Favourite Books by 20th Century Women Writers – A Baker’s Dozen

On the eve of International Women’s Day, I am showcasing books from the 20^th century written by some of my favourite women writers; books that I had the joy of discovering in recent years. I’m sure I have left out quite a few and there are so many more I’ve yet to read, and in that sense, it will always be an evolving list. But for this particular post, to whittle the list down to 13, I stuck to three rules of selection – (a) those published in the 20^th century, (b) those first published more than 50 years ago, and (c) those I first read in the last five years. Thus, these 13 books encompass the period 1900-1974 in terms of publication, and none are rereads. I have presented them in the order of publication. Barring two, you can read the detailed reviews on the rest by clicking on the title links.

THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY by Edith Wharton (1913)

Edith Wharton’s ‘The Custom of the Country’ is a brilliant, brilliant novel that explores the subtle differences between old and new money in New York in the early 1900s and the implications of divorce for women during that time. All of this is examined through her unique and unforgettable anti-heroine, Undine Spragg whose burning ambition to climb the social ladder has serious repercussions on the people close to her. Wharton’s prose is as ever top-notch, elegant and incisive.

LOLLY WILLOWES by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1926)

Lolly Willowes is a wonderful tale of a single woman looking to lead an independent life by breaking away from the controlling clutches of her family. Till her late twenties, Lolly is shown to lead a pretty sheltered life in the country where her father has a brewing business and an estate called Lady Place. But once she is in her mid-forties, Lolly feels trapped and stultified and longs for a change. During one of her shopping trips, she chances upon a flower shop and learns of a village in the Chilterns called the Great Mop. Soon she begins poring over books and maps on the place. It’s a region that tickles her fancy and on a whim, she decides to establish herself there and live independently.

The first half of Lolly Willowes proceeds conventionally as Lolly sinks into domestic routines both at Lady Place and in London, her role in both these houses being taken for granted. It’s in the second half that the novel slips into a bit of whimsy and magic as ‘witches’ come into play, but it’s all quite charming, and more importantly Sylvia Townsend Warner pulls it off. Not only does Lolly refreshingly choose to defy conventional societal roles, but the novel is also a statement that even in the mid or late forties, it is never too late for a woman to entirely change her course of life if she really wants to.

EX-WIFE by Ursula Parrott (1929)

Encapsulating the heydays of the Jazz Age, Ex-Wife is a wonderful, whip-smart tale of marriage, relationships, freedom, and women’s independence set in 1920s New York.

The book begins with Patricia, our narrator, telling us that her husband left her four years ago making her the ex-wife of the title. Through Patricia’s reminisces, we learn of her marriage to Peter at a very young age, the events leading up to their separation, and how her life pans out thereafter post that tumultuous period. Luckily, Patricia is not completely down and out; she has her job after all, and a new friendship with Lucia, another ex-wife five years older than her. The two women decide to rent an apartment together and thereby Patricia is flung headlong into a world of freedom, endless partying, men, and one-night stands. Slowly and surely, after many hiccups, Peter recedes into the background.

Ursula Parrott’s writing is sassy, wise, and sharp – snappy one-liners, easy camaraderie, and an air of irreverence are abundant and belie some of the darker moments in the book marked by heartaches, tragedies, disappointments, and wistful yearnings. Patricia’s narrative is laced with the wisdom of hindsight and there’s much humour in her retelling as there is poignancy and understated sadness.

THE WEATHER IN THE STREETS by Rosamond Lehmann (1936)

Set ten years after The Invitation to the Waltz, The Weather in the Streets revolves around the doomed love affair between Olivia Curtis and the married Rollo Spencer who is first introduced to readers in the final few pages of the first novel.

Lehmann brilliantly captures the stages of the affair as it pans out from Olivia’s point of view – the first heady days of the affair gradually when the world is seen through rose-tinted glasses, and then followed by moments of desperation as Olivia endlessly waits for Rollo’s call.  Lehmann manages to turn the ‘done-to-death’ tale of an extra-marital affair into something entirely new, and her sensitive portrayal of Olivia’s plight is truly heartbreaking and evokes the sympathy of the reader.

SCHOOL FOR LOVE by Olivia Manning (1951)

School for Love is set in Jerusalem during the last few years of World War Two. It is a poignant, coming-of-age story of young and orphaned Felix Latimer (possibly sixteen years old) who arrives all alone in Jerusalem after his mother dies in Baghdad. A relation of his father, Miss Bohun offers to lodge him in the guesthouse that she runs. Miss Bohun is miserly in her dealings with everyone and this only accentuates Felix’s sense of loneliness. And then one day, Mrs Ellis, a young widow, comes to stay in the guesthouse and stirs things up.

Manning has wonderfully brought to life the café culture in Jerusalem with Arabs and Jews gathering to discuss politics and art. But she has also captured with keen insight the gamut of emotions that Felix goes through – from despair and loneliness fuelled by his mother’s death to his infatuation with Mrs Ellis and its consequences. This book is another gem from Manning’s oeuvre.

JANE AND PRUDENCE by Barbara Pym (1953)

Jane and Prudence is another wonderful, poignant read from Barbara Pym’s oeuvre. Jane Cleveland and Prudence Bates, despite the gap in their ages, are friends. But the two could not have been more different. Jane, having married a vicar, has settled into her role of being the clergyman’s wife, although she’s not really good at it. Having studied at Oxford, Jane had a bright future ahead of her with the possibility of writing books, but that ambition fell by the wayside once she married. Prudence, also having graduated from Oxford, is elegant, beautiful, and still single with a flurry of relationships behind her. Prudence is getting older but has lost none of her good looks, and is an independent woman working in a publisher’s office in London.

