You hurry toward the figure for a closer view. It turns its head and – you are looking at yourself. Or rather a perfect mirror-image of yourself only – there is no mirror. So, you know it is your double. And that frightens you, for tradition tells you that he who sees his own double is about to die…’ (p. 61)

Something McCloy does particularly well here is to invest the novel with an underlying sense of unease in which the fear of the unknown – and possibly the supernatural – seems ever-present. At one point, there is even the suggestion that the sinister doppelganger is a vision conjured up by Faustina’s subconscious mind without her conscious knowledge.

He was sure that the despair she felt was sincere. But he was also sure that, paradoxically, this despair was now blended with pleasure in a certain sense of power, as agreeable as it was unaccustomed. She had not asked for power, but now she believed it had been thrust upon her, she would have been less than human if she had not felt something more complex than unmixed horror. The horror was there, but with it were other, more subtle feelings. She could not be wholly dismayed at the idea that she, Faustina Crayle, plain, timid, and neglected, had punished with death the bold, handsome woman who scoffed at all her failings with such arrogant cruelty. (p. 110)

Telepathy is also floated as a possible explanation, especially when a tragic accident occurs at the school. To say any more would spoil things, so I’ll leave it there in terms of the plot, save to say that McCloy leaves us guessing for most of the novel until the explanation for these sinister happenings is duly revealed.

As is often the case in this type of novel, the characters are lightly sketched; nevertheless, I found them interesting and believable. McCloy also has a lovely turn of phrase, illustrated here in this description of Mrs Lightfoot.

Even at that hour she was exquisitely coiffed and dressed. She still had her air of serene authority. But something else was gone. Some inner strength of soul that had sustained her until now. It was like finding a handsome seashell, all sunset colours, brilliant glaze, intricate convolutions, then looking inside and finding the dead creature that had once made that shell for its home, now a dark, brittle thing, like a dried bean, rattling around in splendid emptiness. (pp. 164–165)

There are some wonderful pen-portraits of minor characters, too. I loved this description of Mrs Chase, whose daughter, Beth, is a pupil at the school.

Gisela looked at Mrs Chase and wondered how old she really was. The reddish brown of her hair was as patently an artifice as the tomato-red of her lips and nails, and the harsh dyes only made her skin and eyes look more faded than ever. Her tilted nose and round chin were perennially childlike, but fine threads of scar at neck and hairline explained the synthetic smoothness of her cheeks. As she played with her gloves, two square emeralds flashed on her small, gnarled hands. The hands were ten years older than the face and the voice was ten years older than the hands. (pp. 82–83)

All in all, then, Through A Glass, Darkly is an intriguing, unsettling mystery that explores the power of the subconscious mind in more ways than one. Fans of Celia Fremlin may well enjoy this one, as might readers of John Dickson Carr.

Galley Beggar Ghost Stories – The Signalman by Charles Dickens and The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

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Back in winter 2024, the independent publisher Gallery Beggar Press issued a small bundle of ghost stories called Pocket Ghosts, comprising three beautifully produced slim volumes, each containing a classic ghost story by a well-known writer: The Signalman by Charles Dickens, The Leaf-Sweeper by Muriel Spark and The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell. While ghost stories are often associated with Christmas, these excellent, eerie tales can be enjoyed at any time of the year, especially by readers who love the genre.

I’m going to cover these stories in a couple of posts, starting today with The Signalman, which is easily the best-known of the three, and The Old Nurse’s Story, my first experience of Mrs Gaskell’s supernatural fiction, but hopefully not my last. (Thoughts on The Leaf-Sweeper will follow, probably later this year, as I’ve yet to read it.)

The Signalman by Charles Dickens (1866)

Famously adapted for TV as part of the BBC’s Ghost Story for Christmas series, this chilling tale is thought to have been partly inspired by an accident involving a train on which Dickens was travelling in the late 19th century. The Staplehurst rail derailment in 1865 resulted in multiple fatalities and injuries, as did the Clayton Tunnel rail crash, which took place four years earlier in 1861.

In Dickens’ story, a narrator tells of his encounters with a troubled signalman, whom he visits at night in a signal box near a railway tunnel. On the second night, the signalman reveals he is haunted by strange, inexplicable occurrences – the ringing of a bell that no one else can hear and the appearance of a ghostly figure that no one else can see. On two previous occasions, these events were swiftly followed by fatal incidents in the tunnel – firstly, a horrific train crash, in which many people died, while others were seriously injured, and secondly, the sudden death of a beautiful woman, glimpsed by the signalman as she writhed in agony on the passing train. Consequently, the signalman is convinced that the bell and ghostly figure are prophecies of impending doom – eerie augurs of a forthcoming tragedy.

