Death is a Word - Hazel Holt

The Sheila Malory series by Hazel Holt has always been one of my favourites & Death is a Word is the final book in the series. Set in the fictional town of Taviscombe in Dorset, my interest has always been just as much in Sheila's life, interests & friends as it has been in the various murder mysteries she's found herself involved in.

In this final book, Sheila's friend Rosemary's cousin Eva Jackson has moved back to the area after the death of her husband, Alan. Alan had been a journalist, a foreign correspondent, but instead of being killed in some overseas conflict, he died in London of kidney failure. Eva has a garage full of Alan's papers & Rosemary is keen to help her settle in to her new life, encouraging her to sort through the papers so they can be edited for publication. Sheila is less keen. A widow herself, she knows how raw emotions can be & tries to rein Rosemary in a little. Eva's son, Dan, lives in London & works for a foodie magazine. His relations with his mother are affectionate but a little remote. Both very private people, they've never been very close although he does visit her in Taviscombe & meets Sheila, Rosemary & Rosemary's formidable mother, Mrs Dudley.

Sheila's bossy friend Anthea, who runs local cultural centre Brunswick Lodge, is keen to get Eva involved in her many plans for talks & events. Luckily her attention is soon taken by another new arrival to the area, Donald Webster. Donald has recently retired from working in South America for a pharmaceutical company & seems happy to go along with Anthea's plans. He seems helpful, polite & enthusiastic but Sheila can't help feeling that there's something odd about a successful businessman choosing to retire to sleepy Taviscombe where he has no ties or family associations. Eva becomes interested in researching her family history & Rosemary is pleased that she's moving on from Alan's death. However, she's a little put out when Eva & Donald Webster begin going out together.

Sheila & Rosemary are shocked when Eva dies suddenly. She had been suffering from a virus & the coroner concludes that she must have felt so ill that she forgot to take the insulin for her diabetes. Eva's son, Dan, & his partner Patrick come down for the funeral & decide to stay on in Eva's cottage while Dan decides what to do next. He decides to continue the genealogical research his mother had started. Dan & Patrick seem content to stay at the cottage & Dan becomes very fond of Mrs Dudley, visiting her to ask about the family & looking through her photo albums. One morning, Dan is knocked down by a car & killed while on his usual morning run. Sheila begins to suspect that Dan's death wasn't an accident or a random hit & run. If Dan's death wasn't accidental, could there be more to Eva's death? Was there something in Alan's papers (there was that suspicious fire in the shed where they were stored) or could Eva's genealogical research have disturbed family secrets? Sheila talks to everyone, comes up with several incorrect theories but eventually realises that there can only be one solution, however unlikely it seems.

This is a very satisfying mystery with everything I enjoy about English small town (or village) stories. Sheila is a widow, with a married son, a dog, Tris & cat, Foss, who rule her life in a very believable way! I'm also very fond of Mrs Dudley, who dominates Rosemary's life but is really quite vulnerable & a little lonely. The small town atmosphere of walks by the shore, morning coffee & visits to the theatre in Bath is very inviting, everything a cosy mystery should be, really. It's a shame that there will be no more books in the series but also reassuring that Hazel Holt didn't feel the need to kill off anyone apart from the designated victims. Hazel Holt's books have been brought back into print in recent years by Coffeetown Press & her books about her friend, Barbara Pym, the biography, A Lot To Ask & the edited diaries & letters, A Very Private Eye, are now available as ebooks or POD paperbacks from Bello.

Jeeves & Anna

I've just had a couple of weeks leave & I've had a lovely time pottering in the garden & the house & reading quite a lot. These are a couple of the books I've read over the past fortnight.

I've never been a fan of prequels, sequels, missing chapters etc of my favourite novels. I'd rather just reread the originals & in the case of P G Wodehouse, I still have many books to read before I run out. So, I thought I'd give Sebastian Faulks' new novel, which he calls a homage to Wodehouse, a miss. However, my friend Barbara, who blogs at Milady's Boudoir (now there's a Wodehouse reference), recommended it so I thought I should give it a go. I'm so glad I did because it's terrific. I read it in two sittings & laughed out loud more than once. With Wodehouse (or a homage), that counts as a successful reading experience.

