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Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey

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Brat Farrar: Amazon.co.uk: Tey, Josephine: 9780099536840: BooksMy old housemate, and dear friend, Kirsty has three abiding passions: dogs, lexicography, and talking about how great Josephine Tey is. It was she who gave me a copy of Brat Farrar (1949) last year, as part of a lovely package to cheer during lockdown, and I suspect it was me who got my book group to read it. It definitely came up during our discussion of Daphne du Maurier’s brilliant novel The Scapegoat, because the premise is very similar. (In most years, The Scapegoat would have been among my best reads – but 2020 had some truly brilliant reads.)

Brat Farrar is the lead character of the novel – yes, it is a name, and an almost wilfully terrible one. What a bad title! I wonder why she did it? Anyway, he meets a man who tells him he is a doppelganger for a neighbour called Simon Ashby. As it happens, Simon’s twin brother went missing when he was 13, seven years earlier. A suicide note was found, but his body has never been identified – one washed up that was assumed to be him, but it was beyond recognition. So Brat is persuaded to go back and pretend to be the missing Patrick – and, as the older twin by a few minutes, inherit the family wealth. Speaking as an older twin by a few minutes… I wish.

Brat is a nice man, and isn’t particularly swayed by the idea of an inheritance – what really gets him is the idea that he’ll get to work with a whole stableful of premium horses. Brat is an orphan (his name is a corruption of St Bartholomew’s Orphanage) and has made his way in the world through being on a ranch in America. Man, he loves horses almost as much as Josephine Tey thinks the reader loves horses.

It’s an intriguing set up, if one is willing to suspend disbelief, and I always am for some sort of coincidental premise. It’s the less vital parts of the puzzle that left me slightly more incredulous – for instance, Patrick’s family don’t seem that bothered about his return from the dead. They react in the way I might if I saw someone I hadn’t expect to see for another month or two. Patrick’s aunt and guardian, Bea, is a delightful character – wise, kind, very mildly dry – and I loved her, but she is representative of the whole family in her fairly lukewarm response. I suppose one can’t spend half the book with people fainting from surprise, but still. Anyway, they’re all pleased to see him and immediately taken in – except for the twin, Simon, who is rather stand-offish and the last to be convinced that Brat is Patrick.

It’s very interesting to read about, but there isn’t much tension. It suffers from comparison with du Maurier’s The Scapegoat, which is better in many ways but particularly the feeling that everything could crumble at any point. Because we know the truth of his identity from the outset, and never seriously suspect that Brat’s cover will be blown (he has been immaculately coached by the family friend), we aren’t left very gripped. It’s entertaining to read, but bizarrely unsuspenseful for a mystery novelist.

And then, lordy me, the horses. Perhaps the most interesting character is that christened ‘Timber the murder horse’ by my book group – he has killed a man by smacking him into a tree, and his one wish in life is to do it more people. I enjoyed reading about him, and Tey really gets into the limited psyche of a horse. Where I started skimming was at a race or showjumping or something, where there are pages and pages and pages of descriptions of horses and their style and pedigree and all sorts. Just leave horses alone, guys.

Brat Farrar was left me in the strange position of really enjoying reading it, but having piles and piles of caveats. None of those are Tey’s writing style, which is excellent. It’s one of those cases where there is the kernel of a much better book at the heart of a good book. Perhaps that kernel turned into The Scapegoat?

Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L’Engle

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Ever since I read Claire’s review of Two-Part Invention by Madeleine L’Engle (1988), I’ve been keen to read it. That was back in 2012, and I bought a copy while I was in Washington D.C. in 2015 – and have finally read it. Claire was right, of course, and I encourage you to go and read her wonderful review.

My only other experience with L’Engle is A Wrinkle in Time, and that put me off a little bit, because I didn’t like it at all – but my distaste for young adult science-fiction is weaker than my trust in Claire’s opinions. And Two-Part Invention could scarcely be any more different. For one, it is a memoir – in fact, the fourth in a series of memoirs, though I only learned that after I’d finished. In it, L’Engle largely focuses on her relationship with her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, flashing easily between their first meetings and their current experiences. Those experiences are dominated by a serious illness that Franklin is facing – this is no charming reminiscence. Often it is brutal, though undercut with the gentleness that is the keynote of L’Engle’s personality and style.

