British Library Women Writers Blog Tour #FarMoreThanFiction

What fun it has been to watch the blog tour for the new British Library Women Writers! There have been wonderful reviews on blogs, YouTube, and Instagram – I recommend visiting the people on the list below to see what they think of Mamma and Tension. Spoilers: all the reviews were positive! The final stop on the tour is chez moi, and a bit about why I suggested these books.

One of the best emails I have ever received was the initial ‘feeler’ from the British Library, wondering what I thought about a series of neglected women writers from the first half of the 20^th century, or thereabouts. It was such a delightful opportunity that I did wonder if the email were a hoax, and was half waiting for the venture to take a swerve to requesting my credit card details. To be quite honest, I’d probably have handed them over if it would help get me the series consultant gig.

Suffice to say, nobody was attempting to defraud me – and, a year or so later, I have ended up in the privileged and wonderful position of seeing books I’ve recommended come back onto bookshelves. The response from readers has been just as wonderful to see – whether that’s laughing, feeling comforted, or raging against the ways in which women were treated a hundred years ago. And, of course, sometimes highlighting how little has changed over the years. Perhaps my favourite experience so far is seeing octogenarian readers welcome a book back into print that they had enjoyed with their mothers decades and decades ago.

Choosing the books to recommend is the lifeblood of my role, of course, and I’ve tried to suggest books that cover a wide range of experiences and tones. We didn’t want all the books to be sombre, nor for them all to be frivolous – the aim was some of each, some in between, and some that brilliantly combine the two. And none of the series exemplifies this last category better than Tension by E.M. Delafield, I think.

Delafield is one of the authors in the series who (like Elizabeth von Arnim and Rose Macaulay) is well remembered for some of her work, while lots of it is forgotten. Many readers will know her hilarious Diary of a Provincial Lady and its sequels, not realising quite how prolific Delafield was. Tension was written a decade before that series began – some of the humour is definitely evident. Anybody who has had a brother or sister, or who has seen young siblings together, will recognise the energy, absurdity, and loudness of Ruthie and Ambrose. The adults’ continuing horror at their presence is among the funniest things I’ve read in ages – but Tension is also a brilliant examination of how a woman’s life could (can?) be destroyed by rumours and by the different standards of sexual morality set up for men and women. There are so many wonderful Delafield novels that deserve bringing to a new audience, and perhaps others will follow in the Women Writers series at some point, but this felt like the perfect place to start.

Much less prolific, though equally wonderful, is Diana Tutton. Her funny, chaotic and delightful novel Guard Your Daughters has recently found a new generation of readers – and another facet of her writing is now available in Mamma. Any synopsis of the novel sounds quite scandalous – a woman starts to fall in love with her son-in-law – but the marvellous thing about Mamma is how sensitively and unsensationally Tutton treats the plot. It is such a nuanced, subtle, and even gentle novel – and shows the exceptional control and sensitivity Tutton has. Perhaps the central story doesn’t reflect many women’s lives from the 1950s, but there are plenty of elements about marriage, widowhood, and motherhood that illuminate the experience of different women in the decade.

There are four more titles to come in this series this year, and hopefully many more in years to come. I’m excited for everyone to read the additions that are coming – covering themes as wide-ranging as adoption, singleness, war, and murder. Until those come out, I hope you find plenty to love in Tension, Mamma, and all the myriad titles in the series so far.