Bertie Wooster has been on holidays on the Côte d’Azur where he meets Georgiana Meadowes, the ward of Sir Henry Hackwood. Even though Bertie is known for getting involved in dubious engagements, he is really very taken with Georgiana but thinks she is far above his reach. She's also engaged to Rupert Venables, a young man with the money to dig Sir Henry out of a financial hole & allow him to stay at his family home, Melbury Hall. Back in London, Bertie's old friend Woody Beecham comes to him with a dilemma. He wants to marry Amelia Hackwood, daughter of Sir Henry, but has no money & so Sir Henry isn't keen. Either Amelia or Georgiana must marry money to save Melbury Hall.

Amelia has broken off her engagement with Woody because she says he was flirting with some girls from the village while Woody says he was just being polite. Woody asks for advice from Jeeves & an ingenious plan is put in train. Jeeves & Bertie decide to help Woody by being on the spot near Melbury Hall to offer advice. The plan also saves Bertie from the perils of a visit from his Aunt Agatha who has invited herself to stay. Being so close to Georgiana is another incentive. Unfortunately the plan is derailed by circumstances which mean that Jeeves ends up impersonating Lord Etringham, an elderly peer, & Bertie masquerades as his manservant, Wilberforce. The complications multiply &, although Bertie isn't at all sure about his vocation as a servant, Jeeves seems to be enjoying his new role a little too much.

Sebastian Faulks has written a beautifully judged novel that reproduces all the familiar tropes without becoming a caricature. He makes it seem effortless which is the point of Wodehouse. The great set pieces of the village cricket match & the dinner party where Bertie tips a bowl of gooseberry fool into the lap of Dame Judith Puxley are funny & heart-stopping at the same time. I don't think any fan of Wodehouse could possibly be offended by this good-natured & affectionate tribute.

The category I think of as Nice Books has almost totally disappeared, although fortunately there are still some nice books. It is difficult to say just what qualifies a novel for it. The absence of gross language is, of course, essential, as is the absence of sexual impropriety, at least on the part of the hero and heroine. Perhaps the most noticeable feature of a Nice Book is, even when accompanied by sad or unpleasant events, a feeling of geniality and happiness. It also requires a feeling of geniality and happiness.

Wendy Forrester is describing Olivia in India, the first novel by O Douglas, but she could be describing any of O Douglas's novels. Wendy Forrester's biography of the author shows just how closely the life & the novels were connected.

O Douglas was the pen name of Anna Buchan, sister of John Buchan, author of many novels & Govenor-General of Canada. Anna chose her pen name for her novels of domestic life because she didn't want to be seen to be cashing in on her brother's fame. All her novels are similar in theme & setting. Apart from Olivia in India they are all set primarily in Scotland. There's also a certain amount of autobiography in the novels. There's often a small boy based on Alistair, Anna's younger brother who was killed in WWI. Priorsford, where several novels are set, was based on Peebles, where Anna lived with her brother, Walter.  

The Setons, which I read recently, seems to be the most autobiographical novel she wrote. The manse family living in Glasgow, the move to the country when the father retires, the young brother, Duff, based on Alistair Buchan, the impact of WWI on the family. The only difference is the absence of Mrs Buchan. In the novel, Elizabeth's mother has died before the novel begins. Maybe this was because Anna, Walter & their mother lived together for over 20 years after Mr Buchan's death & Anna was wary of putting a recognisable portrait of her mother into her fiction. Forrester does see echoes of Mrs Buchan in other novels such as Mrs Laidlaw in Eliza For Common with her pride in being able to furnish a manse for her husband. One novel, Ann and her Mother, is about a woman writing a biography of her mother. It seems that Anna was writing a biography of Mrs Buchan in this novel.

Anna Buchan lived a quiet life. She wrote her novels, kept house for her brother, was involved in local activities & took some pride in the success of her books with readers & critics. This review in the Times Literary Supplement is a little condescending, it nevertheless sums up the appeal of O Douglas's novels.

Penny Plain is a very able and delightful book, but it is not the kind of book that the Marxian kind of person would like. Nor does the author like the Marxian kind of person. the author is not ashamed of taking pleasure in homeliness ... If we hold that the creator is entitled to deal with anything which exists, then he (or she) is entitled to talk about lamplit cheerfulness just as much as about passion and agony. The result, in this case, is certainly very pleasant.