I love any book where a house is important, and Crosswicks is central to this memoir. It’s the New England farmhouse where L’Engle and Franklin lived for many years – sometimes splitting their time between it and New York, and sometimes becoming so immersed in the life of the small community that they ran the local shop. It’s where L’Engle is sitting while she writes Two-Part Invention, which has an almost diary-like feel at times. She is in the midst of her husband’s terrible illness, not knowing what the end of it will be – or even the next step. Parts are penned while they wait for individual diagnoses, as stepping stones either to or away from something disastrous.

On the other hand, she looks back to their meeting with somewhere between clear-sightedness and rose-tinted glasses. I suppose it’s the sepia of nostalgia that, even if it is scrupulously honest, cannot help being fond of those long-ago versions of oneself. I liked everything about this book, but I particularly enjoyed these sections. I find anything set in the theatrical world fascinating, fiction or non-fiction, and so I loved L’Engle’s memories of encountering the dashing leading man – and being surprised when he was interested in her, a bit-part player. One of the delightful things about Two-Part Invention is what I learned about American theatre of the mid-century:

Those of us on the lower rungs of the theatrical ladder were encouraged to work on scenes from other plays in order to develop our acting techniques. We were allowed to rehearse on-stage, although, because of the rigid rules of the stagehands’ union, we were not allowed to move any of the furniture. Occasionally we made bold to shove a table or chair out of the way, but we had to be sure we were not caught doing it (otherwise, the stagehands would have had to be paid), and we had to put whatever it was back in exactly the place from which we had taken it.

Two of my most interesting jobs in The Cherry Orchard were musical. At the end oft he first act I played a small lullaby on a recorder. It was necessary that I be in full costume and visible from at least one seat in the audience; otherwise, I would had to join the prohibitively expensive musicians’ union.

L’Engle doesn’t go into enormous detail about her writing career, though some of her books appear as milestones in other events, particularly her debut. It is a bit startling to see others appear in passing, when presumably they took a lot of time and energy to create, but I suppose L’Engle chose the thematic remit of the book – which is chiefly her relationship with her husband, and how that came to be and developed.

It might sound like the two strands of this memoir would be at odds – that the present-day waiting for test results and diagnoses might clash with the theatrical and romantic nostalgia. The brilliance of Two-Part Invention is that they flow in and out of each other so well. And I suppose that’s because they are connected by L’Engle’s love for her husband – both the memories and the current anxieties are founded on that depth and honesty of love that only comes from decades spent together, through thick and thin.

One of the things I found interesting in Claire’s review was that she was a little jolted by L’Engle’s writing about faith, though came to appreciate the way L’Engle wrote about it and the depth of intimacy that this brought. I was also a bit jolted by it – because it’s so rare to see people discuss their faith this freely and honestly. As a Christian, I of course loved seeing it – without the need to apologise or dampen it down. Very refreshing, and made the memoir feel all the more real and relatable to me. Perhaps I can’t relate to much in L’Engle’s life, but I can certainly relate to that.

Perhaps this wasn’t the perfect time to read this memoir, given that a pandemic isn’t an ideal world in which to read anything with a health crisis at the centre of it – and yet, despite the darkness that runs through the centre of this book, my main feeling coming from it is that it was beautiful to spend this time with L’Engle. It is like spending time with a good, honest, vulnerable friend – and I’ll certainly keep an eye out for the others in the series now.

Announcing two new British Library Women Writers titles!

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As it’s International Women’s Day, the British Library publishing team have been putting an especial focus on the Women Writers series today – hurrah! And that has culminated in unveiling the next two books in the series. They’ll be coming out in May, so there’s a couple months to wait – but it’ll be worth it, promise.

Tension by E.M. Delafield

This is one of EMD’s very best novels, in my opinion. I recommended it because I love Delafield and feel the series definitely needed something by her – and this one shows her funny and thoughtful sides perfectly. It was written a decade before the Provincial Lady, and the tension at the heart of it is rumours that a new typist at a school might have an affair with one of the teachers. It has a lot to say about rumours and morality, but it’s also a delight – look out for bohemian author Iris and her novel Why, Ben!, and two of the most life-like and irritating children in fiction.

Mamma by Diana Tutton

It’s no secret that I adore Tutton’s Guard Your Daughters, and was delighted when Persephone reprinted it – partly, I think, on my recommendation. While that is undoubtedly her masterpiece, she was not a one-trick pony. Mamma is about a widowed woman, Joanna, inviting her adult daughter Libby to live with her – and, of course, she brings her husband too. Steven is much closer to Joanna’s age than Libby’s, and they also discover they have a great deal in common. The prospect of an illicit love affair looms…

I’m really delighted that these two are coming out in the series, as both are quite hard to get hold of at the moment and deserve a far wider audience. Watch this space!

