A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore...

Pages: 268 Original date of publication: 1924 My copy: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, November 2011 Set in small-town America around the time it was written, this novel explores gender roles and how they affect families, and one family in particular. Lester Knapp is an accountant for a department store; his wife, Evangeline, is a housewife raising their three children. They both perform the roles expected of them by society, yet neither is suited to their role and neither is particularly happy. When Lester is injured in an accident that leaves him home-bound, his wife goes to work—to the benefit of everyone in the family. Dorothy Canfield Fisher gets her reader deep into the heads of her characters, so we can understand exactly what they’re like and so that we get a three-dimensional view of the situation. Even the children’s point of view is well represented—especially Stephen, aged 5, who fears having his...

Pages: 473 Original date of publication: 1909-1986 My copy: 2012 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, January 2013 The Persephone Book of Short Stories is a collection of thirty short stories—some that have been previously published in other Persephone books (crowd pleasers such as Minnie Panter-Downes’s “Good Evening, Mrs Craven” and Irene Nemirovsky’s “Dimanche”)—some that have been published in the Persephone Post , and others that appear here for the first time. The earliest story in the collection, Susan Glaspell’s“A to Z,” was published in 1909 and the last, Georgina Hammick’s “A Few Cases in the Day Case Unit,” in 1986. My favorite story in the collection is the first: Susan Glaspell’s “A to Z,’ in which a young college graduate gets a job as a dictionary copyist at a publisher’s office. She strikes up a friendship with a young man at the office; the irony of the story being that while these characters’ bread ...

Pages: 327 Original date of publication: 1921-1928 My copy: 2007 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, October 2012 Katherine Mansfield wrote the 25 stories in this collection during the 9 months she spent at Montana sur Sierre in Switzerland, seriously ill with tuberculosis. The stories are arranged in the order she wrote them, and many were left unfinished. Some characters are recurring; Mansfield also gained inspiration from other writers, including Chekhov, Louisa May Alcott, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, and DH Lawrence. Mansfield chastised herself for writing “lowbrow” stories and made jokes about them (“ the Mercury is bringing out that very long seaweedy story of mine ‘At the Bay.’ I feel inclined to suggest to them to give away a spade an’ bucket with each copy…”); but as the publisher’s note at the end says, “what choice did she have?” Mansfield wrote herself that she did not consider herself a good writer. B...

Pages: 372 Original date of publication: 1925 My copy: 2009 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 Greenery Street is the story of a year in the life of a young married couple. The street of the title is a symbol of a way of life; the first-time houses that young married people have before they begin having families. The couples always vow to stay longer, but when they begin to have children, they move onward and upward in search of larger houses in which to live. The novel is based on Denis Mackail’s experience living as a newlywed in Walpole Street, in a house that had apparently once been occupied by PG Wodehouse and that was later occupied by the author Jan Struther . Mackail himself came from a rather exalted family; he was related to Rudyard Kipling and Stanley Baldwin,; his sister was Angela Thirkell (who apparently was quite a bully) and his nephew was Colin MacInnes. Mackail grew up as a nervous child, only...

Pages: 302 Original date of publication: 1952 My copy: 2004 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription July 2012 What I like about Marghanita Laski’s books (of the ones I’ve read so far) is that they’re all different in subject matter, but they’re all very similar, too. Little Boy Lost and The Victorian Chaise Lounge , as well as The Village , all deal with the theme of chaos and how it impacts social structure. Her novels are also about how her characters deal with the effects of that chaos.  The Village opens on the day that WWII ends in Europe. The people of Priory Hill join their fellow Englishman in rejoicing over the end of the war. But what a lot of them don’t realize is that a way of life, consisting of rigid class hierarchy, is over; or if they do, they try to cling to it. The Trevors are one such family; although they’ve “come down, they still cling to the idea that they’re gentry. So it’s a complete shock to...

