‘’Remember me to them all,’’ cried Mrs.Alladale. ‘’Remember everything. Remember that the jasmine is in flower and how bright the stars are over Fl‘’Remember me to them all,’’ cried Mrs.Alladale. ‘’Remember everything. Remember that the jasmine is in flower and how bright the stars are over Florence.’’
From France to Lake Como, from Florence to London, these are stories in which some of the most important women writers of the 20th century communicate feelings, thoughts and deeds heightened by the summer ambience. Many see summer as a time of beginnings. I’ve always thought that summer is a time for beginnings that end abruptly, at times bitterly, leaving their marks on your heart. Most of the stories included dealing with loss, sadness, regret and the burden of a love that may not flourish for various reasons.
Summer is not a time for reading silly romances and ‘’ever-afters’’ to…cleanse your palate. If you need to do that, you’re not a true reader in the first place and this is God’s honest truth, so don’t even bother with true Literature. For the rest of us, collections like this one are treasures.
Carnation (Katherine Mansfield): Can you really focus on a lesson when the glory of Nature envelops you in its arms?
Kew Gardens (Virginia Woolf): Kew Gardens is an enticing place to be. A place where relationships unfold, where secrets are being whispered.
‘’Three weeks afterwards found him in the prow of a motor-boat, furrowing Lake Como as he sped towards the villa. The sky was cloudless, the hills to the right rose sheer above him, casting the lengthening shadows of the afternoon across the luminous and oily water; to the left were brilliant and rugged above the clustered villages. The boat shot closely under Cadenabbia and set the orange-hooded craft bobbing; the reflected houses rocked and quivered in her wake, colours flecked the broken water.’’
I had the immense happiness to read this collection while vacationing in the Northern Italian Lakes, in Como and Maggiore, and just HOW PERFECT WAS THAT?
Requiescat (Elizabeth Bowen): The loss of a husband and the appearance of an old friend brings repressed feelings to the surface in a story set in beautiful Como.
‘’George Bingham looked down across the valley at Florence, across the smoke of grey olive-tress and the black geometrical shapes of the cypresses, black triangular cypresses, smoke-vague olives - and the white-walled houses with their flat roofs, golden in the evening light. The vine-wreathed canopy of the terrace made a dark frame for the landscape. Just below, steeply and deeply below, was a little garden, paved with grey flagstones. There were stone bowls containing little pools of water, dark-leaved tropical plants in grey stone vases, and thin pale grey cats prowling about softly as smoke among them. Mist covered the distant Arno. The copper-red dome of the cathedral glowed above it.
Exile (Sylvia Lynd): Florence, the land of Art, Love and Loneliness…
‘’London in early June hints that this is going to be the loveliest summer, the only summer, the summer of gay adventures and desires come true. You can catch these subtle whispers in the very way the awnings flap in the light breeze; in the brilliance of the window-boxes, scarlet and pink geraniums, on the facades in Mayfair; in the hydrangeas and rhododendrons massed bushily about the parks, and seen through the railings of demure private gardens; in the flutter of light chiffon dresses, in the very cadence of a passing voice, in the glimpse of a cool hall through a doorway left open.’’
Black Cat For Luck (G.B.Stern): Summer London sets the stage for a story of a lovestruck, superstitious youth and a flight girl.
The Sand Castle (Mary Lavin): Three children discover that building a castle is the surest way to overcome all differences in a story of that unique innocence that comes with being a child on a beautiful summer day.
‘’Most people get what they live for, but as they do not know what they are living for, they do not always like it.’’
The Shark’s Fin (Phyllis Bottome): Set in the Caribbean, this is the story of a newly married couple who is already facing cracks in the heaven of their honeymoon, as the woman’s whim reveals multitudes about the way they view the world and each other.
‘’Sarah laughed: she had wanted ‘’Italy’’ to be like this. It wasn’t always. There had been windy nights when the tablecloths flew up and napkins slithered away into the shadows: when the gay Campari umbrellas, threshing a little, swayed from their moorings and suddenly took wing; there had been nights of mist - the lake ‘perspiring’: and nights of sudden thunder storms, which blew up without warning - crashing about between the peaks. On such occasions, one ate upstairs in a white-washed dining room, hung with last year’s calendars.’’
The Lovely Evening (Mary Norton): A night somewhere in a lakeside Italian town hides surprises for three women. Norton got the unique ‘feeling’ and the atmosphere of my favourite country to a tee.
