Ten Wonderfully Unsettling Books for October

October, the heart of the spooky season and culminating in Halloween, is the perfect month to immerse oneself in books that have the power to unsettle. And here is a stack of books I read this year and last that fit the bill, a great accompaniment to chilly weather and warm fires, cozy blankets, candle-lit rooms, and steaming mugs of tea.  Sometimes moody, often atmospheric, these deliciously disconcerting stories brim with spectral visions, shadowy figures, shapeshifters, horrors lurking in villages and suburbia, paranoia, and surreal realms; stories drenched with a sense of unease and creeping dread.

So without much ado, here are ten excellent unsettling books for October…For detailed reviews on each, you can click on the links.

TWICE LOST by Phyllis Paul

Phyllis Paul was an intensely private, reclusive writer who nearly died in obscurity. Although she has written eleven novels, these books seem to have sunk into oblivion and are incredibly hard to find, and based on how good Twice Lost is, I hope more of her books are reissued in the future.

On a summer’s day after a carefree tennis party, eighteen-year-old Christine Gray and her friend Penelope are helping a young girl Vivian Lambert find a piece of jewellery that she seems to have lost. The girls hunt in the overgrown, menacing, and shadowy garden in vain and halt the search altogether as dusk descends upon them. Promising to help her look for it the next day Christine accompanies Vivian and leaves her as soon as they are close to Vivian’s home. Vivian unsettles Christine greatly; she is a neglected, needy child and Christine is uncomfortable around her wanting to get away from her as soon as possible. That very night though Vivian mysteriously disappears, and this tragedy goes on to haunt Christine in her adulthood.

It’s a stunning, wonderfully odd, and compelling novella about deception, control, guilt, neglect, and ostracization, the trappings of an artistic career (fame, ambition, and failure), and dysfunctional families. An element of mystery, suspense, and creeping dread punctuate the story as the central characters struggle with disturbed dreams and hazy, distorted memories, stalled in a state of limbo as the enigma of the young girl’s perplexing disappearance continues to haunt them.

THE GIRLS by John Bowen

John Bowen’s The Girls is a superbly crafted, clever tale of village life, companionship, family, parenting, and infidelity; a domestic horror of sorts unfolding in a bucolic environment. The strength of this novel lies in how it manages to be many things at once – wicked, charming, blackly funny, macabre, and unsettling lulling the reader into a false sense of calm with its idyllic setting before suddenly veering into dark, nightmarish territory.

At the heart of this story are the titular girls – Janet Hallas and Susan Burt – partners and lovers running a gift shop that sells various craft items and artisanal food in a lush, tranquil Cotswold village. We learn that Janet and Susan have been in a relationship for many years now, and are a well-regarded pair in the village, participating in numerous craft fairs and other activities and consistently winning awards for their unusual products chief among which is their uniquely concocted elderflower wine.

In Janet and Susan’s world, time slows down but deepens their bond, and the possibility of threats piercing their well-constructed cocoon seems unlikely. Or does it? 

Intertwined with this portrayal of idyll, lurks an air of menace and foreboding, at the heart of which lies the septic tank introduced to the reader in the first chapter. This tank is located amid the thick tangles of  shrubbery at the bottom end of the girls’ garden, and reeks of filth and rubbish, its stench occasionally wafting in the air carried forth by the winds, its murky waters capable of obscuring all types of bizarre things including dead bodies…Hilarious, horrific, and even poignant, armed with a pair of unconventional female leads and infused with liberal doses of the surreal and whimsy, The Girls, is a wonderful immersive novel not to be missed.

GHOSTS by Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton’s Ghost Stories is a brilliant collection of eerie, chilling tales where she uses the medium of spectral visions to explore the familiar terrain of her themes that are so central to her New York novels and stories.  

The first story “The Lady Maid’s Bell” is a masterclass in narrative tension, a tale of isolation and loneliness, an unhappy marriage, and devotion. One of my favourites in the collection, “Afterward”, is a superb tale of guilt, moral failings, the repercussions of ill-gotten wealth, and women suffering because of the terrible wrongs of their men. “Bewitched” is a suspenseful story of religion and old, primitive folklore set in the icy wastes and the claustrophobic boundaries of a desolate village; while “Mr Jones”, set in an isolated country manor, dwells on the themes of patriarchal control and dominance both real and ghostly. 

Besides the ghosts lurking on these pages, the richness and allure of these stories are further accentuated by the complexity of themes lacing them such as moral corruption, greed, domestic strife, control, entrapment, and abuse; themes that typically form the core of her New York stories but also explored in these ghost stories in a singularly innovative way.

OTHER WORLDS: PEASANTS, PILGRIMS, SPIRITS, SAINTS by Teffi (Translated from Russian by Robert Chandler)

Teffi’s Other Worlds is a beguiling, evocative collection of stories immersed in the world of fairytales and folklore but laced with her intelligence, wit, and psychological acuity; haunting, ethereal stories filled with house spirits and bathhouse devils, she-wolves and shapeshifters, mermaids and monks.  

We begin with “Kishmish”, a wonderful story that starts with sinister overtones and ventures into droll territory capturing a young girl’s inner conflict, her spiritual crisis, and ruminations on how to turn into a saint. “Solovki”, one of my favourites in the collection, is a haunting mood piece about an unhappy marriage, redemption, and spiritual fervor set on a remote island where a group of pilgrims travels annually to visit its monastery. “Leshachikha” is a story about female forest spirits, sibling rivalry, and favouritism, while in “Yavdokha”, an illiterate rustic woman, gets a letter about her son, who is away fighting on the front, and heartbreakingly misunderstands what is communicated to her. In “The Dog”, a story about love, loyalty, bohemianism, and war, the spirit of the narrator’s childhood friend who labels himself her dog comes to her rescue in a moment of crisis. 

The stories in Other Worlds conjure up images of a bygone, faded Russia. These are stories about religion, occult, age-old customs and superstitions, and the supernatural drawing on ancient folklore from Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus but infused with the touch of the modern as they dwell on the realism of timeless human emotions. It’s a wondrous tapestry of stories where the mythical and otherworldly elements are skillfully interwoven into themes of unrequited love, unhappy marriages, family politics, and upstairs-downstairs drama among others.