Anna Buchan and O Douglas is a slight book of only 120pp. Wendy Forrester tells the story of the author's life simply & with sympathy & affection, both for the author herself & her books. This is a lovely companion volume to the novels & I'm looking forward to reading more of them in the future.

The Setons - O Douglas

Reading serendipity is a wonderful thing. I was halfway through reading The Setons by O Douglas (photo from here) when, into my inbox, popped a review of the book by heavenali. I hadn't realised that The Setons was one of the titles selected for the Librarything Great War theme read so there are probably quite a few bloggers reading it at the moment. Ali has written a lovely review which really says everything I wanted to say myself so I feel a little redundant. So, I'll just give a brief description of the plot & a few thoughts on the attractions of O Douglas's books for me.

The Setons are a manse family, living in Glasgow in 1913. James Seton is a well-loved minister to his congregation, a little remote but always practical & kind when help is needed. He's a widower & his daughter, Elizabeth, keeps house for him & his youngest son, David, known as Buff. Elizabeth has largely taken the place of her mother in the house & in the parish. She is attractive, kind, opinionated, funny & devoted to her father. There are two older brothers in India, Alan & Walter. The eldest son, Sandy, died while at Oxford & his mother followed him soon after. We meet Elizabeth's friends, the Thomsons & Kirsty Christie, also a daughter of the manse but less attractive than Elizabeth in looks or manners & less satisfied with her lot in life.

When Aunt Alice proposes that her husband's nephew, Arthur Townshend, should visit Glasgow, Elizabeth is dismayed by the prospect. She has missed meeting Arthur on the visits she made to her aunt & the picture she has of him is not an appealing one. She imagines him as very English, stuffy, self-important, used to the best of everything & likely to look down his nose at Glasgow & their family. Luckily, Arthur turns out to be a delightful man, interested in everything & everyone. He makes an immediate friend of Buff & is fascinated by manse life. He quickly becomes a close friend to Elizabeth &, by the time he leaves, their relationship has deepened into love, although unacknowledged. 

The story takes a serious turn in the final chapters as we reach 1914 & the outbreak of WWI. The Setons was published in 1917 so the outcome of the war was still unknown & this is evident in the apprehensive tone of the narrator. James Seton develops heart trouble & has to leave the ministry. The family moves to Etterick, their house in the country & they all adjust to a very different life. The book is very much of its time in the descriptions of young men going joyously to war in defence of their country. The constant fear & worry felt by those at home about loved ones serving in the war is beautifully described. These final chapters are very poignant & there is hope as well as sorrow as the book ends.

O Douglas was the sister of John Buchan. Her novels are all on similar themes - domestic stories about family & relationships with a lot of humour & always some gentle romance. Buff is another of the young boys who feature in all her novels & are based on a young brother who was killed in the war. Her books are comforting but not saccharine, always alive to the realities of life. O Douglas had very strong views on right & wrong, duty & responsibility & this is reflected in all her books as well as a melancholy that I find attractive. I love reading about a time & a place that seems so far away from our busy modern world yet is still recognisable, with characters who face the problems that everyone has to deal with, no matter where they live or at what time.

Eliza for Common - O Douglas

O Douglas wrote about what she knew. Eliza for Common is one of the best examples of this because the Laidlaw family, living in Glasgow just after WWI, is very close to the Buchan family.The Laidlaws are a family of the Manse, not rich but happy together & sure of their place in local society. As the book begins, Jim, the eldest son, is anxiously waiting to hear whether he has won a scholarship to Oxford. Eliza, the only daughter, is very close to Jim & is just as anxious as he is about his chances. The two younger boys, Geordie & Rob, are still at school & always in mischief. Eliza feels stifled by her life, restricted to helping her mother with housework & paying calls.She's at an age where she thinks she'll miss out on life if she doesn't grab it right now. She's rather be called Lisa as she thinks Eliza a dreary name, but only Jim tries to remember.

Jim wins his scholarship & goes up to Oxford. He's always been a writer & soon begins to have his stories placed in magazines which helps him pay his way at college. He plans to write a play, which upsets his parents as they don't approve of the theatre. When he comes home after his first term with an Oxford accent, Rob & Geordie think it's hilarious but Jim hasn't changed in essentials. He's determined that Eliza won't be left behind even though there's never any suggestion of a university education for her. Jim organizes trips to Oxford & London for Eliza & their mother & memorably takes Eliza on holiday to Switzerland.

