A Pink Front Door by Stella Gibbons

December 23, 2023December 23, 202316 Comments

My second book for this year’s Dean Street December, hosted by Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home, is Stella Gibbons’ 1959 novel A Pink Front Door. I didn’t love the only other Gibbons book I’ve read, Cold Comfort Farm – I know I’m in the minority, but I just didn’t find it as funny as everyone says it is – so I wanted to give her another chance. I’m pleased to report that I enjoyed this one much more.

The house with the pink front door is home to Daisy and James Muir and their baby son (whom Daisy always refers to as James Too). Daisy is one of those people everyone turns to when they are in need of help and who enjoys trying to solve their problems for them. In post-war London these problems often involve housing and the novel opens with Daisy finding new lodgings for Tibbs, an Eastern European refugee who is struggling to settle into a new life, and Molly Raymond, a young woman who keeps embarrassing herself by chasing after unsuitable men. However, when Daisy’s old university friend, Don, tells her that he is also searching for somewhere to live with his wife and three young children, this proves to be much more of a challenge. Daisy knows that Mrs Cavendish has the whole top floor of her house available to rent, but will that snobbish woman agree to share her home with people who are ‘not her sort’?

The novel shifts between the perspectives of some of the characters mentioned above and also several others, including Daisy’s elderly aunts, Marcia and Ella, who have lived together for many years since neither of their lives went quite the way they had expected when they were younger. Through the stories of Marcia and Ella, Gibbons explores some of the issues facing older unmarried women, as well as the different but equally frustrating ones faced by younger, married women – Don’s wife Katy, for example, who has a degree in chemistry which she is unable to use because she’s now looking after three children and being treated like a servant by Mrs Cavendish in return for the use of her spare rooms.

For most of the book, the plot moves along at a slow, steady pace; I would describe this as much more of a character-driven novel and I did enjoy getting to know all of the characters, even the unpleasant ones. There’s some drama later on when Daisy’s long-suffering husband begins to lose patience with being neglected all the time and decides to take drastic action – and then another dramatic development right at the end of the book which was unexpected and, in my opinion, unnecessary. Still, I got on with A Pink Front Door better than I did with the much more popular Cold Comfort Farm. I’m glad I decided to try Stella Gibbons again and am looking forward to reading more of her work now.

A Footman for the Peacock by Rachel Ferguson

December 8, 2023December 8, 202318 Comments

This month, Liz at Adventures in Reading, Running and Working from Home is hosting another Dean Street Press December. I hope I’ll manage to read more than one book for this, but I decided to start with one that was sent to me for review by Dean Street Press back in 2016. I do feel guilty about not reading it sooner, but had been put off by some mixed reviews, as well as that ongoing problem shared by all readers – too many books and too little time!

A Footman for the Peacock (first published in 1940) is a strange novel, nothing at all like the only other Rachel Ferguson book I’ve read, Alas, Poor Lady. It’s going to be a difficult book to describe, but I’ll do my best! On the surface, it’s the story of the Roundelay family who live at Delaye, a large country house in the fictional English county of Normanshire. In 1939, when the novel begins, the household consists of Sir Edmund, the head of the family, (who isn’t quite sure why he has been knighted – maybe it was a mistake), his wife Lady Evelyn and their two daughters, practical, down-to-earth Margaret and the more sensitive Angela. There are also three elderly aunts, two of whom haven’t spoken to each other for many years and go to great lengths to continue their silent feud, a cousin and an assortment of servants, including ninety-year-old Nursie, who is suffering from dementia.

Like many aristocratic families in the years between the wars, the Roundelays are finding that money is becoming a problem and the upkeep of such a large estate is much more difficult than it used to be. The house is falling into disrepair, they have no car and Lady Evelyn does the food shopping herself by bus. Despite this, the Roundelays still have the views and attitudes of their class and when it is eventually announced that Britain is at war with Germany, they display a shocking lack of interest in how it will affect anyone other than themselves.

The whole of the first half of the book is devoted to introducing the various members of the household, with some amusing anecdotes about their lives, and describing the history of the house and its surrounding towns and villages. Nothing much actually happens at all until the war breaks out – and even then, there’s not really any plot to speak of, just a series of episodes in which the family prepare their gas masks, cover their doors and windows for the blackout, and use any excuse they can think of to refuse to take in even a single evacuee. Their total selfishness and lack of compassion for those less privileged than themselves makes uncomfortable reading, but Ferguson doesn’t really make it clear whether she expects the reader to feel angry with them, to have sympathy for them or just to experience a feeling of recognition that, unfortunately, the way the Roundelays react to the evacuee situation is probably the way many people reacted and still would today.