THE TROUBLE MAKERS by Celia Fremlin

Celia Fremlin’s The Trouble Makers is a brilliant, absorbing, psychologically astute tale of fear, paranoia, the trials of being a housewife, and the malignant force of gossip.  We meet Katharine in the opening pages, a woman burdened by the stress of running and managing her home and family. With the children creating a ruckus almost every day which irritates her husband Stephen to no end, Katharine finds herself treading on eggshells as she struggles to maintain an equilibrium between such opposing forces as her husband and daughters. This, we learn, is the plight of quite a few women in the neighbourhood as they frequently gather to bicker about their husbands in a show of solidarity, secret glee, and even one-upmanship. 

And yet, all the women secretly agree that Mary is the one who has received the short end of the stick when it comes to painful husbands. Mary despises Alan who always criticizes her quietly and politely leaving no room for Mary to defend herself. But things take an unnerving turn when Mary’s daughter Angela knocks on Katharine’s door unexpectedly one evening. Turns out that she has been uncharacteristically left home alone, Alan is nowhere to be found and neither is Mary. After these shocking incidents, later, when Mary confides a secret to Katharine, a secret she claims she has told no other, Katharine finds herself caught in a maelstrom, as the subsequent rapid unravelling of events dotted with a sprinkle of suspicious occurrences involving a shadowy man in a raincoat increasingly leaves her bewildered.

ENDLESS NIGHT by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie’s Endless Night is a haunting, ominous, artfully crafted tale of greed, love, ambition, and deception. It’s unlike her usual mysteries featuring the drama-inclined Hercule Poirot and the psychologically astute Miss Marple in the sense that the tone feels more noirish as it culminates in an ending that reeks of despair.

Michael Rogers, our narrator, is an aimless drifter never sticking to a job, seeking new adventures, and refusing to settle down in the conventional sense. One day, he finds himself in the English village of Kingston Bishop where a sign for a house on sale catches his attention. Turns out the house is called The Towers, situated on a lonely stretch of land called Gipsy’s Acre, unoccupied for a long time and almost in ruins. Michael learns that it is cursed, but there is something in the air of Gipsy’s Acre that makes him want to buy it, find a girl he loves, and settle there. Told entirely from Michael’s perspective, there is a melancholy, dreamlike quality to the narrative, an all-pervading sense of doom that makes itself felt from the very beginning, of things not likely to end well, but we don’t yet know how or why. 

A DARK CORNER by Celia Dale

Errol Winston is headed for doom from the opening pages of Celia Dale’s superb A Dark Corner when he lands up one evening on the doorstep of the Didcots, a white, elderly couple. It’s raining cats and dogs, and Errol seems soaked to the skin while also coughing badly. Mrs Didcot, shuffling to the door peers at the paper he thrusts at her, which contains an advertisement for a room on rent. It appears that Errol has made a mistake, and has arrived at the wrong address, there’s certainly no room to let at the Didcots. Errol prepares to leave, but Mrs Didcot takes pity on him, particularly concerned with his hacking cough, and invites him inside to warm himself by the fire, while Mrs Didcot prepares a pot of tea. Deeply exhausted, Errol settles on a chair and falls asleep, and it is during this time that her husband, Arthur Didcot walks in.

In A Dark Corner, then, we find ourselves in classic Celia Dale territory, where we are given a glimpse of pure evil that lurks beneath an outward façade of respectability. The overarching premise is pretty similar to A Helping Hand – a couple taking in a lodger in an act of altruism which they believe sets them on high moral ground in the perception of society; how can their kindness be questioned?

THE LOTTERY & OTHER STORIES by Shirley Jackson

In this brilliant, disquieting collection, Shirley Jackson’s sharp gaze is focused on American suburbia, depicting how evil lurks in ordinary, everyday lives.

The titular story “The Lottery” is a menacing, suspenseful tale about the perils of herd thinking, and blindly following archaic rituals, where the process of conducting a lottery in the village is explained in great detail; the atmosphere of unease palpable throughout as the story hurtles towards its shocking conclusion. In “The Daemon Lover”, we see a bride desperately searching for her husband-to-be all over the city on their wedding day. “Charles” is a deliciously wicked tale of an impertinent child regaling his appalled parents of the antics of his classmate, the terrible brat Charles, whose consistently rude behaviour is enough to make parents quiver. The haunting, beautifully written “Flower Garden” is another excellent piece depicting the darker undercurrents of racism and hypocrisy that underline the daily interactions of the American middle class. This is Jackson at her best, exposing the horrors of urban America while also displaying her flair for subtle wit and black humour.

NO LOVE LOST: SELECTED NOVELLAS by Rachel Ingalls

No Love Lost is a wonderful collection of eight novellas that have all the hallmarks of Ingalls’s magical, subversive writing à la Mrs Caliban, and yet each is surprising and distinct in its own way.

In “Blessed Art Thou” one of the protagonists, Brother Anselm has an ethereal visitation from the angel Gabriel with the two engaging in an erotic, one-night stand. My favourite “In the Act” is a wonderfully bizarre and comic tale of a toxic marriage that unravels and culminates in a highly unconventional, should I say, threesome. “Something to Write Home About” is a disquieting tale about marital problems, mental illness, and denial unfurling in the mesmeric, haunting beauty of the Greek islands where the blue skies and dazzling sun mask the darker overtones that mark the story. In “Friends in a Country”, a couple in a toxic relationship is trapped in an isolated mansion with a strange weird cult and an army of frogs in the bathroom. “Inheritance” is an unsettling, dark tale of wealth, privilege, family feuds, questionable legacies, and fascist ideologies. The titular story “No Love Lost” is centred on a marriage, unfolding in a dystopian, ravaged landscape in the aftermath of war.

Ingalls’ writing is sparse and economical; the kind of brevity that creates a sense of urgency and intensity in her narratives. Well-paced, dialogue-heavy, and smartly written, these novellas often take the reader into unexpected territories as the lines between the real and the strange begin to blur. 

 WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD by Barbara Comyns

“The ducks swam through the drawing-room windows” is the arresting opening line that greets us as we are immediately pulled into the deliciously peculiar world of Comyns. A massive flood has inundated this small village leaving destruction and chaos in its wake. We are told that the hens “locked in their black shed, became depressed and hungry and one by one they fell from their perches and committed suicide in the dank water below, leaving only the cocks alive”, and as Ebin Willoweed paddles his children to safety on his boat, they observe the carcasses of dead animals floating by.