‘That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop! He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor between us.’ (p. 30)

With this foreshadowing groundwork in place, the reader knows that another dreadful incident will almost certainly occur, especially once the signalman reveals a recent sighting of the figure accompanied by the ringing bell. The question is, will the signalman be able to prevent another tragedy in the tunnel, or is he powerless against whatever terrifying supernatural forces are at play?

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility involving life. (pp. 35–36)

This story feels so atmospheric, partly because Dickens infuses it with a creeping sense of dread. Alongside the haunting symbols of the bell and the spectral figure, Dickens creates an air of mystery about the narrator himself as we never really learn who he is – or indeed, how reliable he might be. One might even wonder whether he is also a phantom, especially given the mirroring between his initial greeting to the signalman and the words uttered by the ghostly figure when he appears by the tunnel. Either way, it’s a very unsettling tale, ideal for a chilly, windswept night.

So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left the natural world. (p. 13)

The Signalman has been adapted many times, but the most famous version was written by Andrew Davies for the BBC’s Ghost Story at Christmas TV series. This excellent adaptation, starring Denholm Elliot as the titular signalman, was first broadcast in December 1976 and remains a favourite for many fans of the format.  

The Old Nurse’s Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

This spooky, suspenseful story features many of the classic elements of the best Gothic literature, from an orphaned child sent to live with a distant, elderly relative in the country, to a cold, stately manor house with a mysterious wing that remains off-limits to new arrivals.

The story is narrated by Hester, the young nanny who accompanies her charge, five-year-old Rosamond, to their new home at Furnivall Manor in the Northumberland fells. This vast, foreboding house is so close to the surrounding forest that it is at risk of being overshadowed by trees, their branches stretching out like gnarled and wizened fingers. The eerie atmosphere is enhanced by the sound of an old organ being played on stormy nights, even though the old footman, James, and his kindly wife, Dorothy, try to pass it off as the wind whistling through the trees. Meanwhile, elderly Miss Furnivall, who is virtually deaf, and her companion, Mrs Stark, eke out their days making tapestries in the drawing room, ensconced in the lonely, melancholic aura that permeates this disquieting house.

Sitting with her, working at the same great piece of tapestry, was Mrs Stark, her maid and companion, and almost as old as she was. She had lived with Miss Furnivall ever since they both were young, and now she seemed more like a friend than a servant; she looked so cold, and grey, and stony, as if she had never loved or cared for anyone; and I don’t suppose she did care for anyone, except her mistress; and, owing to the great deafness of the latter, Mrs. Stark treated her very much as if she were a child. (p. 17)

Where Gaskell really excels here is by slowly ratcheting up the suspense as her story unfolds. The house and its inhabitants are harbouring secrets, information that Hester and Rosamond are not privy to, even though the former is disturbed by various frightening occurrences. As this unnerving tale spins towards its dramatic denouement, powerful supernatural forces threaten Rosamond’s safety, prompting Hester to be on the alert for the appearance of a ghostly figure or two intent on luring the child onto the sinister fells…

I turned towards the long narrow windows, and there, sure enough, I saw a little girl, less than my Miss Rosamond – dressed all unfit to be out-of-doors such a bitter night – crying, and beating against the window-panes, as if she wanted to be let in. She seemed to sob and wail, till Miss Rosamond could bear it no longer, and was flying to the door to open it, when all of a sudden, and close upon us, the great organ peeled out so loud and thundering, it fairly made me tremble; and all the more, when I remembered me that, even in the stillness of that dead-cold weather, I had heard no sound of little battering hands upon the window-glass, although the phantom child had seemed to put forth all its force… (p. 42)

As in The Signalman, foreshadowing plays a key role in this haunting story, tapping into themes of jealousy, sibling rivalry and terrible family secrets, all cloaked in the snowy atmosphere of winter to ramp up the chilly mood.

The Galley Beggar Pocket Ghosts are still available from the publisher’s website – link here – and their stylish covers make them ideal as gifts. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of the genre.

The Stepdaughter by Caroline Blackwood

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Born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, Lady Caroline Blackwood was, for many years, largely known as a socialite and muse. Her marriages to the artist Lucian Freud, the pianist Israel Citkowitz and the poet Robert Lowell were all widely reported at the time. Nevertheless, later in life, Blackwood turned her attention to writing – and with great success. Her debut novel, The Stepdaughter won the David Higham Prize for best first novel, while her second, Great Granny Webster, was shortlisted for the Booker. Last year I read and loved Blackwood’s third novel, The Fate of Mary Rose, a brilliant exploration of our collective fascination with gruesome true crimes and how sometimes we can become emotionally invested in a media story we have no personal connection to. While The Stepdaughter shares some of Mary Rose’s qualities – more specifically, its darkness and unflinching pursuit of a singular vision – it’s a book I admire rather than love; nevertheless, there is something horribly compelling about this one, even though I found it an intense and claustrophobic read.