Eliza for Common is a very domestic novel. The dramas of the story are domestic ones. Mrs Laidlaw, always an indefatigable worker, falls ill with a nervous complaint & completely gives way. The neighbours are kind & intelligent like Mrs Learmond or irritating & silly like Mr & Mrs Stit. Mrs Service, a minister's widow, who visits the Laidlaws every Friday & is part of the family. Jim's friends from Oxford, Ewan Cameron & Gerald Meade, visit the family at the farmhouse where they spend their summers, glorious summers of freedom & no responsibility.

As always, the characterization is excellent. O Douglas depicts her characters so economically but just a few touches can describe a whole life. Mrs Service movingly describes her joy at being able to marry at last when she & her husband were both in their 40s after she'd spent years looking after her parents. They only had 12 years together but, for Mrs Service, that was enough to be grateful for. Mrs Stit's main pleasure in life is boasting that her three daughters have all married ministers so she has three Manses to visit. Eliza isn't a model daughter. She's prickly & resentful when she'd rather be reading than helping her mother turn out a chest of drawers but she gladly takes on the running of the household when her mother is ill. Although as she says to Jimmie, "Who else is there?", which is true enough. The family relationships are also realistic rather than sentimental. Eliza's fury at her brothers' calling her Elijah & her fury at having to hold her tongue as an elderly uncle talks nonsense, are very true to life.

I enjoyed the picture of family life after the War. It didn't feel as though the book was set in a big city, it could have been in a village. The Manse & its social circle encompassed everything except when Eliza managed to escape & experience life beyond the Manse. I enjoyed meeting the Laidlaws very much. As always, O Douglas's small boys are delightful & very funny. Mr Laidlaw is kind & unambitious which infuriates his wife even though she has long ago given up hopes of seeing her husband as Moderator & herself walking into Church in a velvet coat. Eliza for Common is a gentle book about an engaging family. Greyladies have just published another of O Douglas's novels, The Day of Small Things, & I'm looking forward to read it as it's a sequel to The Proper Place which I read a couple of years ago.

Persephone Reading Week - Daddy's gone a-hunting

I hope I’ve just scraped under the wire for Persephone Reading Week with this review. After thinking I wouldn’t finish a new Persephone in time, I have done just that.

Daddy’s gone a-hunting is the story of Ruth Whiting’s life of suburban frustration & misery in the late 1950s. Ruth is married to Rex, a dentist who lives in London during the week & only comes home for the weekend. She has two younger boys at school & an 18 year old daughter, Angela. Ruth is at home, alone, surrounded by other wives in the same situation. They’re all bored, spending their time in gossip & shopping. Rex is unfaithful. He thinks Ruth doesn’t know but she is well aware of his mistresses. He’s an unsympathetic character, impatient & rude to his wife & daughter although he loves his sons & enjoys spending time with them. Rex’s relationship with his latest mistress, Maxine, is incredibly pathetic. He’s middle-aged, fat & unattractive yet he pleads for compliments & favours from this silly girl.

Ruth & Rex had to get married when she became pregnant & Rex resents Angela because of this. His whole attitude is that Ruth virtually trapped him into marriage & I think he justifies his affairs as his “revenge” for the way his life was hijacked. It’s ironic that he tells Ruth that if Angela ever became pregnant out of wedlock he’d throw her out. Angela does become pregnant to her truly awful boyfriend, Tony. The letter Tony writes Ruth worming his way out of paying for the abortion is horrible, self-serving & selfish. This dilemma, in the days when abortion was illegal, brings Ruth & Angela gradually closer together. Angela is a sulky, awkward girl who has always felt superior to her ineffectual mother. She’s ungracious in her fear although desperate for her mother’s help. It’s only at the end that they seem to reach an understanding. The machinations Ruth has to go through to help Angela (without Rex finding out) are frightening. It’s hard to believe this was just over 50 years ago. I was born in the 60s & the state of women’s lives depicted here hardly seems to have moved on from the 19th century novels I love so much. Thank goodness for feminism is all I can say!