Steadily, we are introduced to an assortment of odd characters that form the nucleus of this tale, at the heart of which lies the dysfunctional Willoweed family.  As the narrative unfolds, a series of bizarre and tragic events befall the village. The floods at the beginning are just the tip of the iceberg, very soon, a mysterious and contagious disease begins to afflict the villagers and animals alike. This inexplicable disease spreads rapidly and no one knows who the next victim will be, although there’s a sense that it will come to roost in the Willoweed house eventually.

A unique blend of comedy and tragedy, Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, then, offers a piercing commentary on society, mortality and morality, power dynamics, and relationships laced with Comyns’ trademark off-kilter vision.

That’s it and thank you for reading. Any haunting, unsettling, atmospheric books that you recommend? I would love to know!

The Little Man from Archangel – Georges Simenon (tr. Siân Reynolds)

I have yet to try an Inspector Maigret novel, but I’m slowly making my way through Georges Simenon’s romans durs, having read and liked The Blue Room, Act of Passion, and The Krull House. To this list, I now add The Little Man from Archangel, to me the best of the ones I’ve read so far.

He made the mistake of telling a lie. He sensed this the moment he opened his mouth to answer Fernand Le Bouc, and it was really only from timidity and lack of self-confidence that he failed to change the words that rose to his lips.

So he said:

‘She’s gone to Bourges.’

Thus begins Georges Simenon’s The Little Man from Archangel, a dark but brilliant tale of identity, alienation, and paranoia set in a small French town.

Our protagonist Jonas Milk is a quiet, unassuming man, a bookseller in the town of Vieux-Marché, where he has lived for most of his life, seemingly well-liked in the community. The book begins with Jonas having his regular coffee at the village café-bar. It’s a Thursday, and his wife Gina hasn’t been home since Wednesday afternoon, but Jonas doesn’t seem too perturbed. Instead, what disturbs him are these seemingly innocuous questions by the locals commenting on not having seen Gina, trying to elicit more information on her whereabouts. At the time, Jonas has no clue himself but deems it irrelevant because if experiences are anything to go by, Gina generally returns home soon enough. And so he lies, out of a misguided sense of protecting his wife.

But her disappearance embarrasses him as do the questions. Gina, we soon learn, is much younger than Jonas, in her early twenties, whereas Jonas is forty. Gina is flirtatious, unfaithful, and often leaves the house for days without explanation. Despite her erratic behaviour, Jonas is somewhat complacent and patient, assured that she will return and eventually settle down in their married life, finding the peace he had promised her. When back from her escapades, Jonas never directly confronts Gina about the men she has been with nor does he display anger, backed by his belief that she is secretly ashamed of her behaviour, Jonas not wishing to shame Gina further. And so he internally makes peace with her promiscuity as long as she returns home.

Except that this time Gina hasn’t come home. As his neighbours casually start asking about her, Jonas gets entangled in his web of lies, insisting that she has gone to Bourges, vaguely aware that this lie will come back to haunt him if Gina fails to come back. Other elements also disturb Jonas. Gina seems to have left without any money, without even having packed a suitcase or taken a coat. But he realises that some rare stamps worth thousands of francs from his prized stamp collection are missing. Aside from a tiny coterie of stamp collectors around the world of which Jonas is a part, the only other person having an idea of their worth is Gina – one evening he had disclosed their value to her when she questioned him. Has Gina taken those stamps then instead of money? But where will she know to exchange them? In the niche world of stamp collecting, any prospective buyer would surely want to check the authenticity of those stamps and the seller and get in touch with Jonas. But no one has contacted Jonas yet…

As Jonas’s current dilemma unfolds, details of his past are fleshed out – the story of his origins as well as a glimpse into his marriage with Gina. We are told of how his family moves to France once the Russian Revolution breaks out, but while Jonas as a small child accompanies his father and mother to France, his sisters are left behind in Russia with an aunt. The father opens a fish shop in the town, and becomes known for his colourful, eccentric personality but eventually decides to return to his homeland. Shortly after, the mother follows her husband to Russia, while Jonas is sent to Paris for his education under the care of their relatives, the Shepilovs. But Paris, for Jonas, holds no charms, it’s too big and disorienting, while going back to Russia is not an option either, time has frayed his bonds with that country, the memories too blurred. So he returns to that small French town of his childhood, wishing to chart a life there.  

His marriage to Gina is orchestrated by Gina’s mother Angele, who believes that only marriage will save her daughter’s reputation. But the texture of their marriage is uneven. Entranced by Gina’s beauty and vivacity, Jonas in his own way loves her, but his feelings are not reciprocated by Gina, to her Jonas remains an enigma. Furthermore, despite Gina’s shoddy housekeeping, Jonas never complains, choosing to be more accommodating instead, even taking one step further by being kind to her despite her infidelity.

Back to the present, as the days steadily fly by, and Gina’s disappearance becomes more pronounced, Jonas becomes aware of how his standing in the community is not what he had thought it to be. All the locals he freely spoke to are now watchful and reticent, and Jonas begins to find himself increasingly alienated. He still goes about his daily routine, forcing himself to put up a façade for Gina’s sake he tells himself. But once the suspicion mounts, the atmosphere becomes tense and menacing and Jonas’s fragile sense of normalcy begins to crumble…

He didn’t deserve this, not only because he was innocent of anything they might accuse him of, but because he had always done his best, discreetly and without fuss, to live like them, alongside them, and to be like them.

He had believed, even a few days ago, that he had managed it, through patience and humility. Because he had been humble too. He never lost sight of the fact that he was a foreigner, a child of a different race, born in distant Archangel and transplanted, by the chance effect of wars and revolutions, into a little town in the French region of Berry.

One of the central themes explored in The Little Man from Archangel and the theme to which Simenon frequently returns is alienation and the outsider status of the protagonist. Despite being a Russian Jew, Jonas has always considered himself a Frenchman, having lived in the country, particularly in that small town for much of his life. With the Russian Revolution scattering his family, Jonas, left behind in France has had no contact with his sisters in Russia since then, although he often wonders about his elder sister Dusha, his parents’ fate is also unknown to him. He comes to regard the people of this small town as a family of sorts, always considerate and polite to them all. And yet it agonizingly dawns on him after Gina’s disappearance that he was always regarded as an outsider in that tight-knit French town despite living there for years and painstakingly trying to assimilate. Shocked and disappointed, he realises that his foreignness marks him as different, and he can’t quite escape the community’s inherent distrust of him when Gina goes missing (“Four days as if living under a bell jar, like those animals in laboratories that are being used for experiments and observed from hour to hour”).