First published in 1976 and recently reissued by McNally Editions and Virago Press, The Stepdaughter is a short, sharp shock of a novel, a psychologically astute portrayal of resentment, self-loathing and projection as the reader bears witness to a stepmother’s unravelling and the impact of this nightmare on those who are under her care. The book is narrated by J, a married woman in her mid-thirties, who now finds herself superseded in her husband’s eyes by a younger, more beautiful lover. In  short, Arnold, a wealthy and successful international lawyer, has installed J, their four-year-old daughter, Sally Ann, and an au pair, Monique, in a luxury penthouse apartment with beautiful views of Manhattan. However, there is a catch; implicit in this set-up is the unspoken agreement that J must continue to take care of Renata, Arnold’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, as the girl’s mother has been confined to a mental institution for the past two years. Meanwhile, Arnold has moved to Paris to be with his new lover. The trouble is, J loathes Renata, whom she considers lazy, grossly overweight and unwilling to communicate. In essence, the girl is a burden and an embarrassment to her.

I find Renata very ugly. I am therefore in no way jealous of her beauty, but in other ways my attitude towards her is much too horribly like the evil stepmother of Snow White. The girl obsesses me. All the anger I should feel for Arnold I feel for Renata. If Arnold’s letter from Paris was a shock to me—the thing that I found by far the most shocking about it was that he made absolutely no mention of any future plans to remove his hefty, damaged daughter from under my roof. Is Arnold going insane? Or is he being very cunning? Does Arnold really think that he can leave this fat neurotic girl in my apartment just as if she was some inanimate object like an umbrella that he happened to leave behind? (p. 9)

The book is written as a sequence of letters to an unnamed, imaginary recipient, which J duly composes in her head. None of these letters will ever be sent; rather, they simply exist in J’s mind.

As this fractured narrative unfolds, we see how J is projecting all her self-loathing and disgust at Armold’s behaviour onto Renata. Monique and Sally Ann are also on the receiving end of some of J’s contempt, but it is Renata who must bear the brunt.

She [Renata] had the pathos of those hopelessly flawed objects which one often sees being put up for sale in junk shops. She gave the immediate impression of having something vitally important missing. She reminded me of some tea-pot with a missing spout, a compass that had lost its hands, an old-fashioned record that had had all its grooves badly scratched. She had a tense, half- apologetic, half-defiant expression on her face, which made one think that she herself felt that she had some kind of vital deficiency which made it unlikely that anyone would ever want her. The thing that Renata lacked so painfully was the very smallest grain of either physical or personal charm. (p. 12)

There are signs too that J resents Renata for not embodying or showing any interest in the socially acceptable conventions of femininity – a standpoint that seems to signal some of J’s own prejudices or insecurities about being dumped by Arnold. J finds Renata ugly, frumpy and hopelessly pathetic, a sort of grotesque, all-consuming monster who has invaded her home.

…one starts to loathe her for imposing this unvoiced and unwelcome pressure. By being so shy and vulnerable and giving out such a strong feeling of being hopelessly damaged, she invites a kind of cruelty. Renata’s problem seem so insoluble that one starts to feel such a fierce impatience with her that although I hate to admit it one often has a longing to try to damage her even more. (p. 18)

In reality, all Renata wants to do is to make instant cakes from packet mixes, which she then voraciously consumes without offering any to J, Monique or Sally Ann. Another annoying habit is Renata’s excessive use of toilet paper, which often clogs up the apartment’s loo to the point where the plumber must make regular visit to the flat to unblock the system. Meanwhile, J does nothing but sit around in her exquisitely furnished ‘human torture chamber’, staring blankly out of the apartment windows. It’s all very maddening as J reveals in her missives, which effectively act as an outlet for her furious thoughts.

Yours in a state of impotent, almost inexpressible, anger,

J. (p. 75)

While J appreciates that Renata may have been damaged by previous emotional turmoil, particularly given what has happened to her mother, J resents the implicit assumption that she who should be the one to support Arnold’s child.

