My biggest book drought in years is over. I just haven't had the insomnia required to read like I used to! Plus most stuff I have picked up just hasn't grabbed me or kept me focussed.
Anyway, I have finished this. Now, this book was definitely a book of three parts. The first third which is based around life for a single woman and her mother in 1923 South London is brilliant. I loved all the attention to detail, like silly things such as the description of thecrappy water system in their villa, which was cutting edge in the 1870s, and the spiky, repressed and formal lives these two woman of good breeding live. Keeping up appearances is everything. I felt like I had been totally uprooted right into a middle class life in 1922 London and I loved it. The clothes, the constant hard graft of cleaning because of soot, the boredom, the structure, the banality of it all, the greyness. Finding enjoyment in scraps, when you can, and going for it, is just so important!
Frances,the main character, is mourning the death of her two brothers in the Great War, and hates her father who suddenly died leaving her and her mother in lots of debt. To cover the debts they rent out one of the bedrooms to an 'up and coming 'newly married couple and this is where the melo-drama begins.
The second third of the book covers the budding love story between Frances and Lilian. This is done well. They start to have a secret, furtive and intense relationship in the house whilst both Frances' aged mother keeps popping into the house between charity functions, and Lilian's aspirational husband is often clomping up and down the stairs.( Frances already has had one lesbian relationship but for Lilian this all seems like a new and exhilarating adventure. ) This behaviour is not going to have a happy ending and I always knew that lovely Frances was being fed a line by modern flapper Lil. Things were not going to turn out well for these star crossed lovers. Poor, poor Frances!
Well, after a wonderful scene where Frances, Lil and Len play Strip Snakes and Ladders things all go very wrong and the love story takes a different track and turns into a dramatic murder story.
This last third was pretty poor and boring to be honest. After the wonderful social history and the fantastic tension of the murder, the last third went a bit grey. Yes, the murder was great. Full of tension! I almost felt like I was there witnessing it all. I love a good murder in literature!
But the aftermath was a bit of a burst balloon. It was as if Sarah Waters had lost her mojo. It was interesting that Lilian and Frances as the potential murderers of Len was never even discussed by the police. That Lilian and Frances could have murdered Len was incomprehensible. They were just feeble women for goodness sake!
Anyway, this was a great read in parts and dull as ditch waters in others. What I loved was the hidden emotions which everyone was dealing with and the lack of social systems in place to help anyone. There was no NHS to help the wounded soldiers back from the First World War. No plan on what do with the sudden influx of physically and mentally wounded men. Over night, woman who had been given freedom during the First World War, suddenly had to live in a much more conservative world. 'Moneyed' families were losing their status as the 'working, clerk class' begin to gain more power and people were living incredibly secret lives. I'd like to read more about this time! Plus it will get me mentally prepared for when our National Health System crumbles into dust.