Jonas also begins to wonder if his passivity is much to blame as the townspeople turn against him. These people can’t quite fathom his timidity; his personality and behaviour are so at odds with the other men in the village. Thus, his avoidance of conflict and unwillingness to stand up for himself further exacerbates Jonas’ isolation from the community. The novel also touches upon the ambiguity of guilt – how much is Jonas responsible for the possibility of a crime being committed or does his guilt lie in allowing himself to be complicit through his silence and evasiveness? Simenon also astutely depicts the dynamics of small-town life, where everybody knows everybody’s business, how quickly a community can turn against a marginalised individual, and where their collective judgment can become a form of persecution.

So why had they suddenly changed their attitude now?

He could have sworn that things wouldn’t have been like this if what was now happening to him had happened to one of their own folk. Overnight, he had once more become a foreigner, a man from a different clan, a different world, who had come here to eat their bread and take one of their daughters.

Bleak, tragic, and haunting, The Little Man from Archangel, then, is another excellent offering from Simenon as he masterfully builds the tension and suspense, all the while showing how silence and otherness can feed a community’s paranoia and accelerate an individual’s undoing (“He was realizing at last that he was a foreigner, a Jew, a lonely man, who had travelled from the other end of the world to worm his way like a parasite into the flesh of the Vieux-Marché”). Highly recommended!

Two Months of Reading – July & August 2024

We are nearing the end of September, but I hadn’t yet put up a post on my July and August reading, so here it is. I didn’t read much during these two months, but the books I did read were wonderful. These books were a mix of Kim’s #NYRBWomen24 reading project, translated literature for #WITMonth, and 20^th-century literature written by women. If I had to pick favourites, they would be Comyns and Kono.

So, without further ado, here’s a brief look at the six books…You can read the detailed reviews on each by clicking on the title links.

THE TROUBLE MAKERS by Celia Fremlin

Celia Fremlin’s The Trouble Makers is a brilliant, absorbing, psychologically astute tale of fear, paranoia, the trials of being a housewife, and the malignant force of gossip.  We meet Katharine in the opening pages, a woman burdened by the stress of running and managing her home and family. With the children creating a ruckus almost every day which irritates her husband Stephen to no end, Katharine finds herself treading on eggshells as she struggles to maintain an equilibrium between such opposing forces as her husband and daughters. This, we learn, is the plight of quite a few women in the neighbourhood as they frequently gather to bicker about their husbands in a show of solidarity, secret glee, and even one-upmanship. 

And yet, all the women secretly agree that Mary is the one who has received the short end of the stick when it comes to painful husbands. Mary despises Alan who always criticizes her quietly and politely leaving no room for Mary to defend herself. But things take an unnerving turn when Mar’s daughter Angela knocks on Katharine’s door unexpectedly one evening. Turns out that she has been uncharacteristically left home alone, Alan is nowhere to be found and neither is Mary. After these shocking incidents, later, when Mary confides a secret to Katharine, a secret she claims she has told no other, Katharine finds herself caught in a maelstrom, as the subsequent rapid unravelling of events dotted with a sprinkle of suspicious occurrences increasingly leaves her bewildered.

THE VET’S DAUGHTER by Barbara Comyns

The Vet’s Daughter is a stunning, unforgettable novel of loss, dysfunctional families, tyranny, vulnerability, and the longing for escape epitomized by the depiction of the protagonist Alice Rowlands’ harrowing life, as a lonely girl at the cusp of adulthood.

Alice’s father is a vet (lending the novel its title), a cruel and brutal man who given his volatile moods and temper not only terrorizes Alice but also his wife (Alice’s mother), a meek little woman suffering from poor health. Alice’s world is narrow and claustrophobic, made worse by her mother’s death shortly, leaving her utterly alone. Soon, her only source of support i.e. Mrs Churchill, their housekeeper, is unceremoniously packed off when the father brings the disreputable Rosa Fisher home as his companion. A steady, dependable man called Blinkers offers Alice a window to the outside world, but she is soon forced by another tragedy to return to London, where her fate becomes distressingly darker once her father uncovers her flair to levitate.

The Vet’s Daughter has all the hallmarks of an adult fairytale laced with Comyns’ strange vision where the fantastical seamlessly blends with the everyday, and the novel’s haunting beauty, despite its moments of horror and sadness, makes it an utterly compelling read. I reread this for #NYRBWomen24.

TODDLER-HUNTING AND OTHER STORIES by Taeko Kono (Translated from Japanese by Lucy North)

Taeko Kono’s Toddler-Hunting and Other Stories is a brilliant, unsettling, and provocative short story collection of marriage, relationships between men and women, motherhood, and maternal ambivalence.

The first in the collection “Night Journey” is about marriage and relationship dynamics seen through the lens of two married couples with an ending drenched in the kind of strange ambiguity that would go on to be the trademark of most of the stories here. “Full Tide” touches upon the themes of war and its impact on families, the contrasts between city life and suburban life, and the threatening undercurrent of family secrets, told in the third person from the perspective of an unnamed young, school-going girl who will soon be relocating from the city to the suburbs and beginning a new phase in her life. Easily, the most disturbing and confronting story in the collection is the titular tale called “Toddler-Hunting”, which predominantly deals with a woman’s ambivalence towards motherhood. “Snow” is a haunting, atmospheric tale of family secrets, motherhood, mental illness, and trauma set, as the title suggests, in the depths of a Japanese winter.

There’s a feeling of dread that permeates most of these stories and one could say Kono’s stories are sketches in the sense that she’s not interested in providing neat conclusions with all the threads tied. And yet, the collection is an immersive reading experience, particularly in its profound exploration of the darker, more complex aspects of women’s experiences. Kono is not afraid of confronting the reader with uncomfortable truths and challenging the societal norms that mold our lives. I read this for #WITMonth in August.

IN DIAMOND SQUARE by Mercè Rodoreda (Translated from Catalan by Peter Bush)

First published in 1962, Mercè Rodoreda’s In Diamond Square is a haunting, beautifully written tale of love, war, trauma, survival, and resilience set in Barcelona before, during, and after the Spanish Civil War that rocked the country in the 1930s. Told from the first person perspective, our narrator Natalia meets the forceful and charismatic, Joe, a carpenter by profession, at a fiesta dance on Diamond Square. Natalia is swept along, and after a whirlwind courtship, within the first few pages, Natalia and Joe marry and set up their home in a rented place near the square. Soon, the couple has a son and a daughter – Anthony and Rita – but Joe also starts breeding pigeons on the roof of their apartment. Gradually, this flock of birds takes over their space much to Natalia’s chagrin and frustration, the extra onerous burden of cleaning threatening to overwhelm her.