Pages: 309 Original date of publication: 1941 My copy: 2010 How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 Persephone is famous for publishing out-of-print, lesser-known classics, but there’s a sub-theme to their list as well: they reprint a number of Jewish authors ( Marghanita Laski , Amy Levy , for example). Farewell Leicester Square is the only one of Betty Miller’s novels that touches on the Jewish experience in England. This story focuses on a man named Alec Berman, who manages to rise to fame in the film industry (the opening scene of the novel is centered on the premiere of one of his films, Farewell Leicester Square) and marry a non-Jew. From the way I saw the book described, I though that this was going to be a straightforward and pretty typical story. But Betty Miller turns it around a bit, by making the anti-Semite Alec himself. He’s so aware of his background as a Jew and not wanting people to mention it that he almost becomes a bit self-hating...

Pages: 387 Original date of publication: 1936 My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone website, June 2011 When we last saw Miss Buncle , she was just about to marry her publisher, Arthur Abbott. Her novel, Disturber of the Peace , disturbed the peace in the town of Silverstream, and the novel opens with a decision to move from there in light of the censure Barbara, now of course married, received for writing it. Barbara begins married life in Wandlebury, a new town with a whole new set of characters from which to gain inspiration. But Barbara claims she has eschewed novel writing and turns her attention to her new house, friends, and family, including Arthur’s nephew Sam. Barbara is just as charming as ever; she’s incredibly perceptive of the people she encounters, from the village busybodies, to the town doctor (who happens to be an old friend of Arthur’s), to an eccentric old aristocrat who changes her will according...

Pages: 125 Original date of publication: My edition: 2008 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: October 2011, Persephone subscription In Minnie’s Room , a collection of 11 stories published between 1947 and 1965, Mollie Panter-Downes explores some of the same themes she explores in her novel, One Fine Day . In the 1940s and beyond, people were struggling to adapt to their new circumstances, because things were, indeed, dire (for example, as the introduction to this book says, “bread had been newly rationed in 1946”). It was rough going for everyone, especially the middle classes, who were hit especially hard by the imposition of increased income tax to deal with postwar shortages. So the stories in this collection reflect on a small scale the larger issues that were going on in England and the world at that time. Although there is no immediate theme to this collection, her stories are all about people dealing with the aftermath of WWII and the effect it ha...

Pages: 430 Original date of publication: 1982 My edition: 2010 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: September 2011, Persephone shop I’ve been putting off and putting off writing a review of An Interrupted Life , mostly because I wanted everything to sink in and also because I really didn’t know what to say about this wonderful, albeit heartbreaking book. There I go again, using clichés to describe this book, but I loved it from start to finish. Etty Hillesum was born in January 1914 in Holland and lived in Amsterdam working as a translator of Russian and Russian teacher. Even still she aspired to be a writer, and kept a journal to that effect during WWII. As a Jew, Etty’s life became increasingly circumscribed by the restrictions placed upon her; she was later given a job as a typist in the Jewish Council, an organization that sought to mediate between the Nazis and Dutch Jews. Etty later volunteered to help accompany Jews to Westerbork, a detention camp ...

Pages: 328 Original date of publication: 1911 My edition: 2011 Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, June 2012 No Surrender was published in 1911 at the height of the women’s suffrage movement in England. The novel tells the story of to women from different walks of life: Jenny Clegg, a former mill worker, and Mary O’Neil, an upper-class woman who gets Jenny involved in the suffragette movement. No Surrender is a product of Constance Maud’s involvement with the Women Writers Suffrage League, an organization that sought to change public opinion with the use of words, and whose members included Violet Hunt and May Sinclair. As a piece of social history, No Surrender is excellent in its portrayal of the suffrage movement. But this isn’t necessarily a novel that’s just about suffrage. It’s also about the struggle against oppressive authority and the senseless rules that, to give an example from the novel, allow a husband to send his c...