The Pool (Daphne du Maurier): A young girl tries to cope with loss resenting her family and begging to be accepted in an imaginary world. A masterpiece by du Maurier, a tale that is the epitome of the psychological study of lost innocence.
In a Different Light (Elizabeth Taylor): Barbara’s visit to support her sister following the death of her husband prompts her to see her life back in England in a different light. The Greek aura wins her heart and an encounter with a compatriot married to a horrible woman uncovers thoughts she didn’t know she’d been nurturing. A story that contains a plethora of layers with a beautifully tender ending.
In and Out of Never-Never Land (Maeve Brennan): Excuse me for my shameless self-promotion but Maeve Brennan must have met me in another life. Mary-Ann is the most ‘me’ character I’ve ever encountered in the millions of books I’ve read. She is perfectly content to stay in her lovely house with her books, her cats and her dog and the hullaballoo of the 4th of July doesn’t really do anything for her. On an all-too-conspicuous night, though, she realises that we may not enjoy the company of adults, but children are a different matter.
Afternoon In Summer (Sylvia Townsend Warner): A serene snippet of a young married couple’s afternoon spent at a funeral. It sounds strange and morbid but the tranquility of the story reflects the calmness of a late summer afternoon.
The Fortune Teller (Muriel Spark): A young woman travels with her friends to France. They decide to stay in a lovely chateau, guests of a strange hostess. Thus starts a peculiar interaction between a clairvoyant and a fortune teller in a terrific story by Spark.
Men Friends (Angela Huth): The string of lovers of a deceased woman attend her funeral, I must confess I can’t fully grasp why this story was included in this collection…
‘’You have got your wish [...] However, it is a wish that you should not have made.’’
‘’Ιt was late afternoon, with the sky already growing dark. At the bus stop opposite the crematorium gates a cold wind stirred flurries of fallen l‘’Ιt was late afternoon, with the sky already growing dark. At the bus stop opposite the crematorium gates a cold wind stirred flurries of fallen leaves; no one else was waiting. Emily peeled off a glove and slipped a hand inside her bag to touch her rosary. The beads were made from real rose petals, and the faint perfume they transferred to her fingers was a familiar comfort. Large black birds flapped and shrieked in the treetops further along the road, as Emily said the Our Father and three Hail Marys for the dead woman.’’
In eight stories/snippets, Carol Lefevre allows us poignant glimpses into the lives of women whose fate has let them down in various ways. At the centre of each narration, we find Erris, a woman whose death has shocked everyone, a woman whose presence has left a deep mark on the lives of our eight protagonists. How did she die? WHY did she die? How can live our lives when others push us to betray ourselves? How can we heal the wounds of the past? How far can loneliness drive us to despair?
‘’Christ in every heart thinking of me, Christ on every tongue speaking to me, Christ in every eye that sees me.’’
After the Island: A woman who finds comfort in her own company, away from the clutter of the idiots, receives strange messages in the form of voice mails. The messages come from a woman who has recently died and they are disturbing, haunting. In addition to the mystery, Emily lets us into her mind and the memories of growing up sheltered and nurtured by the nuns with Christ as her source of strength and hope. This was my favourite narrator and the writing is outstanding.
Little Buddhas Everywhere: Claire finds herself unable to withdraw from the clutches of her ex-husband’s second marriage and his strange, New-Aged crazed wife. But does she actually WANT to be free or does she keep on coming back because of some form of emptiness in her life following the divorce?
‘’It was half - past two on one of those dark Sunday afternoons when the house smelled of chimneys and hidden damp, and for the past hour she had been trying not to give in to gloom. The mood that tugged at her was as familiar as breath; it was not the kind that welcomed company. She looked around the first-floor sitting room, which in the aftermath of the ringing felt unnaturally quiet. Its tall unshuttered windows framed lengths of bruise-coloured sky, its lamps were still unlit, and everything looked slightly insubstantial in the dimness. From the street it would appear as if no one was home.’’
Beautiful writing is beautiful.
Evening All Afternoon: Fiona becomes the trusted listener to a couple that goes through a rough patch in their marriage without letting anyone know about her own struggle with loneliness. This story is moving and quietly haunting and contains some of the finest descriptions of those end-of-summer afternoons that always hold a special place in our hearts. Just read the following extracts and you’ll see what I mean:
‘’It had been the tail end of the summer, with a breath of autumn in the late-afternoon air, and it was that smokiness of the season turning, the prospect of the winter to come, that had plunged Fiona into one of her blackest -ever bouts of homesickness.’’