And then their imperfect yet seemingly harmonious life is thrown into turmoil when the Spanish Civil War breaks out. Joe goes to the front to fight on the side of the Republicans, Natalia is left alone with the children, battling uncertainty and crippling poverty until her life veers into a completely new direction.  This is a wonderful novel offering a deeply moving portrayal of a woman’s life against the backdrop of war, a country’s history, and inevitable change. I read this for #WITMonth in August.

THE CLOTHES IN THE WARDROBE (BOOK 1 OF THE SUMMER HOUSE TRILOGY) by Alice Thomas Ellis

“I’ve never known such a miserable bride. What’s the matter with you?” quips Margaret’s exasperated mother in the opening pages of the hauntingly bleak and deliciously witty The Clothes in the Wardrobe, the first novella in Alice Thomas Ellis’ The Summer House Trilogy. Right from the very first page and in the days leading up to her wedding, nineteen-year-old Margaret, our protagonist and narrator, appears increasingly morose and listless. Her impending wedding feels like an unavoidable punishment, particularly since her fiancé is unattractive with no redeeming qualities. For one thing, Syl Monro is a shallow, odious man, old enough to be her father (he is forty), and secondly, Margaret does not love him but passionately detests him instead.

This deep-rooted ennui and despair seething within her is not just a byproduct of her young age. The stifling atmosphere at home and her mother’s oppressive behaviour overwhelm Margaret, and she has a blurry notion of marriage being a means to escape, but the prospect of being wedded to Syl, Margaret despondently realises, is even worse. Into this bleak atmosphere, then, enters the fiery and free-spirited Lili, like a breath of much-needed fresh air, in whom Margaret sees a confidante and possible ally. With its wisdom and impeccable comic timing, this is a novella where conversations and internal drama take centre stage as opposed to plot and action, and yet Ellis’ sublime prose and gimlet-eyed observations underlined with glints of latent menace add tension to the story as it moves to its startling and satisfying conclusion.

HONS AND REBELS by Jessica Mitford  

First published in 1960, Hons and Rebels is a wonderful, absorbing memoir by Jessica Mitford charting her early life as a member of an eccentric aristocratic family, her political awakening, and her eventual departure from the social norms of her class. The period covered in this memoir spans her childhood, youth, marriage to Esmond Romilly, and the years leading up to the Second World War culminating in Esmond’s departure to the war front.  In that sense, the book is an amalgam of two halves – Jessica’s life in Swinbrook with her family before she meets Esmond which forms the first part of the book, and then her elopement with Esmond to be followed by marriage and their relocation to the States which forms the latter half of this memoir.

It’s a wonderful blend of the personal and the political, combining one woman’s journey of self-discovery with a compelling narrative about the political ideologies and developments of the 20th century. Despite the disturbing aspects of her sisters’ political leanings, especially the fervor with which Unity embraces Nazism as does Diana, Jessica veers left swayed by the ideals of Communism. In this memoir, we see the picture from her perspective, which combined with her wit, sharp social critique, and unique worldview makes it a thoroughly entertaining read. I read this for #NYRBWomen24.

That’s it for July and August. In September, I read three excellent books published by McNally Editions, one of which was for #SpinsterSeptember hosted by Nora on Instagram and Twitter.  I’m also reading Georges Simenon after a long time (one of his “romans durs”) and Hanne Ørstavik’s latest release, Stay with Me. More details on all these books will follow in my next monthly reading post.  

Hons and Rebels – Jessica Mitford

I read Jessica Mitford’s wonderful memoir Hons and Rebels in August as part of Kim’s ‘NYRBWomen24’ reading project but have only gotten to write about it now. I’ve always been fascinated by the Mitfords, and have a bunch of novels by Nancy Mitford yet to read, but I guess I was destined to read a book by Nancy’s younger sister Jessica first.

First published in 1960, Hons and Rebels is a wonderful, absorbing memoir by Jessica Mitford charting her early life as a member of an eccentric aristocratic family, her political awakening, and her eventual departure from the social norms of her class. The period covered in this memoir spans her childhood, youth, marriage to Esmond Romilly, and the years leading up to the Second World War culminating in Esmond’s departure to the war front.  In that sense, the book is an amalgam of two halves – Jessica’s life in Swinbrook with her family before she meets Esmond which forms the first part of the book, and then her elopement with Esmond to be followed by marriage and their relocation to the States which forms the latter half of this memoir.

THE MITFORD FAMILY: BOTH CONVENTIONAL & ODD

The memoir begins with Jessica’s childhood in the privileged world of the unusual and aristocratic Mitfords. Born in Oxfordshire, the sixth of seven children and called Decca by parents and siblings, we learn of Jessica’s secluded life in Swinbrook House, the Mitford family’s estate in the English countryside, with minimal contact with the outside world. When Jessica Is still a child, her elder sisters – Nancy, Pam, and Diana are already grown up, and allowed to have more freedom and their own set of friends. The younger children – Unity (also known as Boud), Jessica, and Debo (the youngest of all sisters) – are deemed by Mr and Mrs Mitford to be sufficiently happy in each other’s company (“My mother thought the company of other children unnecessary an over stimulating”). From an early age, Jessica displays a sense of disillusionment and restlessness with her stifling home life – the isolation, boredom, and a gnawing awareness that she is missing out on seeing and experiencing the outside world.

This is certainly more pronounced in their education – the younger girls are taught by a string of governesses, each lasting for only a brief period, and Jessica longs to study in a boarding school, to be surrounded by girls her age, but this wish is firmly snuffed out by her parents. Left to their own devices, Unity, Jessica, and Debo rely on their resources to keep themselves busy and this often takes unusual forms…

Unity, Debo and I were thrown much on our own resources. As a lost tribe, separated from its fellow men, gradually develops distinctive characteristics of language, behaviour, outlook, so we developed idiosyncrasies that would no doubt have made us seem a little eccentric to other children our age. Even for England, in those far-off days of the middle ’twenties, ours was not exactly a conventional upbringing. Our accomplishments, hobbies and amusements took distinctly unusual forms.