Hear me speak about British Library Women Writers

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Next Wednesday, at 7pm, I’m delighted to say I’ll be chatting with Gill at Lindum Books about the British Library Women Writers series. Lindum Books is based on Lincoln – but, of course, the event will be happening online.

Priority booking was for their reading groups – but now it’s open to everyone. It’s think it’ll be really fun, and I’m looking forward to telling more people about how great this series is – so do register to come along if you’d like to. (It’s free, but you do need to register in advance.)

H is for Hill

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This is part of an ongoing series where I write about a different author for each letter of the alphabet. You can see them all here.

How many books do I have by Susan Hill?

As always, I haven’t quite remembered to include all the books I have in the photo. Every time, I vow I will… anyway, there are 16 books in the pic, but I actually have 17 because I forgot to check my memoir shelves, where I would have found The Magic Apple Tree.

How many of these have I read?

Only seven of the ones that I own – Howards End is on the Landing, Jacob’s Room Is Full of Books, A Kind Man, Black Sheep, The Beacon, In the Springtime of the Year, and The Bird of Night. And a couple of the short stories from The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read but I don’t remember which ones…

How did I start reading Susan Hill?

Quite unusually – it was actually a book called The Battle for Gullywith, which I was sent as a review book in the early days of this blog. I don’t think it has been one of her greatest commercial or critical successes, and it certainly wasn’t aimed at me and my age group. But in that era of blogging, Hill was herself quite active – and, indeed, linked to my blog and occasionally commented on it. She was a forthright presence, for sure, and at some point decided it wasn’t for her – but she is the only author I’ve known to be a real part of the book blogging world. Her most iconic moment was doing a reply to a student who’d been asked to compare The Woman in White and its influence on The Woman in Black – and said ”I’ve never read The Woman in White.”

Anyway, it wasn’t much later that I read the wonderful Howards End is on the Landing, and that sent me off on a hunt for more.

General impressions…

I could be wrong, but I think Hill is best known for I’m the King of the Castle and The Woman in Black, and I haven’t read those. She is an astonishingly prolific author, and writes in quite separate genres and worlds. I don’t have any interest in her crime fiction or her children’s fiction, but I love the short literary novels and, of course, her books about reading. In the former category, In the Springtime of the Year is a brilliant book about grief, and I also really got a lot out of the spin on misery memoir The Beacon. I haven’t read a novel by her that I haven’t admired.

But the books for which I love Hill most are, of course, Howards End is on the Landing and, to a lesser extent, Jacob’s Room is full of Books. Reading memoirs are everywhere nowadays, and I will continue to lap them all up, but Hill was among the first and among the best. Neither book quite does what it says it’ll do, but they are wonderful nonetheless.

Any recommendations from the Hill books I have waiting?

One Woman’s Year by Stella Martin Currey

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There were several independent publishers I knew I wanted to read for #ReadIndies month, and of course Persephone was among them. But which one? Well, I was most excited about One Woman’s Year by Stella Martin Currey, published in 1953 but often seeming like it was a couple of decades earlier.

One Woman’s Year is a delightful journey through the year – an anthology of anecdotes, household hints, recipes, and so on. The story/anecdote bit is the longest and perhaps most delightful of each section – just tales from family life, about enjoying village life, the countryside, and everyday activities. From a very privileged position, of course, though they are not stories of expensive outings and excess. They are the sort of stories that would be brought out at family events – from a disastrous renovation project to a French exchange student. All are told with an enjoyably British sense of deprecating humour. I was often reminded of E.M. Delafield’s Diary of a Provincial Lady, which is about the best thing to be reminded of.

Then each month has a cheerful look at the favourite chore of each month, and a wry look at the least favourite. Often this is more of a story than a genuine application, particularly all these decades later, but the recipes that follow could still be followed today, for the most part. Yes, there is an unsettling predilection for curry powder, particularly for someone who spent time in India with her military husband, but I might well be giving the strawberry shortcake a go at some point.

Each month ends with a short anthology of literary passages from novels and poems. These are usually the sorts of things that leave me cold, as I like to read with proper context, but Currey’s choices are brilliantly and thoughtfully done. For instance, she brings together a section from Cold Comfort Farm with an anonymous chronicler of an early nineteenth-century village and a poem about laburnums. Each month’s anthology works beautifully together. All the more impressive because this was, of course, long before the internet – these are quotations that Currey has drawn together from a lifetime of reading.