As was evident in Excellent Women and Some Tame Gazelle, Pym excels in describing the eccentricities of parish life, its small-time politics, how a woman meeting a man can set tongues wagging, and how rumours of people’s lives fly thick and fast. She also raises the point of how in an era when women were destined for marriage, being single and living independently can bring its share of rewards.

WHO WAS CHANGED AND WHO WAS DEAD by Barbara Comyns (1954)

“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.

THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE by Elizabeth Jenkins (1954)

The Tortoise and the Hare is a brilliant, disquieting tale of the gradual disintegration of a marriage told with the kind of psychological intensity that makes it very absorbing. Our protagonist is Imogen Gresham, a beautiful woman married to the dynamic, successful, and distinguished barrister Evelyn, many years her senior. Evelyn Gresham is a man with a strong, forceful personality, quite demanding and opinionated. Gentle and sensitive, Imogen could not have been more different. We then meet Blanche Silcox, the Greshams’ neighbour in the village, about the same age as Evelyn. To Imogen, Blanche is an elderly, dowdy woman no man will look at twice. But what Blanche does not have in the looks department she more than makes up for in her sensible, matter-of-fact attitude. Not taking her seriously at first, Imogen is gradually disconcerted to find Evelyn begin an affair with Blanche, a development that pushes Imogen into a state of crisis.

The Tortoise and the Hare, then is a domestic drama of the finest quality; a simple, straightforward story that is deliciously disturbing. It’s also an interesting way of turning the concept of the extra-marital affair on its head –  an older man, rather than being besotted with an attractive young woman, falls hard for an older, plain-looking woman instead.

THE HOURS BEFORE DAWN by Celia Fremlin (1958)

“I’d give anything – anything – for a night’s sleep.” Thus begins Celia Fremlin’s wonderful novel The Hours Before Dawn in which the protagonist, Louise Henderson, is an utterly exhausted housewife. Her newborn son Michael insistently wails every night at an odd hour thereby disrupting her sleep. To not disturb her husband Mark and her daughters Margery and Harriet, Louise often takes Michael to the scullery to calm him down as soon as he starts crying in the dead of the night. The lack of sleep is debilitating for Louise because for a larger part of the day, she is trying to complete the household chores in a dazed state leaving her very tired. Her husband Mark is not much of a support and his meager attempts to show concern for her only end up stressing Louise more.

To make matters worse, the neighbours are judgmental, and consistently complain about the noise the children make, and Louise finds herself apologizing all the time. Louise is also wracked with guilt and inadequacy as she struggles with all the multi-tasking expected of her. Things begin to get sinister when a new lodger comes to stay at their place – Vera Brandon. As Louise’s suspicions about Vera grow, so do her exhaustion levels so much so that there are times when her dreams begin to merge with reality.

This is a wonderful novel, which besides having shades of a psychological thriller, also has moments of black comedy thrown in. In a world where it is taken for granted that motherhood is only full of joys, Fremlin provides a realistic portrayal of how challenging being a mother can be and how society is not always kind in understanding this.  

TWICE LOST by Phyllis Paul (1960)

Phyllis Paul was a very 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.

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson (1962)

This is a fabulous book – an unsettling tale about an ostracized family sprinkled with doses of dark humour and one of the strangest and unforgettable narrators ever – the eighteen-year-old Merricat Blackwood. Jackson is great at creating an atmosphere that is steeped in gothic elements – the creeping sense of dread as we read about the fate of the Blackwood sisters in their large home – even if there are no actual ghosts present.

A HELPING HAND by Celia Dale (1966)

A Helping Hand is a deliciously compelling, brilliant tale of lies, greed and deception, loneliness, and the heartaches of growing old. There’s something sinister about Josh and Maisie Evans, the novel’s other protagonists, in the opening pages. An elderly woman, Aunt Flo, lodging with them, has just expired, and the two are seen going through her papers and the contents of her bag. What also lends an eerie air to this chapter is the sense that Aunt Flo is not really related to them in any way and that Josh and Maisie had murky motives for taking her on. In the next chapter, we find ourselves in Italy where creepy Maisie and Josh befriend a wealthy old lady Mrs Cynthia Fingal and her niece-cum-chaperone Lena. Mrs Fingal and Lena resent living together and the Evanses, sensing an opportunity, offer to accommodate Mrs Fingal after their vacation.

Sharply observed, astute, and utterly riveting, A Helping Hand is domestic horror at its finest where Dale deftly and with aplomb exposes the hidden depths of sheer evil, the darkness prevalent in the banality of everyday life that often goes unnoticed. 

MRS PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT by Elizabeth Taylor (1971)

Mrs Laura Palfrey is an elderly lady, having recently lost her husband. When the book opens, she is on her way to the Claremont Hotel intending to reside there for the long-term, as staying with her married daughter is not an option. Life at the Claremont is fairly routine and dull. For the most part, the residents are on their own compelled to find ways to amuse themselves. Occasionally, friends or family members may come to visit which the residents eagerly look forward to. And then one day, while out on one of her regular walks, Mrs Palfrey falls on the pavement and is helped by a young man called Ludo. From thereon, an unlikely friendship develops between them. 

Mrs Palfrey is an exquisite and bittersweet novel on ageing and loneliness sprinkled with doses of humour. Taylor’s writing is gorgeous and she manages to make this a poignant read with observations that are biting and hard-edged. She has nailed to perfection the psyche of all her characters and the insecurities they have to grapple with in old age.