There are some wonderful moments of comedy in the first several chapters fuelled by colourful anecdotes about the various exploits of the Mitford sisters and the offbeat personalities of the Revereds (the parents, otherwise also known as Farve and Muv) told by Jessica in her witty and immensely readable narrative style. We are told about the poor governesses at the mercy of the three young Mitfords, especially Boud who is simply unmanageable…

She was the bane of governesses; few of whom could stand up for long to her relentless misbehaviour, and as a result we never had the same one for any length of time. They came and left in bewildering succession, and each replacement brought with her a new slant on the sum total of human knowledge.

But then, Miss Bunting enters the scene. The only governess to last for a relatively longer time, Miss Bunting is a bit of a maverick herself, indulging in mild shoplifting and encouraging the younger girls to act as her accomplices (“Like to try a little jiggery-pokery, children?”). Muv, meanwhile, relies on unconventional teaching methods while remaining suspicious of doctors and medical treatments; at the same time, the clashes between Farve and the elder Mitford sisters, most notably Nancy and Diana are also episodes filled with much drama.

Muv had invented a method of teaching which obviated the necessity for examinations. We simply read the passage to be mastered, then closed the book and related whatever portion of the text we happened to retain. ‘I always think a child only needs to remember the part that seems important to her,’ she would explain vaguely.

Nancy’s publication of her first novel becomes a major event in Swinbrook House, the peculiar personalities of her family members provide rich material for her characterizations, and the father is even pleased that one of the fictional characters is modeled on him. Immediately thereafter, when Diana’s secret engagement to Bryan Guinness comes out in the open, the Mitford household becomes fraught with tension. Soon, the lives and political ideologies of the sisters begin to evolve in significantly different ways setting the stage for much conflict. Nancy becomes a novelist eventually marrying Peter Rodd, and only later makes an appearance in Jessica’s life to coax her back into the Mitford fold after Jessica elopes with Esmond. Diana ends her marriage to Guinness which causes a rift between her and her parents, and from thereon she is forbidden to enter Swinbrook. Afterwards, Diana marries Oswald Mosley, a British Fascist, while Unity becomes obsessed with Hitler and Fascism immersing herself completely in that horrific, doom-laden cause.

Pam seems the only sister contented in the countryside, not wishing to fly away from home, choosing to live a quieter life as compared to her sisters. Of this strange bunch, Jessica is the only one who begins leaning towards the left, swayed by the ideals of Communism, as she yearns to break away from the bonds of her family and forge her own path.  

Growing up in the English countryside seemed an interminable process. Freezing winter gave way to frosty spring, which in turn merged into chilly summer – but nothing ever, ever happened. The lyrical, soft beauty of changing seasons in the Cotswolds literally left us cold.

It is perhaps ironic and even tragic that Diana and Unity, the two sisters Jessica was close to in her childhood should attach themselves to an ideology so far removed from her own.

I still loved Boud for her huge, glittering personality, for her rare brand of eccentricity, for a kind of loyalty to me which she preserved in spite of our now very real differences of outlook. When I thought about it, I had a sad and uneasy feeling that we were somehow being swept apart by a huge tidal wave over which we had no control; that from the distance a freezing shadow was approaching which would one day engulf us. Sometimes we even talked of what would happen in a revolutionary situation. We both agreed we’d simply have to be prepared to fight on opposite sides, and even tried to picture what it would be like if one day one of us had to give the order for the other’s execution.

POLITICAL AWAKENING AND REBELLION

We see how from an early age, Jessica begins to rebel against the values of her conservative family, finding herself increasingly at odds with their upper-class, reactionary views. Her political awakening is largely fuelled by Communist ideals and leftist literature at the forefront of which is Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s nephew who would go on to become the love of her life. Increasingly aware of how his political views and ideals match hers, Jessica assiduously keeps track of his exploits hoping to meet him someday.

Jessica meeting Romilly is inevitable, she becomes enamoured by his zeal and passion for political causes most notably the Spanish Civil War, one of the many pivotal moments in her life. During that time, Fascism rears its ugly head in Europe, and while Unity and Diana are captivated by fascism and Nazism, Jessica becomes deeply opposed to it. As the international political landscape threatens to explode, Jessica longs to escape her family’s conservative world and become involved in the international struggle against fascism.

ESMOND ROMILLY: THE LOVE OF HER LIFE

Jessica’s first act of true rebellion is her elopement with Esmond Romilly. Before their destined meeting, Esmond has already made a name for himself as a young, ardent socialist, fighting briefly in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. Barely nineteen, Jessica secretly leaves her family and flees to Spain with Esmond, an act of defiance that would cause a permanent rift between her and her parents.

Meanwhile, Esmond and Jessica live a nomadic, bohemian lifestyle, moving from Spain to London and eventually to the United States. Financially unstable and often living in near poverty, they take on various odd jobs to survive, and despite the precariousness of their finances, they are not ones to brood and worry, but rather face what life has to throw at them head-on and with much wit and cheerfulness. In these pages, Esmond, particularly, comes across as an incredibly charismatic and resourceful young man, who takes impulsive decisions and, who despite mounting hurdles refuses to be bogged down. Jessica is also a resourceful young woman herself, taking on jobs for which she lacks skills or experience due to the absence of a formal education but she somehow prevails. The interesting thing about their life together is how unequivocal her support for Esmond is despite his propensity sometimes to dabble in dubious ventures (at one point even trying his hand at gambling); she voices her concerns when required but eventually goes along with his ideas.

More importantly, we get a sense that despite their financial struggles, Jessica and Esmond are devoted to their political causes, and their marriage is fueled by common values, and a shared commitment to fighting fascism and promoting socialism.

AN ADVENTUROUS COUPLE IN AMERICA

Jessica and Esmond Romilly arrive in the US in 1939, leaving behind war-torn Europe. We are told how Esmond becomes increasingly disillusioned with Britain’s response to the rise of fascism, and the couple’s desire to start afresh, away from family and the violence erupting in Europe, prompts their decision to relocate to the US. Landing first in New York City, as strangers in a foreign land, the couple is unsurprisingly penniless, but they commit themselves to meeting as many people as possible to develop crucial connections and ultimately secure jobs.

The ‘contacts’ fell into roughly three groups, into which Esmond, with his incongruous mania for classification, began to list them. There were the Grant’s Tombers, those inclined to take us to see monuments of interest rather than suggesting cocktails or dinner; Possible Job-getters; and – since we had not been in America long enough to discover how few of its inhabitants really spoke in the accents of Peter’s enthusiastic rendering – the Genoowinely Innaresting People.

There are some marvellous chapters here on Jessica’s keen observations on the Americans and their ways and mannerisms that differ considerably from the British, the larger-than-life personalities and warmth of the Americans so at odds with the staid reticence of the British; observations laced with delightful touches of comedy and humour.