Also in the second half of the book, the peacock of the title is brought to the forefront of the story – and yes, it’s a real peacock, who wanders the grounds of Delaye, bad-tempered, noisy and prone to attack anyone other than Sue Privett, the maid. There is an unusual connection between the peacock and the words inscribed on the window of a disused bedroom: “Heryn I dye. Thomas Picocke 1792”. Thomas Picocke, we soon discover, was a ‘running footman’ at Delaye in the 18th century – a servant who would literally run ahead of his employer’s carriage to smooth their journey and prepare for their arrival at their destination. Not a nice job and Picocke’s story, when it begins to unfold, is quite sad, as well as merging with the story of the Delaye peacock in a bizarre and unexpected way.

There are lots of great ideas in this book, then, but the lack of any overarching plot means the separate parts of the novel don’t work together as well as they should. It feels like a rambling, directionless mess, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it at all. Ferguson’s portrayal of an upper-class family’s attitude to war is fascinating (and apparently caused some controversy when the book was first published), the eccentric characters are entertaining to read about, and I was intrigued by the little touches of the supernatural in the peacock storyline. I would be happy to try the other two Rachel Ferguson books currently available from Dean Street Press, Evenfield and A Harp in Lowndes Square, but maybe not immediately!

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

November 29, 202324 Comments

The title of Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Tom Lake, doesn’t refer to a person, as I’d assumed before I started reading, but to a place – a town in Michigan with a theatre overlooking the lake. One summer in the 1980s, a theatrical group gather at Tom Lake to rehearse the Thornton Wilder play, Our Town. The role of Emily has gone to Lara, a young woman who previously played that same part in a high school production. Here at Tom Lake, Lara meets and falls in love with the charismatic Peter Duke, the actor who plays her father in Our Town and who goes on to become a famous Hollywood star.

Many years later, in 2020, Lara and her husband, Joe, are living on a Michigan farm with their three adult daughters, Emily, Maisie and Nell, who have all come home to be with their parents as the Covid pandemic sweeps across the world. While they help to harvest cherries from the family orchard, the girls ask Lara to tell them about her relationship with Duke. As they listen to her story unfold, they discover things about their mother’s past that makes them reassess everything they thought they knew about her and about themselves.

I loved Ann Patchett’s last novel, The Dutch House, so I was hoping for a similar experience with this book. Sadly, that didn’t happen, although I did still find a lot to like. It’s certainly a beautifully written novel, but I just found it a bit too quiet and gentle and I never felt fully engaged with the characters the way I did with the characters in The Dutch House. I know I’m in a tiny minority, though, and I expect to see Tom Lake on many people’s ‘books of the year’ lists in December.

Although the present day sections of the book are set during the pandemic, Covid is barely mentioned at all and it’s really just a plot device to explain why the family are all together on the farm with such little contact with the outside world. This provides the perfect environment for the three daughters to pass the time listening to their mother’s story without too many distractions – and a cherry orchard does sound like a lovely place to spend the pandemic. Something else which plays a much bigger part in the novel is Thornton Wilder’s Our Town; clearly the play and, in particular, the role of Emily are very important to Lara, but as I’ve neither read nor seen it I didn’t really understand the significance. It seems to be a play that is much better known and more widely studied in America than it is here in the UK and I wish I’d had at least some familiarity with it before I started this book. That’s possibly one of the things that prevented me from enjoying it as much as I’d hoped.

I do like Patchett’s writing, so even though this particular book wasn’t a huge success with me, I’m still looking forward to trying some of her earlier work.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett – #NovNov23

November 13, 202312 Comments

In this new novella, published just in time for Christmas, Janice Hallett returns to the world of her earlier novel, The Appeal. Once again, newly qualified lawyers Femi and Charlotte are sent a folder of documents and are challenged by their former mentor, the now retired Roderick Tanner, to read through them all and solve the mystery they contain. And once again, the mystery unfolds in the town of Lower Lockwood where the amateur theatrical group known as The Fairway Players are preparing to stage another play, with the aim of raising money for the church roof appeal. This time, it’s that great British tradition, the Christmas pantomime! This year’s choice is Jack and the Beanstalk and rehearsals are about to begin.

Sarah-Jane MacDonald, the fundraising expert from The Appeal, and her husband Kevin have now been elected as co-chairs of The Fairway Players, a move that not everybody is happy with – particularly not Celia Halliday, who believes that she should be the one running the group. Celia is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent Jack and the Beanstalk from being a success, but it seems that the pantomime is already destined to be a disaster and anything that can go wrong will go wrong. What has happened to the young couple who auditioned for parts and have never been seen or heard from since? Is it true that the giant beanstalk Sarah-Jane wants to use as a prop is made of deadly asbestos? Is it really a good idea to use a script written in the 1970s? And whose is the dead body that appears on the night of the performance?

