Well! I spent a while last week writing a nice little review of this book and today I discovered that not only was it not posted on the blog, it had disappeared from the drafts. Goodness knows how that happened. Most annoying.
Anyway what I basically said was that Antonia White wrote 4 novels all based on her own life -- normally not really a recipe for success, but these really are the exception. I have read three of them now, though not all in order. I started with the first one, Frost in May, then I read the last one, Beyond the Glass, and now I have read this which is the third one.
In this one, Clara Batchelor, now aged 22, is struggling to make a career as an actress. She is very much in love but despite her endless hopes her love does not seem to be requited, and before long she discovers that its object has married somebody else. Completely on the rebound she marries Archie, to whom she was once engaged, and the two of them set up home in a tiny, expensive and inconvenient house in Chelsea. Then follows the story of their short-lived marriage and a pretty painful one it is -- Archie is hopeless in almost every way, drinks heavily and spends what little money they have on that -- and altogether is not in any way a satisfactory husband.
Having read the book which follows, I knew what the outcome of that marriage was going to be and the reasons for it, but I was impressed by how delicately White handled what could have been a tricky issue to write about. More than this I cannot say without giving things away. It's no secret though that Clara has a severe mental breakdown in the final novel and it was interesting to see if there were any clues or indications in this one -- not many, I concluded.
These are really readable, touching and appealing novels. Not, I suppose, "great literature" (whatever that means) but still highly recommended, and I shall seize upon the one I still haven't read as soon as I spot it somewhere.