Then, in the pursuit of steady income, Jessica and Esmond find themselves in garish Miami next. Determined to capitalise on his interest in bartending, Esmond, through sheer force and charm, manages to borrow funds for purchasing a bar. But again this venture fails to achieve the kind of success they had envisaged. Moreover, Jessica is particularly struck by the nature of the bar’s clientele – mostly tourists and servicemen, a far cry from the politically engaged circles they had been a part of in Europe. The irony of becoming small business owners is not lost on Jessica, aware of the contrast between their socialist ideals and their need to make a living through capitalist means.

THEMES AND WRITING STYLE

Incredibly immersive, intelligent, and informative, while also punctuated with moments of comedy and sadness, in Hons and Rebels, Mitford dwells on an array of themes such as class and privilege, political ideology and commitment, and complex family dynamics. Her descriptions of the Mitford family are filled with humorous anecdotes, but she also reflects seriously on her personal transformation from a sheltered aristocrat to a committed political activist. Of course, she is born into privilege, but even when she teams up with Romilly, actively involved in their shared leftist cause, she is aware of the advantages their upper-class status has afforded them in sharp contrast to the struggles of the ordinary people. 

Yet our style of behaviour during much of our life together, the strong streak of delinquency which I found so attractive in Esmond and which struck such a responsive chord in me, his care-free intransigence, even his supreme self-confidence – a feeling of being able to walk unscathed through any flame – are not hard to trace to an English upper-class ancestry and upbringing. The qualities of patience, forbearance and natural self-discipline that the worker brings to his struggle for a better life, the instinctive respect for the fundamental dignity of every other human being – even his enemy – so often displayed by the Negro or Jew in his own fight for equality, were on the whole conspicuously lacking in us, or only present in the most undeveloped form.

IN A NUTSHELL

Hons and Rebels, then, is a wonderful blend of the personal and the political, combining one woman’s journey of self-discovery with a compelling narrative about the political ideologies and developments of the 20th century. In the earlier chapters, particularly, some of the aspects of the family’s political leanings are disturbing, especially the fervor with which Unity embraces Nazism and how the family largely seems okay with it. But Jessica is the exception, we are seeing things from her perspective, and therefore, from that angle, her wit, sharp social critique, and unique worldview as a member of one of Britain’s most eccentric families make this memoir a thoroughly entertaining read.

The Girls – John Bowen

I’ve had a wonderful run with McNally Editions this year so far beginning with Phyllis Paul’s marvellous Twice Lost in January to be followed by a couple of novels this month, notably Caroline Blackwood’s The Stepdaughter and Ann Schlee’s Rhine Journey, and to this bunch I’ll now gladly add another marvellous novel with its striking Edward Gorey cover, The Girls.

Chapter Two in John Bowen’s The Girls is a masterclass of coming timing, in which we see a delightful farce unfurl in slow motion in true cinema style, one that ultimately paves the way for a dramatic entry into the world of the titular girls – Janet and Susan – the heart and soul of this novel. And yet, the girls are not the central characters in this particular chapter; that distinction belongs to a pedigree pig that is being transported in a van by a breeder from Hereford to mate with a sow belonging to a certain Mr Wharton of Lower Beck. Travelling in a Land Rover, the breeder has securely fastened the boar in the trailer, a considerably arduous task (“it must be coaxed, manoeuvred by sheets of corrugated iron pressed gently against its flank”). But a long journey requires a break and refreshments, especially in sweltering weather, and what could be better than enjoying some chilled, delicious ale in a pub in a sleepy Cotswolds village?

The driver and the breeder park their trailer and head into the inn blissfully unaware of the drama soon to unfold. Along comes Tatty Wakeham, a local layabout, riding his motorcycle around the same time with his own pig across the handlebars. But it’s not Tatty’s pig that has escaped, the playful and all-knowing authorial voice, quickly informs us. And yet, Tatty is an unwitting actor in this farce – the unmanned parked trailer sparks his curiosity, suddenly without warning the bolts unfasten, the ramp hits the ground, and the boar springs out of the vehicle. Tatty, in a fit of panic, speeds away while simultaneously, a woman clad in pink jeans with her small dachshund emerges from around a corner. Utter chaos ensues. The boar, in a fit of rage, makes a beeline for the dachshund, and subsequent attempts by the breeder (now aware of the boar’s escape) to veer it back to the trailer only add to the overall mayhem. But this wildly wayward boar is not done yet, it has other ideas, and dashes into the gift shop, going on a rampage, destroying the display items as the girls try to chase it away. The unfurling of these scenes is laugh-out-loud comedy at its finest, but what’s also brilliant is how as this drama unfolds, Bowen digresses into snappy asides and sharp character sketches on the various inhabitants of the village who observe this circus from the sidelines, eventually shifting his focus onto the girls. 

It is these witty digressions and biting commentaries combined with an offbeat worldview that enhance the flavour of John Bowen’s The Girls – a superbly crafted, clever tale of village life, companionship, family, parenting, infidelity; a domestic horror of sorts set in a peaceful village. The strength of this novel lies in how it manages to be many things at once – wicked, charming, blackly funny, macabre, and unsettling lulling the reader into a false sense of calm with its idyllic setting before suddenly veering into dark, nightmarish territory.

As mentioned above, at the heart of this story are the titular girls – Janet Hallas and Susan Burt, who when the novel begins are shown to be partners and lovers running a gift shop that sells various craft items and artisanal food in a lush, tranquil Cotswold village. We learn that Janet and Susan have been in a relationship for many years now. They are a well-regarded pair in the village, participating in numerous craft fairs and other activities and consistently winning awards for their unusual products chief among which is their uniquely concocted elderflower wine.

A brief timeline of their relationship is subsequently provided. Susan first meets Janet at a particularly vulnerable phase in her life. We are told of how while training to be a teacher, Susan is overwhelmed by the rigors of teaching an unruly class (a requisite course requirement), and in a train compartment one day Janet comes across Susan weeping disconsolately, despondent about her future. Janet is elder than Susan by ten years but the two women hit it off and quickly begin spending time together enjoying each other’s company. Susan eventually gets her diploma but has no intention of teaching, while Janet, who was in Probation Service for some years, is also looking for a change. Wishing to be together and cement their relationship while at the same time veering their lives in a completely new direction, the girls decide to immerse themselves in village life and embrace the pleasures and simplicity of slow living.