If Renata can manage to irritate and upset me to a point that I feel quite unhinged by my disgust for my own lack of generosity towards her—the girl is bound to have a much deeper disruptive emotional effect upon Arnold. She comes from his ugly past—this ugly, untalented adolescent, whom no one wants, particularly her father. Renata does not come from my past. I see her as something even worse than my past: she is not only my present, she is also my future. That is why I find her presence in my apartment so intolerable. (pp. 28-29)

Everything we are presented with in the first half of this novella is filtered through the fractured lens of J’s resentful feelings towards Renata. By the midpoint, however, J comes to a decision about Renata’s future, and in the discussions that duly follow, a revelation comes to light which alters J’s view of the girl and Arnold’s decision to leave her in J’s care.

I am only now starting to grasp the fact that, in some complicated way, Arnold is oddly fond of Renata. Something in this unloved and down-trodden girl seems to bring out something protective in this man whom I can only see as fiercely unprotective and uncaring. (p. 80)

We also hear from Renata herself, which proves to be a breath of fresh air after the suffocating atmosphere of the previous section.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is no neat resolution in store here, but we do see a different, more human side of J’s character as the novel speeds towards its unsettling end.  

In some respects, The Stepdaughter is a domestic horror story, on paper the kind of psychological takedown of stereotypical images of motherhood and domesticity that fans of Shirley Jackson or Patricia Highsmith might enjoy; but in truth, I found it too intense and claustrophobic for my taste. A novella I respected for its skill but didn’t particularly enjoy despite the excellent writing and flashes of mordant humour. One of those books that might be best appreciated from a distance.

The Stepdaughter is published by McNally Editions and Virago Press; personal copy, which I read for Cathy’s Reading Ireland Month.

The Barracks by John McGahern

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First published in 1963, The Barracks was John McGahern’s debut novel, written when he was in his late twenties. Now considered one of Ireland’s greatest authors, McGahern wrote about a world he knew very well, with The Barracks drawing on various experiences from his own childhood – particularly the early death of his mother, Susan, from cancer in 1944 and the years he spent living in the Cootehall Garda Barracks where his father, Frank, a Police sergeant, lived and worked. It’s a sad, beautifully observed novel that delves deep into character, which on paper ought to have been literary catnip for me; but in this instance, something stopped me from loving it as much as McGahern’s masterpiece, Amongst Women. Then again, maybe my expectations were unfairly high.

The Barracks revolves around Elizabeth, a housewife in her early forties who lives with her husband, Reegan, a sergeant in the Garda, and his three young children from a previous marriage. Once a nurse with a busy, independent life in London during the turmoil and uncertainty of the Blitz, Elizabeth has now settled for a quieter existence, one dictated by various domestic routines at the Garda barracks in rural Ireland where Reegan is based. Her family hadn’t wanted her to marry Reegan, a man they considered somewhat diffident and prone to flashes of temper, but Elizabeth was ready for a life of her own choosing, away from London and the painful memories it evoked.

She married Reegan. She was determined to grasp at a life of her own desiring, no longer content to drag through with her repetitive days, neither happy nor unhappy, merely passing them in the wearying spirit of service; and the more the calls of duty tried to tie her down to this life the more intolerably burdensome it became. (pp. 15–16)

The marriage is one of companionship, security and mutual dependency rather than love or desire. Nevertheless, Elizabeth seems resigned to this arrangement, finding solace in her contributions to the smooth running of the household and her familiar domestic routines.

…had she married Reegan because she had been simply sick of living at the time and forced to create some illusion of happiness about him so that she might be able to go on? She’d no child of her own now. She’d achieved no intimacy with Reegan. He was growing more and more restless. He, too, was sick, sick of authority and the police, sick of obeying orders, threatening to break up this life of theirs in the barracks, but did it matter so much now? Did it matter where they went, whether one thing happened more than another? It seemed to matter less and less. An hour ago she’d been on the brink of collapse and if she finally collapsed did anything matter? (pp. 49–50)

Early in the novel, it becomes clear that Elizabeth is likely living with undiagnosed breast cancer. She has found lumps in her breast but has done nothing to seek assistance from the doctor despite her earlier training as a nurse. Instead, she tries to focus on the myriad of small daily tasks that must be carried out to keep the household ticking along. Any spare time would only be filled by worries about her condition, and the thought of spiralling downwards is too frightening to bear.