Pages: 232 Original date of publication: 1949 My edition: 2010 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone Secret Santa, December 2011 Little Boy Lost is set during and just after WWII. Hilary Wainwright is an English writer who lost his wife during the Holocaust—and his son, John, is also lost but in a different way. Hilary receives a tip that his son may be living in an orphanage in France, and he goes there to investigate. It’s a bleak novel—the theme of which is emotional expression. Hilary’s constant struggle is whether to repress emotion, or to let it out. There’s so much emotional fodder here—the death of his wife, the loss of his son—but he doesn’t allow himself to actually express what he’s feeling. This suppression of emotion is what makes this book so powerful, all the more so because this is a novel of self-discovery, too. It’s only when Hilary manages to “find” himself that he opens himself up. Then there are the larger quest...

Pages: 326 Original date of publication: 1931 My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, September 2011 “But over all lay a spirit of joyful, unrestrained freedom. There were no servants—no masters: no clerks—no managers—just men and women whose common profession was Holidaymaker.” Every September the Stevenses—a working-class family from the outskirts of London—take a fortnight holiday to Bognor, a town by the sea. On the surface this is a typical tale of holidaying—but there is so much more to this novel than there appears. There is a feeling, however, that this holiday will be their last as a family—the two oldest, Dick and Mary, have left school and may easily have made plans to vacation with friends instead; and Mrs. Stevens doesn’t particularly care for Bognor. As such there is a feeling of nostalgia about this novel; it seems as though the Stevenses are trying to capture the essence of a time g...

Pages: 476 Original date of publication: 1907 My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, December 2011 In the 19th and early 20th centuries, wealthy young women from the States flocked over to England to marry titled men. It was a win-win for both sides: she would get his title, while he would get her money in order to maintain his estate. One of the most famous of these transatlantic marriages was that of Jennie Jerome and Lord Randolph Churchill (parents of the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill), which apparently helped inspire the characters in The Shuttle . Rosalie Vanderpoel is the daughter of a wealthy American and marries Sir Nigel Anstruthers, an English aristocrat who plans to squander her money and cut her off from her family. When Rosy’s younger sister Bettina decides to go to England to see what happened to her sister, things begin to change. I really enjoyed Burnett’s story. Her style is ...

Pages: 238 Original date of publication: 1946 My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 Doreen is set during WWII and focuses on an issue that many parents living in cities at the time faced. Mrs. Rawlings is a cleaner in a London office who worries about what to do with her nine-year-old daughter during the Blitz. Through Helen Osbourne, a secretary at the office, Mrs. Rawlings finds a place for Doreen at home of Helen’s brother Geoffrey, a solicitor, and his wife, Francie. The Osbournes are a kind, loving couple, and Mrs. Osbourne begins to see a little bit of herself in Doreen. The relationship between Doreen and the Osbournes grows—maybe too much so, from the point of view of the eminently sensible Helen Osbourne. Barbara Noble writes with an insightful eye. She demonstrates without explicitly saying so the dilemma that many parents of the time faced: should London parents keep their children w...

Pages: 196 Original date of publication: 1960-1972; previously published as An Unavoidable Delay My edition: 2011 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: it’s a Persephone How I acquired my copy: Persephone catalogue, June 2011 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is a collection of 12 stories, 10 of which were previously published in the collection An Unavoidable Delay. Diana Athill is no stranger to the publishing industry; for decades she worked as an editor for Anddre Deutsch (she makes a cameo appearance in Q’s Legacy ). Athill herself wrote the preface to the Persephone edition, and she says that “the discovery that I could write changed my life for the better in a very profound way, so [the stories] mean a great deal to me.” Nevertheless, Athill never published any other fiction and preferred to remain in the background as an editor, although she did publish several memoirs about her career. The 12 stories in this collection are all very different from one another but have a lot in com...