Daddy’s gone a-hunting reminded me of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the classic story of the suppression of a woman’s life by the medical establishment & her family. The scenes of Ruth’s breakdown, when the awful Miss de Beer is brought in as nurse/housekeeper/jailer are beautifully done. Ruth’s despair is captured in the scene where she’s trying to escape from the house to visit a doctor who may help with Angela’s abortion. She creeps in stocking feet out of the house,

It was impossible to open the garage doors silently; but by now, even if she was heard, it would be too late. She put on her shoes, pushed the doors back & got into the car. The engine coughed, stuttered & died...She imagined Miss de Beer storming into the garage in her candlewick, her hair in armour, wrenching her out of the car, telephoning Rex...Reversing into the drive she saw the lit square of Miss de Beer’s window & an agitated figure wrestling to open it. She put her hand out of the car & waved cheerfully, keeping her hand fluttering as she swerved away down the drive.


The unreality of the lives of the women trapped in suburbia is highlighted at Christmas when the children are home from school & the husbands are home for over a week,

The women ran around in a fluster, like nuns forced on a secular outing. Between their husbands & their children they didn’t know where they were. The quantities of food made them, used to cream cheese & water biscuits, ill. They were agitated at the prospect of having to explain themselves, of having to live in public for so long. As the time of arrival came nearer they telephoned each other, breathlessly, as though for the last time.

I usually don’t read the Introductions of novels until after I’ve read the book as I don’t like to know too much of the plot. This time though I did read Valerie Grove’s introduction first. It really set the book in the context of Penelope Mortimer’s life. She was married to John Mortimer, barrister & famous author of the Rumpole books. Penelope Mortimer’s novels were created out of her own life to a great extent & this book describes a period in Mortimer’s life when similar things were happening to her. She had periods of mental breakdown, her marriage was blighted by her husband’s unfaithfulness & she lived a similar life to Ruth’s. Mortimer always worked though, at her novels & journalism, so her life had more purpose than poor Ruth’s seems to.

Daddy’s gone a-hunting is a terrifically readable book. The characters & situations are full of a kind of black humour as well as despair at Ruth’s thwarted life. It’s not typically Persephone in period but the themes of domesticity & relationships are very much in the tradition of other Persephone books such as Joanna Cannan’s Princes in the Land & Richmal Crompton’s Family Roundabout.

The other family - Joanna Trollope

The Other Family is a very satisfying novel about change, creating new opportunities & letting go of the past. Chrissie & her daughters, Tamsin, Dilly & Amy, have led a charmed life. Chrissie’s partner, Richie, is a singer. She met him in Newcastle, fell in love & convinced him to swim in a bigger sea. They moved to London, she managed his career & he was successful. But, he was 20 years older than Chrissie & left behind another life when he moved south. His wife, Margaret & son, Scott never saw him again. He never divorced Margaret so he couldn’t or wouldn’t marry Chrissie & after his sudden death from a heart attack, the problems begin. Chrissie & her older daughters are shocked & bewildered by the inevitable changes. Chrissie has always hated the thought of Margaret & Scott & been hurt by Richie’s refusal to marry her. She’s upset by the terms of Richie’s will as he’s left some important things to his first family. The legal ramifications of their situation mean that she will have only the house & she can’t afford to live there. Margaret & Scott are also changed & eventually liberated by Richie’s death. Margaret had managed Richie’s career in the early days & that’s still her business, she’s an agent. Scott is now in his 30s, single, a lawyer but with no focus in his life. The shock of Richie’s death & the terms of his will, force them out of their rut & into tentative communication with Richie’s second family. Amy & Scott are the first to make contact & eventually when Amy goes to Newcastle to learn more about her father’s roots, she finds a direction for her life that links the past & the future. Chrissie & her older daughters are pretty unlikeable, spoilt, selfish & very resentful of Amy’s attempts to see the Newcastle side of the situation. My sympathies were much more with Amy, Margaret & Scott. Margaret even has a cat called Dawson who reminded me so much of Abby. Are all cats the same if they have indulgent slaves at their beck & call? Dawson manipulated Margaret just as Abby manipulates me. Any novel with such a well-observed cat as a main character is worth reading. I love the domestic details in Trollope's novels. She's one of my favourite contemporary novellists. To me she's in a direct line from my favourite writers of the 30s & 40s. She emphasizes character, place & plot & I love that.