This’d be the only time of the day she might get some grip and vision on the desperate activity of her life. She was Elizabeth Reegan: a woman in her forties: sitting in a chair with a book from the council library in her hand that she hadn’t opened: watching certain things like the sewing-machine and the vase of daffodils and a circle still white with frost under the shade of the sycamore tree between the house and the river: alive in this barrack kitchen, with Casey down in the dayroom: with a little time to herself before she’d have to get another meal ready: with a life on her hands that was losing the last vestiges of its purpose and meaning: with hard cysts within her breast she feared were cancer… (p. 49)

With her strength failing with every passing day, Elizabeth knows the time has come to face up to her condition by seeing the unit’s doctor – a task she has been delaying for fear of the probable diagnosis. (We are in 1950s Ireland here, a time when cancer was rarely discussed publicly – and possibly not even privately, depending on the patient’s character. There’s also a suggestion here that Elizabeth might not even be told that she has cancer, that maybe this fact will be withheld from her or shared only with Reegan, such was the conservative nature of Irish society back then.)

She knew she must see a doctor, but she’d known that months before, and she had done nothing. (…)

What the doctor would do was simple. He’d send her for a biopsy. She might be told the truth or she might not when they got the result back, depending on them and on herself. If she had cancer she’d be sent for treatment. She had been a nurse. She had no illusions about what would happen. (p. 34)

Essentially, the novel follows the Reegan family as they pussyfoot around this crisis. Elizabeth knows she is dying, a realisation that inevitably prompts reflection and the raking over of past regrets, of lives that might have been lived but were never realised.

What was her life? Was she ready to cry halt and leave? Had it achieved anything or been given any meaning? She was no more ready to die now than she had been twenty years ago. (p. 85)

Central to the novel is the question of whether Elizabeth has lived a meaningful and fulfilling life. In some respects, she has been dying inside long before the breast cancer started to destroy her physical strength and resilience. Her life at the barracks is mundane and narrow, a world away from the excitement she once experienced in London with her former lover, Michael Halliday, the dashing doctor she met through her work at the hospital. Despite being somewhat fickle, Michael broadened Elizabeth’s cultural horizons by giving her books and taking her to plays at the theatre. How might her life have turned out had their relationship been more stable? Would it have been more pleasurable, more fulfilling than the one she has experienced with Reegan? Sadly though, for various reasons that McGahern duly reveals, this affair with Michael was torrid and painfully short-lived.

He [Halliday] had changed everything in her life and solved nothing: the first rush of the excitement of discovery, and then the failure of love, contempt changing to self-contempt and final destruction, its futile ashes left in her own hands. (p. 209)

Meanwhile, Reegan is embroiled in his own longstanding battle at work, which McGahern depicts with a strong sense of authenticity. A former leader in the Irish War of Independence, Reegan is frustrated by the futile regulations he must conform to as a Garda sergeant, and an ongoing feud with Superintendent Quirke leaves him feeling bitter and resentful. In truth, Reegan would like nothing more than to tell Quirke where he can stick his routine patrols and duty logs as he dreams of saving enough money to buy a local farm. A side hustle of selling turf from the nearby bog consumes much of his spare time, but one wonders whether it’s a convenient excuse to break free from the constraints of the barracks.

Where this quietly devastating novel really excels though is in its portrayal of Elizabeth’s inner world as she struggles with her illness. While the book is written in the third person, McGahern holds us close to Elizabeth’s viewpoint – a noteworthy achievement for a male writer in his late twenties, especially with a debut novel of this nature. This is a world in which emotions are kept under wraps, where no one seems able to openly acknowledge that Elizabeth is terminally ill. McGahern also pays great attention to the daily rhythms and rituals of life in this close community: the importance of church and family, the devotion to prayer; the small gestures of friends and neighbours when Elizabeth’s illness becomes known; everything here is so well observed.

They came before Elizabeth had her packing finished, all the policemen’s wives, Mrs. Casey and Mrs Brennan and Mrs Mullins. They were excited, the intolerable vacuum of their own lives filled with speculation about the drama they already saw circling about this new wound. (p. 106)

Alongside the characterisation, there is some lovely descriptive writing here, capturing the small moments of beauty in Elizabeth’s world.

The whiteness was burning rapidly off the fields outside, brilliant and glittering on the short grass as it vanished; and the daffodils that yesterday she had arranged in the white vase on the sill were a wonder of yellowness in the sunshine, the heads massed together above the cold green stems disappearing into the mouth of the vase. (pp. 48–49)

Even though I didn’t find The Barracks quite as engaging or enjoyable as Amongst Women, it’s still a very accomplished novel. McGahern’s insights into coming to terms with death are especially perceptive, as are his portrayals of small-town life in rural Ireland at this time, replete with the burden these characters seem destined to bear. Recommended, especially for fans of William Trevor, Claire Keegan and Colm Tóibín. (I read this book for Cathy’s Reading Ireland event, which runs throughout March.)