One of my favourite things about this book is that it’s fully illustrated with woodcuts by Malcolm Ford. No publisher has a deeper appreciation for woodcuts than Persephone Books, and these are second to the ones in The Runaway among my favourites they’ve done, either in their books or in the magazine.

Initially I intended to read one section each month, and make it last a year – well, I couldn’t stop once I’d started. Thank goodness Persephone resurrected such a lovely and comforting read.

Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink

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I will read any book about reading, as you might be aware if you’re a regular reader of Stuck in a Book. Some of them are among my all-time favourites, and some of them are a little more – if you will – by the book. But I’d heard wonderful things about Dear Reader by Cathy Rentzenbrink, published last year, given to me by my bro, and which I read on Christmas Day. It turned out to be the perfect Christmas book – and one of my favourite books about books that I’ve read for years.

As I lie there, surrounded by boxes, looking up at the half-filled shelves, at the books that have followed me from place to place, I find my answer. I will be my own doctor and prescribe the best medicine: a course of rereading. I will make piles of my most treasured books and read through them, taking comfort not only in each book itself but also in the reassuring knowledge that there are many more to come. Something shifts in my body. I feel better already, just at the thought of turning off my phone and spending my evenings curled up with a good book. This what I have always done. When the bite of real life is too brutal, I retreat into made-up worlds and tread well-worn paths. I don’t crave the new when I feel like this, but look for solace in the familiar. It is as though in re-encountering my most-loved fictional characters, I can also reconnect with my previous selves and come out feeling less fragmented. Reading built me and always has the power to put me back together again.

I didn’t mean to quote that much, but I couldn’t stop once I started. I’m not a big re-reader myself, but I definitely retreat to familiar genres and authors, if not particular books – and I love that final line, there.

Despite this intro, Dear Reader isn’t really about a series of re-reads. It’s more of a memoir of reading life – one that feels universal, while also obviously being specific to Rentzenbrink. And her life has been fully surrounded by books. We see her first forays into discovering narratives and characters, and realising the joy that they could bring – and when she was having difficult times at school, books were a refuge. Many chapters end with a series of recommendations for books relating to the period of her life in question, and they are great lists, recommended with the happy fervour of any enthusiastic reader. Some themes are enjoyably unusual – like the list of books about pubs, when her dad became a pub landlord when Rentzenbrink was sixteen.

But books aren’t just part of Rentzenbrink’s social life. She goes into working in bookselling – and it’s a fascinating look behind the curtain. She starts in the book department of Harrod’s, and it’s always fun to read behind-the-curtain experiences of working in customer service. There are certainly stories of silly requests and unreasonable members of the public, but there is also a warmth to Rentzenbrink’s writing. We all love Shaun Bythell’s biting memoirs of bookselling, but this is not that – Rentzenbrink is thrilled whenever she can engage with an interested reader, and her favourite thing is to recommend books. We can all empathise.

The book follows her bookselling journey as she takes on more responsibility at other shops – organising events, arranging displays, choosing books. She goes up and up, and has such fondness for her colleagues and her experiences. What survives throughout is her passion for reading and for encouraging others in their reading lives. She is not a pollyanna, and there are difficult stages to her life too – but this is still a delightful read. The subtitle of Dear Reader is ‘the comfort and joy of books’, and there are few books about books that are more comforting or joyful than this.

The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi

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I got sent Helen Oyeyemi’s second novel, The Opposite House, by the publisher in… 2008, the year after it was published. Oops, sorry Bloomsbury. I’ve read four of her other books, and have finally read this one too. Better late than never? And what prompted me to finally read it? It was one of the 20 books I listed for the inaugural BookTube Spin, and its number came up.

My relationship with Oyeyemi’s writing is definitely a bit up and down. I really love Boy, Snow, Bird and often recommend it to people – others of her books I have liked a lot, but some have tipped over the edge of experimentalism into confusion, for me. How will The Opposite House fare?

Maya lives in London, having moved there with her family when she was five. She only dimly remembers her life in Cuba – there is really only one memory: sitting under the table at their farewell party, hearing a woman singing. It is her defining recollection of life in the land of her parents and their Yoruba gods. And speaking of those gods, among them is Yemaya Saramagua, an Orisha, who lives in the somewherehouse. Short sections between chapters show her existing in this mysterious, liminal place which opens out onto two very different worlds:

On the second floor, rooms and rooms and rooms, some so tiny, pale and clean that they are no more than fancies, sugar-cubed afterthoughts stacked behind doorways. Below is a basement pillared with stone. […] The basement’s back wall holds two doors. One door takes Yemaya straight out into London and ragged hum of a city after dark. The other door opens out onto the striped flag and cooking-smell cheer of that tattered jester, Lagos – always, this door leads to a place that is floridly day.

