I’m glad to have been able to fit in another review of an interesting mid-century novel, kindly sent to me by Dean Street Press from their Furrowed Middlebrow imprint for review. Scott reviewed it on the Furrowed Middlebrow blog back in 2016 and it’s part of the summer offering from Dean Street Press – you can read about them all here.
I actually received Barbara Noble’s “The House Opposite” along with Verily Anderson’s “Spam Tomorrow” (reviewed by me earlier in the month) and asked to swap it as I was worried that one might be too horribly detailed about the Blitz – if anyone has read it, can you let me know (dead or injured pets or massive horror detail are not for me usually or even more so right now). Anyway, this is a novel of peacetime, just post-war, and very interesting indeed.
Josephine Kamm – “Peace, Perfect Peace”
(17 June 2019)
A book with a slightly odd structure: it starts off being about Clare, middle-aged at 35 and suffering an unhappy affair with a married man while she tries to write a second novel, but when she goes to visit hr friend and ex-landlady Joanna by the sea, the author seems to get more interested in Joanna’s battle with her daughter-in-law, Frances, over the soul of Frances’ son, Giles. Although we return with Clare to depressing London and her gas ring and dusty room, and also witness her betrayal of Joanna (it’s on a small canvas but has some gasp-out-loud moments), it’s this relationship that’s explored in huge detail, as resentment builds in Frances, all the while trying to make a home out of a slightly bomb-damaged and pretty manky flat. Poor old Clare is given a rather hastily sketched-in plot resolution, although she’s used for the author’s main theme.
Frances’ daughter June is a caution, and brings levity and hilarity to the proceedings, and post-war winding-down office life is well-portrayed, too, and the gathering of itself of a seaside town, but the main value and I think the author’s real main interest lies in its minute detailing of the privations, annoyances and humiliations of post-war life, from visiting an empty road house for not much fun to forgetting there’s no blackout any more or going into a lottery for a Christmas turkey. Published in 1947, it’s a fresh record which serves as an invaluable documentation of that time in British history, as well as being a perfectly readable and enjoyable novel.
Well done, Furrowed Middlebrow and Dean Street Press: another triumph!
Aug 29, 2019 @ 07:46:14
Does sound interesting Liz – we tend to forget how the privations carried on. Mr Kaggsy was born in the post war period and can remember the shortages…
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 07:49:56
There were a few details I’d not heard of anywhere else (the lottery for a Christmas bird being one of them) and I’ve read quite a few just-post-war books. I’d recommend this one highly on that score.
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 07:59:25
I love that expression ‘a caution’. Very 1947!
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 08:11:06
Well-noticed: thank you! This would fit your “interesting, but a bit more jolly than misersable” category, by the way! Any FM title would, actually.
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 11:54:28
I have ordered a paperback copy of this one, because it sounds so interesting. I have The House Opposite on kindle (kindly sent by Dean Street) so really don’t know how harrowing that might be.
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 13:31:04
I think you’ll enjoy it a lot. And hopefully you’ll read The House Opposite soon and let me know if it’s For Liz or Not For Liz!
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 18:04:43
This is the kind of story that my wife loves. Thanks for sharing.
Dead or injured pets are not for me too. I understand your feeling.
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Aug 29, 2019 @ 18:29:09
This is a great new imprint from this publisher, your wife might want to explore it further! And I really hate when animals put into books only for sad things to happen to them. I just read a really good book about horses however!
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Aug 31, 2019 @ 23:37:34
It’s easy to forget what a hard time England had of it after the war – Australia was enjoying a wool boom. Two I can think of who write about it were Christina Stead (Cotters England) and Neville Shute, a popular author who moved from England to Australia to escape the shortages.
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Sep 01, 2019 @ 17:19:57
I think it’s engrained into our memories here, however, this had so much detail, which made it fascinating. I didn’t, however, know about the wool boom! I have read Shute’s “A Town Like Alice” several times but never any of his other ones.
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Sep 01, 2019 @ 20:46:27
If you want to go any further down this byway, I reviewed Shute’s The Far Country and discussed these issues (shortages in England vs the wool boom in Aust.)
https://theaustralianlegend.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/the-far-country-nevil-shute/
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Sep 02, 2019 @ 05:29:22
Thanks for the link – very interesting!
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Book review – Doris Langley Moore – “Not at Home” @DeanStPress #FurrowedMiddlebrow | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Jun 12, 2020 @ 07:50:04