Pages: 224 Original date of publication: 1938 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: Persephone catalogue How I acquired my copy: Persephone shop, September 2011 The Children Who Lived in a Barn is a children’s novel, set in an English village. When Mr. and Mrs. Dunnet are called away to be with a sick relative, they leave their five children (Susan, Bob, Joseph and Samuel the twins—called Jumbo and Sambo—and Alice) at home to manage by themselves. When the children are evicted, they move into a local barn, which they quickly make into a cozy home. It’s a charming story. Of course, the logical side of my brain keeps poking holes in the story line—there’s no way in real life that these children, the oldest of whom is 14, would ever be allowed to stay at home by themselves or live in a barn. But the fantasy is part of the charm of this novel, and I’m sure that if I’d read this growing up, I would have enjoyed it much more. The novel kid of reminds me of the Bobbsey twins, ...

Pages: 261 Original date of publication: 1944 My edition: 2010 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: I was in the mood for a Persephone How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, July 2012 A House in the Country is set in the later years of WWII. Cressida Chance is the chatelaine of Brede Manor, a manor house near the village of Brede Somervel. Cressida is a widow and mother, and the house is populated by a host of characters: a freeloading aunt, a European refugee, a young engaged couple who are horribly, horribly wrong for each other. Added on top of that is Cressida’s impossibly good looking brother, an officer in the army who keeps chasing his high-maintenance girlfriend all over the country. The story switches back and forth between the goings-on at the Manor and Charles Valery’s harrowing story. There’s a great sense of sadness and loss about this novel that the reader feels even before we find out Cressida’s background with Simon and Charles. There’s also a huge sense of un...

Pages: 421 Original date of publication: 1919 My edition: 2000 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: Persephone subscription, February 2011 Consequences is a totally different book from The Diary of a Provincial Lady , the only other EM Delafield novel I’ve read—but in a good, albeit sad way. Consequences is the story of the eldest daughter of a large, late-Victorian family, well-connected but not particularly rich. The expectation, of course, is that the daughters marry, but Alex can’t seem to get her act together. From convent school to an engagement Alex breaks off to convent life, and then a return to London, Alex never feels quite at home anywhere she goes. She’s always looking for someone who will love her, so she finds someone to cling on to until she realizes (too late) that they don’t feel the same way about her. As a result, Alex fails miserably at nearly everything she does, much to the disgust and embarrassment of her siblings, who are all (but the y...

Pages: 484 Original date of publication: 1934 My edition: 2008 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: Dorothy Whipple is one of my favorite authors and you knew I was going to get around to this sometime! How I acquired my copy: the Persephone shop, September 2011 Dorothy Whipple, how do I love thee? They Knew Mr. Knight is the story of a middle-class businessman, Thomas Blake, whose life and work becomes entwined with that of a big-time entrepreneur named Lawrence Knight—a man that the reader can quickly see is full of style but no substance. Everything Mr. Knight does revolves around money—he even looks at Thomas’s modest little house and sees things in terms of financial value. The novel follows the Blake family’s rise and fall, poignantly so in many places. On the other hand is Thomas’s sensible wife, Celia, who shies away from the constant striving of her husband and Mr. Knight. Although written in the first person, the story is seen through the eyes of Celia Blake, probably the mos...

Pages: 231 Original date of publication: 1947 My edition: 2003 (Persephone) Why I decided to read: How I acquired my copy: the Persephone shop, September 2011 Lucia Holley is a middle-aged housewife, living somewhere in America during WWII. Her husband is away, and she is raising her two teenaged children on the homefront. After her daughter begins dating an unattractive, married man who then turns up dead, Lucia inadvertently becomes involved in the crime when she attempts to cover it up in order to protect the person she thinks killed the boyfriend. Holding wrote this novel at around the same time that Patricia Highsmith was writing T he Talented Mr. Ripl ey series; and while The Blank Wall isn’t quite as suspenseful as Highsmith’s books, it belongs to the same school of psychological suspense novels. The plot moves quickly, and Holding doesn’t waste her words in order to convey the tension of the plot. The reader really feels Lucia’s inner struggle as she tries to cover up the crime...