‘’It had begun to rain, and the sound of it beating against the window glass made the room and everything in it seem snug and secure, as if everything would be all right for as long as they remained safe within its sheltered warmth.’’
Glory Days: A mother who should not be called thus and the desperate choices Lazbie led herself into result in an uncertain future. All because of our inability to talk to others and to believe that a better version of ourselves exists within us.
The Lives We Lost: Jeanie has always been the one who did everything right. Exemplary daughter, exemplary student, exemplary mother and wife. She has always been there for everyone. But what happens when everyone starts letting you down? When you realise that all your efforts have been to no avail and the comfort of a stranger is all you need? I fell in love with this story and the ending is pure brilliance.
This Moment Is Your Life: Delia’s story is an ode to perseverance, to second chances and a moving account of facing the early stages of dementia.
Murmurations: A young man meets a client who changes his life. Easy to walk into spoilers territory with this one so no further details.
Paper Boats: The strange incident of a woman’s (suspicious?) death provides the inspiration for an aspiring writer to create the story that will probably be her breakthrough into the publishing world.
I could write pages upon pages for this extraordinary Russian-doll novella. The writing is phenomenal, the scenery tranquil, yet ferocious in its simplicity. The four seasons are depicted to perfection and the quietness and clarity of the narrators’ voices is married to the calmness that comes from being fully aware of your fate and - possibly - accepting it. Because, sometimes, that’s all you’ll be allowed to do…
*Side-note: Good Lord, this slim gem contains the finest Acknowledgements section I’ve ever read, and Carol Lefevre’s musings on how Edward Hopper’s masterpieces influenced her stories are perfection.*
‘' Ι don’t do Audrey Hepburn or Liz Taylor to order. I’m Ruby Devereaux, and this is what you get.’’
12 men become Ruby’s vehicle as she creates he‘' Ι don’t do Audrey Hepburn or Liz Taylor to order. I’m Ruby Devereaux, and this is what you get.’’
12 men become Ruby’s vehicle as she creates her swan song, her memoir narrating a turbulent life, a journey through decades, adventures, relationships. But do not make the mistake of thinking that her affairs define her. Never. Not even for a moment. Her father, her editors, her assistant, and her lovers, all become companions in a fascinating odyssey.
London. New York. Berlin. Paris. Saigon. Budapest. Stops in the course of Ruby’s amazing journey. Through her travels and relationships, not only do we witness a woman blazing her path through life but we delve deep into the ways our world changed from the end of WWII to our days. The Cold War and the endless espionage game, the conflict in Vietnam, the political upheaval brought on by the vile Communist regime, the socio-political issues that erupted during the 80s, all seen through the eyes of a writer who jumped into the fray and darn the consequences. We are also allowed valuable glances into the publishing world and the acting industry - no less a battlefield - and the story becomes even richer with literary, film, and music references.
Ruby’s fascinating character shares her thoughts on womanhood, motherhood, sexuality, secrets, shocking losses, the bond between fathers and daughters, and naturally, relationships. The relationships that shaped her life, but not her character. It is a token of an excellent writer to create a story told through the point of view of a single person with men as the narrative focus and not turn the novel into a hopelessly boring romance. If you expect endless rumpy-pumpy, you’ll be disappointed. This novel is sensual, yet never sexual in the sordest ways possible.
What we find here is a story, told to perfection, a hymn to a woman who lived life by her own rules, from the last traces of young innocence to the days when age catches up with us, when memories become confused, yet even more acute. This is a beautiful novel with an enticing, moving heroine, in every sense of the word.
‘’Lord knows who wants to read the ramblings of a grumpy old woman about to die. It may be feast or famine, but it is you, reader - always my eternal employer who will decide. Welcome to my life in twelve men. Enjoy. Because I very much did.’’
Many thanks to Aria and The Pigeonhole for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Matt and Julia have more in common than meets the eye. Both use their careers as an anchor to the reality around them, both have been facing family isMatt and Julia have more in common than meets the eye. Both use their careers as an anchor to the reality around them, both have been facing family issues all their lives and both have grandmothers in an assisted living home. There is one more problem, though. They have never met each other. When the intertwined fates of their relatives bring them together through cardboard boxes and a few agitated phone calls, a tender story of love and grief unfolds.
