Another lovely Persephone book today – you can see its slim volume in the photo here, but although it’s small in size, it’s packed with absolute gems, and is a wonderful read that will be a re-read sooner rather than later. Thank you to Ali from Heaven-Ali for the lovely birthday present! If you’ve not discovered Persephone Books and you like, broadly, women’s mid-century domestic fiction (although the list is far more diverse than that summary suggests), do pop over to their website and have a look, or drop into their delightful bookshop in Bloomsbury.
Mollie Panter-Downes – “Minnie’s Room”
(21 January 2015 – from Ali)
I tend to think I don’t like short stories, although I love those of Elizabeth Taylor and Dorothy Whipple, and I had been hearing a lot about this author and was constantly being told I’d like her, then read “The Persephone Book of Short Stories“, and had to add this one to my wishlist right away.
This is Panter-Downes’ “peacetime” stories and are accompanied in the Persephone collection by a book of “wartime” stories I will also have to get. They were published in the New Yorker in the 1950s to mid-1960s. Particularly the earlier ones, covering the just-post-War period, are still full of Land Girls and rationing, of drabness, greyness and terrible fogs, good behaviour and quietly desperate lives, especially of married women.
Husbands are boring or boorish, dreadful people want to buy your house, no one wants to deal with Mother, seaside hotel dining rooms are pretty always deadly and ageing is a horrible business … but there are lovely descriptions, one theme that comes through as you read them (desperately trying to eke them out but fighting the temptation to guzzle through them like a bag of old-fashioned sweets) being hairy tweeds and doggy faces, and the transformative nature of love is found in seemingly the most unlikely of places. Each story really is a small jewel to be savoured.
This book was part of my All Virago and Persephone / All August reading project, as part of the LibraryThing Virago Group.
This book was also part of my #20BooksOfSummer project, being Book 14 of the 20
This book would suit … someone who thinks they don’t like short stories, anyone interested in British lives just post-Second World War.
kaggsysbookishramblings
Aug 30, 2015 @ 10:11:04
Doesn’t she write wonderfully? If you haven’t read her “One Fine Day” I can’t sing its praises loudly enough. Plus I have three more of her books (the Persephones) now lurking on Mount TBR…. ๐
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Liz Dexter
Aug 30, 2015 @ 11:53:01
I haven’t read that one yet, no – this is my first volume of hers. There will be more!
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heavenali
Aug 30, 2015 @ 11:16:57
I loved Panter Downes stories, so glad you did too. I can’t wait to read London War notes, but I’m saving it – no earthly idea what for ๐
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Liz Dexter
Aug 30, 2015 @ 11:53:21
I’m going to put that on my Christmas Wish List, definitely!
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datz
Aug 30, 2015 @ 11:40:10
I’m about half way through the wartime stories, which are excellent. I particularly like the way that some characters drift in and out of the stories as you progress through the collection.
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Liz Dexter
Aug 30, 2015 @ 11:54:49
I can’t wait to get and read those ones, I started with these because of having loved Minnie’s Room but I think there was a wartime story in the P book of short stories, too.
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bellarah
Aug 30, 2015 @ 12:03:22
I really can’t wait to read some Mollie Panter Downes! I have a couple of Persephone collections waiting for me, which I’ll get to in October or November, if all goes to plan! Lovely review!
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Jane @ Beyond Eden Rock
Aug 31, 2015 @ 22:09:39
I’ve been adding Viragos and Persephones to the ‘must read soon’ pile at such a rate this month, and clearly this book should be there too.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 01, 2015 @ 12:39:35
If you’ve got one in the house, you should read it asap! It won’t take long, because you won’t be able to stop yourself!
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Book review – London War Notes (Persephone) | Adventures in reading, writing and working from home
Dec 24, 2016 @ 18:11:12