Gardening, preparing for craft fairs, managing the dairy, running the shop with its assortment of delectable treats as well as their thriving mail-order business fill the girls with a sense of achievement and they settle into the gentle cadences of a bucolic existence, reveling in their private little sanctuary.

It expressed the girls, Miss Hallas and Miss Burt, their joint personality, their world-view, the lace and the Staffordshire figures bought by them at sales, the yoghurt, the butter, the jams, confits, the bread all made by them, the honey from their bees, the eggs from their chickens, the vine-leaves in which the hard round cheeses were wrapped from their vine, the clogs put together by them, the smocks stitched by them, even the Winchelsea potter had been Miss Burt’s Art Teacher at school and had inspired in her the most earth-moving crush.

In Janet and Susan’s world, time slows down but deepens their bond, and the possibility of threats piercing their well-constructed cocoon seems unlikely. Or does it?  As time passes (7-8 years in this case), Susan, the more restless and moodier of the two women, begins to feel claustrophobic. Life in the village with its connotations of bracing change and new beginnings seemed a wonderful idea when she was at a crossroads in her career, but now the sameness of the days begins to grate on her. Susan is discontented, and burdened with an all-pervading sense of going nowhere.

So it had gone for seven years. Consciously or unconsciously, the girls had fashioned a way of life which was as intricate as the web of any spider, the nest of any wren, and of which the purpose was not much to do with self-sufficiency or sweeping a room for anyone’s laws, but was a framework which would allow them to live together without hindrance and without being bored. In much the same way did the philosopher, James Mill, fashion for his son John a rational world in which to enjoy rational happiness, and only when John Stuart Mill discovered that he was not at all happy, and had a nervous breakdown to prove it, did that rational world fall to pieces. So now, in the summer of the pig’s escape, did Susan discover that she was bored, and the intricate framework quivered.

Susan yearns for a change, some time alone to travel and find herself and to set this wheel in motion impulsively books a solo trip to the Greek island of Crete.

In Susan’s absence, Janet’s loneliness intensifies, as do slivers of jealousy and wild imaginings (“Susan had gone away to discover who she was. Oh God, what if she should discover she was not Janet’s?”).  Luckily for Janet, there are more important things to focus on – the usual daily tasks to be performed while also getting their products ready for the Crafts Fair at the Inland Waterways Rally. On the day of this event, things progress smoothly for Janet – her stall is successful, the sale of products brisk. And then she meets Alan, a young, awkward man, also alone in his stall, selling offbeat musical instruments that are failing to attract customers. Alan is painfully lonely – his friend and partner Bob, always there with him at these fairs, is absent this time, and something about the similarity of their circumstances draws Janet and Alan together. A one-night stand ensues, but Janet has no desire to take it any further, her heart belongs to Susan.

Meanwhile, Susan’s Crete trip turns out to be a dud, not the soul-searching experience she had envisaged, and she returns to the village to an unexpectedly new development. It appears that Janet is pregnant, which means that she will have to tell Susan of her infidelity. When told, Susan doesn’t seem too perturbed and is much keener on the prospect of raising the child together with Janet. As the pregnancy progresses, Janet luxuriates in an aura of quiet contentment, while Susan plunges headlong into getting the house ready for the baby. Alan is a figure now relegated to the past who need not know that he has fathered Janet’s child.

When Butch, their baby boy, is born, the girls’ happiness knows no bounds – they start enjoying parenting immensely; Butch is an easy baby who fills them with constant delight. Until one day, Alan and Bob pay a surprise visit to the girls and upend their sense of calm.

Intertwined with this portrayal of idyll, lurks an air of menace and foreboding, at the heart of which lies the septic tank introduced to the reader in the first chapter. This tank is located amid the thick tangles of a shrubbery at the bottom end of the girls’ garden, and reeks of filth and rubbish, its stench occasionally wafting in the air carried forth by the winds, its murky waters capable of obscuring all types of bizarre things including dead bodies…

Bowen’s character studies are terrific; Janet and Susan are brilliantly etched protagonists – unconventional, and eccentric, harboring a dark secret that plunges them into a moral dilemma. Their bond and relationship have withstood the pressures of conventional society, Janet’s one-time infidelity, and Susan’s phase of stasis and boredom, but can it survive the burden of this horrific secret that must stay hidden? Of the two, Janet appears steadier; Susan when pushed hard displays tendencies of cracking, a trait inherent from her early years. When Janet confesses her one-time affair to Susan she is surprised by Susan’s calm demeanour, and her seeming lack of jealousy, which Susan ominously admits could come later. But it gradually becomes apparent that the affair and its implications have lodged in Susan’s subconscious, filling her with fear, of the growing feeling that their cocooned family life could likely be threatened. 

Sharp and psychologically astute, The Girls, then, is a taut and suspenseful tale laced with deadpan wit and pitch-black comic timing exploring themes of simple living, moral ambiguity, loneliness, family, and friendship where the concept of paradise seamlessly co-exists with the realm of nightmares and death. The girls’ garden itself is a microcosm of starkly contrasting worlds – on the one hand, is the beauty and splendour of myriad flowers with their splashes of colour blooming in this verdant space, while at the other end lies the dreadful septic tank filled with filth and slime that signals collapse and decay.

Deeply atmospheric, Bowen’s descriptions of slow living in the countryside are mesmeric – the steady rhythm of nature, the abundance of time and the languor of the days, the simplicity of daily activities – feeding the animals, baking, preparing jams and confits and so on, and the serenity that comes from inhabiting each moment, all of it palpable in the way the girls go about their daily life.

In terms of the writing, the novel feels like an amalgam of numerous styles while also displaying its brand of uniqueness. We see shades of Barbara Pym here in its display of humour and evocative rendering of village life where a sense of community and propensity to gossip go hand-in-hand. Into this is thrown a sprinkle of Barbara Comyns in terms of its off-kilter perspective and slide into the surreal, and maybe even a dash of Patricia Highsmith in terms of how Bowen plays with the reader’s perceptions of the girls, their thoughts and deeds. But a striking aspect of The Girls is also the voice – the omniscient narrator (who is the author himself) talking directly to the reader, always commenting on and questioning his characters’ actions and motives in a tone that is playful, sly, and astute. 

Hilarious, horrific, and even poignant, armed with a pair of unconventional female leads and infused with liberal doses of the surreal and whimsy, The Girls, in a nutshell, is a wonderful immersive novel not to be missed. Highly recommended!