Like The Appeal, this book is written entirely in the form of emails, texts, WhatsApp messages and other types of media. If you’ve read the first book you’ll already be familiar with many of the characters which will make things easier to follow, but if not I don’t think it will be too much of a problem as this one should also work as a standalone. The format of the book allows the different personalities of the characters to shine through very strongly, from bossy Sarah-Jane to snobbish Celia, so you should be able to get to know them quickly.

I found this a more light-hearted book than The Appeal, with lots of humorous misunderstandings and funny moments (I particularly loved Kevin attempting to buy ‘sweets’ to hand out to the children on performance night and accidentally purchasing something completely different instead). I felt that Hallett was trying to make this an entertaining festive read rather than a more serious crime novel, which does mean that the actual mystery is quite weak. The solution relies heavily on information that is only revealed by Tanner at the end of the book and I think it would be almost impossible to solve otherwise. As Tanner already knows all the answers, he doesn’t really need Charlotte and Femi’s assistance and there’s a sense that he has set them this task simply as a problem-solving exercise and to see what they will do with what they’ve learned.

Despite the mystery not being very strong, I enjoyed this book for the characters, the humour and the insights into staging a Christmas pantomime. Hallett’s next novel, The Examiner, out next year, seems to be unrelated to this one, but I wonder whether she’ll return to the Fairway Players in the future for another book.

Thanks to Viper for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Water by John Boyne – #NovNov23

November 7, 202315 Comments

Water is the first in a planned quartet of novellas named after the four elements and linked by some shared characters and themes. I’ve enjoyed many of John Boyne’s longer novels so I was intrigued to see what he could do with a shorter format.

We begin with Vanessa Carvin arriving on an island off the coast of Ireland where she has rented a cottage in the hope of escaping from her past and starting a new life for herself. The first thing she does when she gets there is cut her hair and change her name to Willow, before settling into a quiet existence, going for walks, attending church and trying not to attract too much attention to herself.

The whole book is narrated by Willow and she reveals her secrets to the reader slowly, when she is ready to do so, but we know from the start that something has gone badly wrong with her marriage to Brendan Carvin, Director of the National Swimming Federation. Where is he now? What happened to their eldest daughter, Emma? Why is Willow estranged from her younger daughter, Rebecca, who refuses to answer her texts and keeps blocking Willow’s number? It takes a while for the truth to emerge but, once it does, it gives Boyne the opportunity to return to the themes he has explored in other books such as A History of Loneliness and All the Broken Places (Father Odran Yates, protagonist of the former, is even referred to once or twice as a friend of Brendan’s, strengthening the tie between the two books). These themes include the questions of whether we can be considered complicit in another person’s crimes just by choosing to look the other way when our instincts tells us something is wrong and whether there is always more we could and should have done.

Water is the title of the book, but that element is also worked into the novel in a variety of different ways. Not only is Willow’s husband a swimming coach, but the sea has a role to play in the fate of one of the other characters and Willow’s own name refers to a tree that grows by water. And of course, the island itself is surrounded by water, both physically and metaphorically separating Willow from her old life in Dublin. For such a short book (176 pages in the hardback edition) it’s a very powerful one. It deals with some difficult and uncomfortable topics but, as I’ve come to expect from Boyne, there are also some humorous moments to lighten the mood. I can’t wait to see how he tackles the other three elements; I’m already looking forward to the second book in the series, Earth, which is due in May 2024.

Thanks to Doubleday for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Benighted by J.B. Priestley

October 30, 202316 Comments

This is the first book I’ve read by J.B. Priestley and a great choice for this time of year. Published in 1927, it was filmed as The Old Dark House in 1935, although I don’t think I’ve seen it so can’t comment on how similar or different it is from the book.

The novel begins as married couple Philip and Margaret Waverton, accompanied by their friend Roger Penderel, get caught in a storm as they try to drive home through the Welsh countryside one night. The rain is torrential and with the roads starting to become impassable, they decide to seek shelter in an old, crumbling mansion, the only house they can see for miles around. It doesn’t look very inviting…

It was the house itself that was so quiet. Driving up like this, you expected a bustle, shadows hurrying across the blinds, curtains lifted, doors flung open. But so far this house hadn’t given the slightest sign in spite of its lighted windows. It seemed strangely turned in upon itself, showing nothing but a blank face in the night. You could hardly imagine that great front door ever being opened at all.