To say this is a beautiful love story is an understatement. Matt and Julia’s stories evoke routes through difficult paths. Love, loss, grief, despair. The ever-problematic question of the family that should have been a shelter instead of a prison. The daily nightmare that is Alzheimer’s when you witness your loved one wasting away, all memories lost. And this accidental meeting (or phone call…) that might - just might- change your life.
With traces of Magical Realism used to perfection without being a cheap, fashionable gimmick and a poignant approach towards sensitive subjects like Alzheimer's and suicide, Kerry Lonsdale creates a story to be remembered.
Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
‘’I kiss my mother’s cross. Set into the floor so there’s one holy thing between me and oblivion. The sea won’t take me. I am the devil’s daughter. No‘’I kiss my mother’s cross. Set into the floor so there’s one holy thing between me and oblivion. The sea won’t take me. I am the devil’s daughter. Nobody wants responsibility for my immortal soul. My address cannot be – the Devil’s Daughter, North Sea. I’ll never knock at heaven’s door. Hell knows I could do far worse than take over.’’
The Devil’s daughter arrives in Leith, heading to No. 10 Luckenbooth to fulfill a strange arrangement. When tragedy strikes brought about by the evil of one man, a curse falls on the building and its tenants. And thus, a dark journey begins. An odyssey taking place within Edinburgh and throughout the years, haunting women and men while the city stands witness to the battles of the human soul.
And this is how a masterpiece is born…
‘’Edinburgh seduces with her ancient buildings. She pours alcohol or food down the throats of anyone passing, dangles her trinkets, leaves pockets bare. She’s a pickpocket. The best kind of thief, can you think of – most fondly.
There is a cage around my heart – made of bone, bone, bone.’’
What can I possibly say? This novel is a treasure, a modern classic, a triumph all composed and generously gifted to us readers by Jenni Fagan, a unique writer that needs no introductions. She welcomes us with the very heart of Edinburgh and shows us its soul, its darkness, its beauty and ferocity. Α city where the Devil has been let loose in the form of unspeakable evil, betrayal, and slaughter. Levi’s chapters form a lullaby for Edinburgh, Dot’s are hymns to its haunting nature. Through moments of serenity (there is a beautiful church scene) and sequences of terrifying violence, Edinburgh and its ghosts come alive and represent the two sides of the human soul and heart. You will feel that you actually ARE in the Scottish capital through Fagan’s exquisite writing.
‘’Aye! If love can heal us then first it has to pull all out demons right up to the surface, no? How can we slay what can’t first see?’’
A luckenbooth brooch symbolizes love and eternal union. Fagan writes about love in all its beautiful and terrible forms. She writes about hatred, the plague that goes on and on for centuries and centuries, the source of all evil. The Holocaust and all the terrors of the Second World War form the greatest, darkest representation of the devil’s work on our world. There are references to the Night Witches of the Soviet Union that made the Nazis curse the (terrible) days they were born and the witches’ covens whose spells aimed to stop Hitler’s massacres. There is the nightmare of AIDS. There are echoes of the UK miners’ strikes and Thatcher’s politics, and the incidents in Tiananmen Square in 1989, the year that changed the world. Beyond the chaos, the despair, the corruption, womanhood flourishes. There is a beautiful paragraph in Jessie’s second chapter that pays homage to women throughout the ages, from the Virgin Mary to Aphra Behn, from Artemisia Gentileschi to Sophie Blanchard. Women who loved and fought against the world and their times, who lost their children and their loved ones, who were wounded but never defeated.
From the flames of Hogmanay and Christmas, through beautiful, mystical echoes of the Jewish tradition and culture, from 1910 to 1999, through love and pain, through every evil in the world (Antisemitism, racism, criminality, violence), No 10. Luckenbooth is watching…
And now, I will copy two of my most favourite paragraphs and I am not even sorry…
‘’A little curved turnip is stood on a miniature boulder. He howls at a fingernail moon. There is moss on the turnip floor and long twigs make it look like a forest at night. Drums begin to pound down low, out on the street. Hundreds of them! Pagan drummers marching down the High Street. It is Samhain. The white witch will be given her ritual sacrifice on Calton Hill. The Green Man will protect her on the journey.’’