In London, Maya has discovered she is pregnant – though she hasn’t told her boyfriend Aaron, or her family. She is conflicted by the pregnancy but, in typical Oyeyemi style, it is a conflict that seems to swirl between reality and magical realism. There is no searing look at whether or not to have an abortion, but thought processes that look much more at the metaphysical and abstract implications of pregnancy. All of Oyeyemi’s novels seem to exist in a somewherehouse – a world between worlds, where reality, fairy tale, religion, and magical realism co-exist and inform one another. But reality is one of the ingredients. This cocktail doesn’t diminish the impact of real anxieties and burdens:

Slaves had to be Catholic and obedient or they’d be killed, or worse. The Word ‘slave’ is a big deal to Chabella and Papi; neither of them can get out from under it. It is a blackness in Cuba. It is sometimes bittersweet, for such is the song of the morena; it is two fingers place on a wrist when a white Cuban is trying to describe you. Papi tries to systematise it and talk about the destruction of identity and the fragility of personality, but he is scared of the Word. Mami hides inside the Word, finds reverie in it, tries to locate a power that she is owed.

I think quotes like that give a better sense of what reading an Oyeyemi novel is like than any description I can try to give. The Opposite House incorporates interesting and vital questions about, say, race – Maya and her family are black Cubans; Aaron is a white Ghanaian – and about mental health, portrayed through the ‘hysterics’ that live alongside and pursue Maya and her best friend. The prose never settles on conclusions, or even on the sort of imagery that allows the reader to make their own. Instead, everything is filtered through a beautifully written and imagined prose style that is uniquely Oyeyemi’s – so distinct that it is not just a style but a world.

I found the Yemaya elements beautiful and striking and confusing, but was most drawn to the scenes between Maya and Aaron. There is distance and uncertainty in their relationship, but somehow Aaron was, to me, a really lovely and warm character. Oyeyemi is very good at building up nuanced relationships – familial, romantic, or friendly – but I found something particularly special in that between Maya and Aaron, perhaps because he was kind without that kindness being able to solve problems. It was a twist on the sorts of boyfriends you often see in books.

Boy, Snow, Bird remains my favourite of Oyeyemi’s novels, though I have one yet to read – but The Opposite House is up there, a really vivid and intriguing novel that refuses to let you settle as a reader, and makes up its own rules to help penetrate to deeper, if less graspable, truths about relationships and human nature.

The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley

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For #ReadIndies month, I had to pick up one of the many unread British Library Crime Classics I have on my shelf. Or, more precisely, piled high on top of a bookcase. Quite a lot of people have recommended The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1929) by Anthony Berkeley as one of the best ones, and I’ve had it for yonks.

It’s a great premise for a detective novel. Roger Sheringham, who apparently appears in other Berkeley novels, has assembled a group of people to help him solve a murder. I did have to make notes about who they all were, because he does a slightly unhelpful thing of telling you about them before he tells you their names – but it includes a dramatist, a detective novelist, an avant-garde writer, a solicitor, and a sort of timorous nobody.

The police have given up the case as lost. Can the Crime Club help? The dead person is Joan Bendix – poisoned, as the title suggests, by chocolates. The chocolates in question were given to her by her husband, but only because he bumped into Sir Eustace. He received them in the post, purporting to be from the chocolatiers, looking for a sponser. He rejects them – handing them to Graham Bendix. Later that night, both Bendixes – Bendices? – eat some chocolates, but Joan eats more. By the end of the evening, she is dead.

The brilliant thing about The Poisoned Chocolates Case is that each chapter gives a different solution, as the group take it in turns to present their detection and their conclusion. And, of course, the person they’re accusing of murder.

A couple of pretty unlikely solutions are given in the first chapters – but I have to admit that the third culprit/solution was the one I’d guessed from the outset. Oops! In the later chapters, Berkeley is very good at giving extremely convincing deductions – and then, in the next chapter, revealing why they were false conclusions and how the characters take false steps. Berkeley is clearly enjoying teasing the genre and exposing the tricks that detective novelists play. How often they use false syllogisms to make the denouement convincing. All of that.