The door is eventually opened by a huge, silent butler and as the trio step inside their sense of unease continues to grow. The house is home to the Femms – the strange and nervous Horace and his fanatically religious sister, Rebecca. The Femms reluctantly allow them to stay for the night, but it quickly becomes obvious to the visitors that they’re unlikely to get much sleep in such an eerie, unwelcoming house. After a while, they are joined by two more people looking for shelter – Sir William Porterhouse, a wealthy businessman, and Gladys du Cane, a chorus girl. The rest of the novel describes the unpleasant, frightening experiences the five guests undergo during their night in the Femm household. It seems that there are other members of the Femm family who haven’t made an appearance yet – and when they do, the guests begin to wish they had stayed outside in the storm after all!

Benighted is a short, quick read and one that I enjoyed, with a few reservations. By the standards of modern horror novels it’s quite tame – I would describe it as creepy and unsettling rather than terrifying – but as a book from the 1920s, it has clearly had a huge influence on what Orrin Grey in the introduction describes as the ‘old dark house’ subgenre. There’s nothing supernatural going on in the novel; the creepiness comes entirely from the portrayal of the odd, sinister characters, the descriptions of the dark, desolate house and the mystery surrounding a locked door upstairs and what lies behind it. I was intrigued to learn that the Addams Family creator, Charles Addams, drew the illustrations for the opening sequence of a 1963 remake of The Old Dark House, because there are some unmistakable similarities between the Addams and Femm families!

Perhaps the real horrors being described in Benighted are the effects of the First World War, which ended less than ten years before the book was published. Priestley himself is quoted as saying that the novel’s characters are “forms of postwar pessimism pretending to be people”. This leads to some long passages in which Priestley explores the mental states of the characters and how they are affected by their night in the Femm house, most notably Roger Penderel who has experienced various traumas during the war, including the loss of his brother at the Battle of Passchendaele, and has been left disillusioned and cynical. These passages added depth to the novel, but at the same time I felt that they slowed down the pace of the plot and pulled me out of the story. In the end, this book didn’t quite work for me either as a horror novel or a psychological study, but it was still an interesting read and has definitely piqued my interest in reading more books by Priestley.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken – #1962Club

October 19, 2023October 23, 202336 Comments

I’ve read and enjoyed several of Joan Aiken’s adult novels over the last few years – my favourite so far is Castle Barebane – but until now I’ve never read the book for which she’s most famous, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. It was first published in 1962, which makes it a perfect choice for this week’s 1962 Club hosted by Simon and Karen.

This is obviously a book aimed at younger readers and I’m sure I would have loved it if I’d read it as a child; however, I was pleased to find that it also has a lot to offer an adult reader. I’m definitely planning to continue with the next book in the series.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is set in England in an alternate history where the Stuarts are still on the throne in the 19th century. It’s 1832, early in the reign of King James III, and a tunnel between Dover and Calais has recently been completed, allowing the migration of a large number of wolves from Europe. In reality, of course, the Channel Tunnel wouldn’t open until 1994, so Joan Aiken really was ahead of her time – although obviously the idea had existed in theory for much longer! Other than the tunnel and the presence of wolves, the world described in this book doesn’t seem very different from the real world of 1832, but I’m assuming the alternate history element becomes more significant later in the series.

Being a children’s book, the story is told from the perspectives of two children – Bonnie and Sylvia Green. Sylvia, an orphan, lives in London with her elderly Aunt Jane, but at the beginning of the novel she travels north by train to Willoughby Chase to stay with her cousin Bonnie. Bonnie’s parents, Sir Willoughby and Lady Green, are going abroad for health reasons and have engaged a governess, Miss Letitia Slighcarp, to take care of the children while they are away.

Left alone with Miss Slighcarp, the girls discover that their new governess is not what she claims to be and has another motive for coming to Willoughby Chase. Soon Bonnie and Sylvia are sent off to a horrible school for orphans run by the cruel Gertrude Brisket. Hungry and miserable, they begin to plan a daring escape, but will they succeed – and if so, where will they go? Will their friend, Simon the goose-boy, be able to help them? And what exactly is Miss Slighcarp planning to do now that she is in full control of Willoughby Chase?

Now that I’ve read this book I can see why it is considered a children’s classic and has been so popular with generations of younger readers over the years. It has an exciting plot, child protagonists to relate to, kindly adult characters to love and villainous ones to hate, and an atmospheric setting with snowy, icy landscapes and packs of wolves roaming the countryside. Speaking of the wolves, they play a big part in two memorable scenes near the beginning of the book, but are barely mentioned after that as the human ‘wolves’ come to the forefront of the story instead. The influence of Victorian literature on Aiken’s writing is also very obvious, from the Dickensian names of the characters – Letitia Slighcarp, Josiah Grimshaw, Mr Gripe, Mr Wilderness – to the portrayal of Mrs Brisket’s school, surely inspired by Lowood School in Jane Eyre.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and just wish I hadn’t come to it so late! I’m already looking forward to reading the second one in the series, Black Hearts in Battersea.