Harriet Devine's Blog

The Haunt

I've fallen in love again. Not with a bloke, though -- with a writer. It all happened because I found Faber Finds.  There seems to have been a proliferation lately of publishers reissuing out of print books -- The Bloomsbury Group is doing it too, never mind Virago and Persephone. I can't help suspecting all this owes something to the bloggers, many of whom, like me, take great pleasure in digging up forgotten gems. 

Be that as it may, I'd never heard of AL Barker -- that's Audrey Lilian, by the way, though she preferred to be called Pat -- though she published many short story collections and eleven novels, one of which was on the Booker shortlist in 1970. But she caught my eye on the Faber Finds website, and I got hold of a couple of her novels out of sheer curiosity. Well, what a find she turned out to be.  The Haunt (1999), was her last novel and it's entrancing, funny, sad, and beautifully written. 

I was quite surprised to read on Amazon that this is described as a "short snappy thriller". At 183 pages I suppose it's relatively short, but snappy is not a term I'd use, and it's certainly not a thriller in any conventional sense of the word. Mind you I don't know what genre it belongs to really, and that's one of the great things about it. 

Set in Cornwall, the novel ranges over a large cast of disparate and eccentric characters, most of whom are staying in the slightly seedy Bellechasse Hotel. The place is run by Ernie Clapham, who inherited it from a Miss Pendennis, who had taken a liking to him when he was on holiday there as a disaffected teenager. Ernie and his wife are feuding because Ernie is taking too great an interest in the "unprepossessing, not to say slovenly" and simple-minded waitress Bettony. Among the guests are Charlie Olssen, an impecunious painter, who has brought a nude painting of his ex-wife Nina to Cornwall hoping to sell it to her current husband, and hoping, also, to rekindle some passion at the same time. He's been pursued from London by a girl called Senga ("Agnes spelt backwards") who is a journalist and is hoping to interview Piper, a reclusive author who's staying at the hotel. Sad, plain Mildred Gascoigne is also on Piper's trail, though he is unimpressed with her, thinking she resembles an earless rabbit. Then there are the Soulsbys, an American couple with a passion for the occult, and the Wallingtons, Anthony and neurotic Pam, who is sure some dreadful nameless things are lurking somewhere in the vicinity. And, down the road in a 1960s bungalow, are the Griersons, Owen and Elissa, who have moved there from Wimbledon, as "more a flight of fancy than a leap in the dark". The move hasn't been a success -- Owen spends most of his time attacking the weed-ridden garden until he develops a passion for the red-headed next-door-neighbour whose small son prefers to hoot like an owl rather than speak. The end of the novel is a terrific shock, but I'm not going to give that away, obviously.

At this point in a review I usually try to answer the question -- but what is this book actually about? Unfortunately in this case I find myself unable to say. I suppose it's about human beings and their quirks and foibles, but really you could say that about a whole lot of other books too. When the novel was first published this is what The Observer had to say about it: 'Barker has a rare economy of expression, but there's no rationing of emotion. Ultimately, this is as intriguing as a dream that refuses to divulge its meaning. It hints at hidden, perhaps disturbing, things but does so with a fragmentary, perverse charm.' I found this on Amazon, where you can see a lot of other writers and critics praising the novel and Barker's writing in general.  All I can say is that it made me laugh very often, that it constantly surprised me, that I loved the style which is spare, delicate and perfectly observed. 

So hooray for Faber Finds. I wonder if they'd like to send me any more books to review?

One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four...and Five

OK Simon I am following in your footsteps again -- here's my take on the thing that appeared on Stuck-in-a-Book yesterday. 

1) The Book I'm Currently Reading

Like Simon I am also reading Sarah Waters' Fingersmith -- not that great a coincidence as we are in the same reading group. It's a re-read for me but I am enjoying it at least as much as I did the first time around, though not being quite as surprised as I did remember the twists. Amazing stuff.

 

 

2) The Last Book I Finished

That's The Haunt by AL Barker, an author completely new to me but an absolutely brilliant one, discovered through Faber Finds. I shall be writing about this in the next day or two.

 

 

3) The Next Book I Want to Read

I think that might be Celia by EH Young, another author I came to only recently and now one of my top favourites. I've read four of her novels and I got hold of Celia a month or two ago but have been saving it up for a rainy day, which in fact it is, today -- first rain we've had in Oxford for about six weeks. Query -- why do so many women authors use their initials instead of their names?

 

4) The Last Book I Bought

That was The Blank Wall by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, which I reviewed the other day. I got it on ebay, a secondhand Persephone edition at a knockdown price. Loved it.