Which does mean that the novel’s final solution is arguably no more convincing than any of the others – and the two extras at the end, contributing in the 70s by Christianna Brand and for this edition by Martin Edwards, are certainly not the most convincing – but it’s one of those rare detective novels where the satisfaction doesn’t come from the solution. It comes from seeing behind the curtain, at the construction of detection.

Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett

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Arnold Bennett is perhaps one of those names who is more remembered than read nowadays, though I know there is a very active Arnold Bennett Society that always seems to notice when I review one of his books. Hello! And I have read a small number of them now – Buried Alive, The Old Wives’ Tale, A Great Man. Now I can add Riceyman Steps (1923) which was given to me by my friend Simon when he was sorting out his late mother’s library.

Riceyman Steps is, I discovered, a real flight of steps in London – though without that name, I believe. George has done a lovely blog post, retracing the different places that are featured in the novel – but what I can’t quite understand, either from contemporary or contemporaneous photos, is the ‘tiny open space (not open to vehicular traffic) which was officially included in the title Riceyman Steps’. In the novel, this space is home to various domestic residences and, more importantly to the plot, a second-hand bookshop and a confectioner’s.

The bookseller is a man with extraordinary name Henry Earlforward, a man heading towards middle age whose abiding passions are running his bookshop and economy. His every move is motivated by saving pennies, whether that be underpaying the maid who comes to clean or in ensuring fires are only lit in rooms which absolutely cannot do without them. At the same time, he is not avaricious. He is content to make a profit on a book – to sell for two shillings something that cost him one, even if he suspects it is worth ten times as much. His miserliness is combined with a sense of decency.

His thoughts, as the novel opens, are also occupied with the woman who runs the confectioner’s. As Bennett’s witty narrative mentions, it is only some rather unloved chocolates in a display case that make the shop warrant the name ‘confectioner’s’; it is otherwise rather a standard corner shop, though I don’t think the term would have been used then. Mrs Arb is a widow of about Earlforward’s age, and they have in common the services of the maid Elsie.

For much of Riceyman Steps, this is a rather sweet novel of middle-aged love. Neither is demonstrative, and you get the sense that either of them would have managed quite well if romance had never knocked at their door – but, together, their straightforward competence finds something quite lovely kindling. Their admiration for each other begins with a recognition of the other’s good sense of economy. It never gets to any great belting passion – but it does lead to one of the more touching marriages that I’ve read in fiction. Mrs Arb moves into the bookshop – as does Elsie, now that she can be the live-in maid for a married couple – and life continues.

I love any descriptions of bookshops, perhaps particularly from this period. Much like the opening pages of Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell, I enjoy the shorthand of early 20th-century authors telling you who customers are. And I also love Bennett’s affectionately wry glances at the house of a bookseller who, in his bachelor days, had allowed the stock to run rather wild. Even his bath is filled with books.

Mrs Arb had to step over hummocks of books in order to reach the foot of the stairs. The left-hand half of every step of the stairs was stacked with books – cheap editions of novels in paper jackets, under titles such as ‘Just a Girl’, ‘Not Like Other Girls’, ‘A Girl Alone’. Weak but righteous and victorious girls crowded the stairs from top to bottom, so that Mrs Arb could scarcely get up. The landing also was full of girls. The front-room on the first floor was, from the evidence of its furniture, a dining-room, though not used as such. The massive mahogany table was piled up with books, as also the big sideboard, the mantelpiece, various chairs. The floor was carpeted with books. Less dust in the den below, but still a great deal. The Victorian furniture was ‘good’; it was furniture meant to survive revolutions and conflagrations and generations; it was everlasting furniture; it would command respect through any thickness of dust.

Bennett is out of fashion, but I think his prose is wonderful – he gives all those details that Woolf mocked him for in ‘Mr Bennett and Mrs Brown’, but he also has a dry sense of humour, and a genuine affection for the people he’s created. I enjoy him most when he sees their foibles but wishes them well, and as a god he dispenses small joys and small agonies equally.

The agonies get greater as the novel progresses, and I would have preferred something that didn’t veer quite so dramatic. But it is a drama that stems from his characters’ weaknesses – specifically their pecunious natures. The good sense that brought them together also threatens to pull them apart when it is taken to extremes. It’s a shame – for me, at least – that Riceyman Steps couldn’t just have been a sweet novel about a couple finding compatibility later in life than they might have imagined. Perhaps that wouldn’t have been as popular at the time. But there is enough of that in the novel, and of a depiction of a corner of London at a specific time, to relish and enjoy before hearts start beating faster and trouble enters this particular version of unshowy paradise.