It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for another Six Degrees of Separation, hosted by Kate of Books are my Favourite and Best. The idea is that Kate chooses a book to use as a starting point and then we have to link it to six other books of our choice to form a chain. A book doesn’t have to be connected to all of the others on the list – only to the one next to it in the chain.
This month we’re starting with The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, an epistolary novel which has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. I haven’t read it, but here’s what it’s about:
Every morning, Sybil Van Antwerp sits down to write letters – to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to attend a class she desperately wants to take, to her favourite authors to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.
Because at seventy-three, Sybil has used her correspondence – witty and wise – to make sense of the world. But beyond the page, she has spent the last thirty years keeping the people who love her at arms’ length… Until letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life.
Now, Sybil must send the letter she has been writing for all these years – and find forgiveness within herself in order to move on.
Mollie Panter-Downes was the London correspondent for The New Yorker magazine for almost 50 years, beginning in 1939. I’ve read and enjoyed her collection of short stories, Good Evening Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes (1). The twenty-one stories in the book originally appeared in The New Yorker and focus on the lives of British people during the war.
A book which shares a word in the title is An Evening with Claire by Gaito Gazdanov (2). Our narrator, Kolya, spends an evening in Paris with Claire, the woman he loves, while her husband is away. Later, when Claire is asleep, he reflects on his life and the events that led to their first meeting. Gazdanov was a Russian émigré living in Paris and the novel feels very autobiographical. I read it in an English translation by Bryan Karetnyk.
The name Claire leads me to Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These (3). This beautifully written novella is set in a small Irish community and touches on the scandal of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries – institutions for unmarried mothers and other ‘fallen women’ which became the focus of allegations of abuse and neglect. The story takes place in the winter of 1985, which was a particularly cold one.
Another novel set during a very cold winter is The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller (4). The book follows the stories of two married couples whose relationships become strained as they try to adjust to life in rural England during the winter of 1962-63, one of the coldest on record in the UK.
We’ve just entered spring here and are looking forward to summer, so I don’t really want to spend any more time thinking about winter. Let’s move on to a book with a summery title instead: The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick (5). This is the first in a trilogy of novels about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who was queen of France as the wife of King Louis VII, and then queen of England as the wife of King Henry II.
Another historical novel with the word ‘Queen’ in the title is The Queen’s Rival by Anne O’Brien (6). It tells the story of Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, who was the mother of two English kings – Edward IV and Richard III – and played an important role during the Wars of the Roses. Written in the form of letters and diary entries, it’s an epistolary novel, so brings the chain full circle!
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And that’s my chain for April. My links have included: correspondents, the word ‘evening’, the name Claire, cold winters, seasons of the year and queens.
In May we’ll be starting with Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy.
She Reads Novels 
Being reminded of Small Things Like These was almost visceral – that book astonished me. Lovely chain, Helen.
Thank you! Small Things Like These was so powerful for such a short book.
Lovely chain! I like that Molly Panter-Downes link. The Keegan and Miller are both favourites of mine.
Thanks! The Keegan and Miller are both beautifully written books.
Other than The Correspondent, which I liked, I’ve only read Small Things Like These (and look forward to the movie at some point) but I realize I’ve been buying Elizabeth Chadwick’s books for some time without getting around to reading them. I will have to look and see which series I own. The last one I read was The Winter Mantle.
My sister is a Clare and it has always annoyed her and my mother how often people spell it with an i.
I have a few unread Chadwick books on my shelf, although I don’t think The Winter Mantle is one of them. I like the spelling Clare – my cousin is Claire with an i and I definitely see that version a lot more often.
Nice first link!
Thank you!
Excellent chain (but then, if you’ve got a Claire Keegan, it would be)!
Small Things Like These is the only Claire Keegan I’ve read so far, but I really liked her writing and I’m sure I’ll read more.
Lovely links! I must get around to The Land in Winter and Mollie Panter-Downes and thank goodness we can move away from winter to summer themes!
Yes, after two books about cold winters I thought it was a good idea to link to a summer one! I remember enjoying most of the stories in the Mollie Panter-Downes book, so I do recommend it.
Nice chain–I especially liked seeing , Good Evening Mrs Craven: show up here.
I really enjoyed Good Evening Mrs Craven! I need to look for some of Mollie Panter-Downes’ other books.
Fab chain – I like the link from winter to summer!
Thanks! I didn’t want to dwell too much on winter now that we’re in April!
Well, we’ve had snow today…
Oh no! Strong winds here and some hail, but no snow.
I’d be very interested to read The Queen’s Rival, as Annie Garthwaite’s two books, Cecily, and The King’s Mother have exactly the same subject and I greatly enjoyed both. The Land in Winter, and Small Things like these were also hits with me. A really interesting chain.
The Queen’s Rival isn’t as well written as the two Annie Garthwaite books, which I really enjoyed, but it’s still entertaining and always a fascinating period of history to read about.
Great chain. I absolutely love the sound of your first one (and have never heard of her). And I am keen to read the Keegan having read another of hers which so impressed me, and having seen the film adaptation of Foster.
Small Things Like These is the only book I’ve read by Keegan, but I’m definitely planning to read more of them. I think Foster will probably be the next one I read.
I’ve read So late in the day but my reading group is going to do a book with three novellas by her, including that one.
i loved small things like these, such a perfect novel
Small Things Like These is a beautifully written novel. I’m glad you enjoyed it too!
Ooh, that cover on Good Evening Mrs Craven! The stories sound good, too.
The only book I’ve read from your chain is the fabulous Small Things Like These. For such a short book, it said so much.
It’s a great cover and perfect for that book! I remember really enjoying the stories. And yes, Small Things Like These is a very powerful book and just the right length – although it did leave me wanting to know what would happen next!
Mmm, I wanted to know what happened next with Bill Furlong and his family too, I suspect that while he wouldn’t have regretted standing up for the girl, he and his family might have had trouble from the community.