 

 

5) The Last Book I was Given

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons! Which I won in a draw over at Gaskella. My mother used to talk about it, loads of people have blogged about it, I can quote from it ("Something nasty in the woodshed") but I've never read it. Exciting.

 

Woman Making Pot Pourri

Herbert James Draper (1863-1920) painted this very lovely image. He specialised mainly in mythological subjects, of which you can see many here, but in among them there are some beautiful and sensitive portrait paintings and drawings.

Gillespie and I

I've always had a soft spot for unreliable narrators. I suppose this is because I like a challenge, and that's what you get if you can't trust the person who's telling you the story. Sometimes it's clear from the start that you can't trust them, which is challenging enough, but even better, in my opinion, is a novelist who teases you by dropping hints which slowly undermine your belief in what you are being told. Best of all, perhaps, is a novel in which you are never really sure of your ground -- to trust or not to trust? -- up to the very end, or maybe even beyond.

It takes a lot of skill to pull this off, I think, and a lot of skill is certainly what Jane Harris has got. Having produced a remarkably good first novel, The Observations, in 2007, she's now published this one, which I've been eagerly waiting for and, thank goodness, I enjoyed it just as much. 

Gillespie and I purports to be a memoir being written by one Harriet Baxter, an English spinster. Aged 80 in 1933, Harriet is living on her fairly comfortable private means in a London flat, together with her taciturn companion Sarah and her two pet caged birds. In her memoir, though, she is looking back to 1888 when, aged 35, she moved to a rented flat in Glasgow, wishing, she tells us, to trace her own Scottish roots and to visit the great Glasgow International Exhibition. Soon, though, she has made the aquaintance of the Gillespies -- the young and so far largely unrecognised artist Ned Gillespie, who she met once briefly in London, his wife Annie and two young daughters Sibyl and Rose. As the weeks go by, Harriet becomes increasingly close to the family. She wins the trust of the sensitive and shy Annie who agrees to paint her portrait, buys presents for the children, chats to Ned's mother. She also sets herself the task of encouraging Ned in his career, with some success as he starts to get some important commissions. All this seems very satisfactory until, one dreadful day, the two little girls set off to play in the local park and Sibyl returns without her sister. Rose's disappearance sets in motion a chain of events which result in, though by no means end with, a court case, the account of which takes up most of the last third of the novel.

And now I'm in a quandary. Much as I would like to tell you what happens, I simply can't. All I can say is that my whole perception of the situation and all my assumptions underwent a massive change as this section of the novel unfolded. Possibly my original take on things was naive, and others may have seen or suspected more than I did much earlier on. Certainly, looking back at the text, I can see that some of the clues, at least, were there. But enough said on this. 

All in all, anyway, this is a stunning novel. It creeps up on you rather but my goodness does it gather momentum as it progresses. In the end, I was awake for far too many hours in the night, unable to sleep until I'd got to the last page. Scary, horrific, tragic, and sometimes comic too, this is a book I can't recommend highly enough.

The Trouble with Alice

This novel got me pondering on what makes some books unputdownable. It's not a reflection of quality, as I freely admit to gobbling up a number of books which are far from being literary masterpieces but which nevertheless I feel impelled to get through as fast as I can. Other times, as with The Blank Wall which I wrote about a couple of days go, I can be rivetted by the plot but deliberately slow myself down in order to savour the book properly. I suppose it must generally be something to do with the nature of the plot, though -- a desire to see what will happen next. I don't have a definitive answer to this but I'm willing to bet that someone out there does -- so if that's you, tell me what you think.

Anyway, I certainly raced through The Trouble with Alice. This is the story of a young professional couple, Kit and Alice. As the novel begins they are on holiday in Jordan, taking a break from their busy lives and celebrating Alice's pregnancy -- or at least Alice is celebrating it, though Kit seems a little ambivalent. But a horrific car accident changes everything -- though neither of them is seriously injured, Alice loses the baby. And rather than drawing them closer together, this tragedy drives a huge wedge between them. Alice becomes increasingly withdrawn, Kit increasingly angry and confused. It seems as if there is no hope at all for what seemed to be a strong and loving relationship. But... well, things change and the ending, if not conclusive, is at least promising.

This is a very sensitive depiction of a delicate and painful issue. What I thought was particularly good about it was that the focus of the novel is evenly distributed between Alice and Kit, so that it's impossible to lay the blame for what happens on either of them, or perhaps you could say both of them are equally responsible. Alice's breakdown, for that is what it is, is extraordinarily well done. Her emotional withdrawal leads to severe anorexia, and I have never before read anything which seemed to depict that state so vividly. As for Kit, he is forced to confront all kinds of blocks and issues which have prevented him rejoicing in the coming child. If this all sounds a bit psychobabbley I can assure you it's not presented that way. What it really is is an exploration of relationships -- how they work, what stops them from working, what might possibly make them start to work again. And who does not find that interesting?

This is Olivia Glazebrook's first novel -- well done, Olivia. It's out tomorrow in hardback but you can already get it on Kindle for some reason. Thanks to Short Books for sending it to me!

The Blank Wall

And all that had happened to her would be, must be, pushed down, out of sight; the details of daily living would come like falling leaves to cover it.

Sadly I did not read this edition of Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's terrific novel --  I have a great fondness for tacky covers, though I must say this one is rather too tacky for the extremely delicate and moving subject matter of the novel. I read the Persephone edition instead, and I was very happy to get hold of it as I'd been longing to read it since I first heard of the novel in the Guardian's March feature on Ten Best Neglected Classics. 

In fact this illustration does represent, after a fashion, the event which precipitates the plot. Lucia Holley goes for a swim in the early morning (not in her undies, though -- that's a fantasy of the illustrator's) and discovers a dead body in a boat. The body is that of her teenage daughter Bee's extremely dodgy lover, and Lucia, knowing that her elderly father has had an altercation with him the night before, realises that the man's death was an unfortunate accident. 

He had fallen on the spare anchor and it had pierced his throat.

Father did that, she thought. 

She stood in the gently rocking boat, feet apart, tall and long-legged in her white robe.  Of course it means the police, she thought.  Then Father will have to know that he did this.  They'll find out why Ted came here, and Bee will be dragged into it. And I shan't be able to keep it from Tom. Not possibly. It'll be in the tabloids. 

Now what you need to know is that all this is taking place in wartime New York State -- the novel was published in 1946. Lucia's husband Tom is in the Pacific and she feels increasingly distant from him as she tries to hold the family together on her own. Like most women of her class and generation, she has led a drastically limited existence. Married at seventeen, she has depended on Tom for everything and now he is away she is struggling with rationing, difficult teenagers, and an increasingly frail ageing father. The children love her, but regard her with rather patronising pity for her innocence of what they think of as real life. But now, with the discovery of Ted Danby's body, real life has come and hit Lucia squarely between the eyes. Fiercely protective of the family, terrified at the thought of involving her young daughter in a scandal, Lucia decides to conceal the body, an act which will have the most appalling repercussions.

This is generally described as a crime novel, but it's not a conventional one. No crime has actually taken place apart from Lucia's panic stricken act of concealment. But crime soon seeps into her ordered existence, and she finds herself subjected to blackmail and facing threats from both the police and the dark underworld from which Ted had emerged to attempt his seduction of Bee. It also brings her into contact with Martin Donnelly, a one-time associate of Ted's, with whom she starts to forge an unlikely but powerful bond.

I've been writing this in an amazingly cliched way! But don't get the idea that this is a cliched novel. Far from it. What is so fascinating about it is what happens to Lucia as a result of the increasingly huge gap between the extraordinary circumstances she finds herself in and the everyday life that continues despite it all. Lucia must go to the market and decide what food to buy with her limited "points", take tea with the neighbours, make sure the children have clean clothes, and write to Tom over there in the Pacific even though she cannot think of anything sensible and normal to say to him. Suffering from appallingly insomniac nights, terrified of discovery, drawn despite herself to the complex, good-hearted Donnelly, she must still get up every day and choose what to wear, keep her hair tidy and her make-up attractive. She must fend off her children's anxious enquiries as she is forced to disappear for whole days and cannot explain where she has gone, and she must at all costs prevent her beloved father from realising that anything is wrong. As a result she discovers a layer of toughness she never knew she had, and she is astonished at herself for some of the things she is forced to do:

I really did that, she thought amazed. I concealed a body. Anyhow, I took it away. And when I came back -- after that -- nobody could see anything wrong with me -- anything queer.  Maybe I haven't got so much feeling,  after all. Maybe I'm rather too tough.

I'd better be, too, she thought, as she rose and began to dress.

I really loved this novel. It was absolutely rivetting, but interestingly so much so that I didn't want to read it too fast -- I took my time and savoured every minute. I said at the beginning that it was moving and so it is -- for Lucia's struggles and her pain, but also for the wonderful characterisation of Martin Donnelly and the relationship that develops between the two of them, which is brilliantly understated but so clearly there. I can't recommend it highly enough.

The novel has been filmed twice, as The Reckless Moment in 1949 and as The Deep End in 2001 (with Tilda Swinton). I haven't seen either and I don't want to because I can tell that both of them have changed the novel and I would be sad to see anything changed. It's perfect as it is. Read it!