‘’All over the world clocks tick, both in and out of time with each other. Ivor’s favourite is an astronomy clock. It is in Bohemia. It’s 10 p.m. here. It will strike midnight over there soon. Death will appear. It will beckon to a Turkish entertainer. The figures of Vanity and Greed will glide out. Spin on the dance floor. Twelve Apostles will flash from their windows. The Earth is centre. Sky is blue or black. There is Ortis ( sunrise), Occasvc (sunset), and Crevscvlvm (twilight). There is the Tropic of Cancer. It has all the signs of the zodiac. Three arms rotate the way through existence. One holds a moon, one holds a star. There is a sun. A golden hand.’’
This is the most lyrical description of the Prague Astronomical Clock…
How do you move on, as a reader, after such an experience…
‘’All the roads running down into the New Town in neat lines, exposing views from city to sea – looking all the way across the water. In summer sometimes golden fields of hay over in Fife catch the light. Luckenbooth has seen all the hearts break. All the people who started new jobs. Everyone who got back up again and walked these roads. Or there is a soft haze of green hills to seduce the eye on an icy morning. At night, on the other side of the Firth of Forth, a glowing dash of red lights up as Mossmorran bolts fire up into the sky from the ethylene plant, way over in the Kingdom of Fife – a place often ignored (or derided) by the many snobs of Edinburgh. It’s so pretty there. Seals swim out from Inchcolm Island. Fat white or grey seal cubs pop up every year, all black eyes and whiskers. In winter, the hills across the water are snow-peaked and majestic.’’...more
‘’When the sun goes down, it is very cold and then I easily start crying because the winter moon presses my heart. The winter moon is surrounded by an‘’When the sun goes down, it is very cold and then I easily start crying because the winter moon presses my heart. The winter moon is surrounded by an extraordinary darkness, the logical antithesis of the supernal clarity of the day. In this darkness, the dogs in every household howl together at the sight of a star, as if the stars were unnatural things. But from morning until evening, a hallucinatory light floods the shore and a cool, glittering sun transfigures everything so brilliantly that the beach looks like a desert and the ocean like a mirage.’’
The Reckoning (Edith Wharton): A woman who used to believe in certain unconventional ideas regarding marriage, finds herself a victim of her ideology due to her scoundrel of a husband. So, before we jump on the bandwagon of dubious motos, we’d better take a step back and think twice. Written in Wharton’s unmistakable, haunting, bittersweet voice, a momentary ode to the dark streets of New York.
‘’You think you know what it is to be cold, Frances,’’ she said. ‘’You don’t. You had better pray that you never may! It is to feel yourself gradually losing all human sensation; to feel that where there should be glowing moving blood there is motionless ice; to feel that the very atmosphere about you is not the atmosphere of every day, warm with the breath of your fellow creatures, but something rarified until its chill is agony.’’
My Fellow Travellers (Mary Angela Dickens): Written by Dickens’s eldest grandchild, this is the story of a teacher who becomes witness to an uncanny scene on a train. A haunting ghost story told in moving detail.
‘’New York must be full of suffering of one kind or another on a day like this. Just go out and spend it looking for the coldest woman in New York, or the saddest woman, or the most overworked woman, or the most anything woman in New York, and come back and write a story about her.’’
The Woman Who Was So Tired (Elizabeth Banks): Some piece of mission, right? In a deeply tender, profound story, a young reporter has to wander in wintery New York to find the woman with the ‘’best’’ story.
‘’She was outside on the step, gazing at the winter afternoon. Rain was falling, and with the rain it seemed the dark came too, spinning doen like ashes. There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and the new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses opposite. Dimly they burned as if regretting something. And people hurried by, hidden under their hateful umbrellas.’’
Doesn’t this passage bring tears to your eyes with its beauty?
A Cup of Tea (Katherine Mansfield): A wealthy young woman believes she has stumbled upon a scene out of Dostoevsky’s stories. But it is arrogance, not kindness that leads her to an act of empty ‘’mercy’’ Written in Mansfield’s superbly haunting, acidic tone.
‘’There is a special quality about a December sunset. The ruffles of red-gold gradually untightening, the congested mauve islands on a transparent sea of green, the ultimate luminous primrose dissolving into violet powder and the cold, biting night, lit up by strange patches of colour that have somehow been forgotten in the sky.’’
A Motor (Elizabeth Bibesco): Two people enjoying the cold December weather find themselves facing broken love affairs. Two motors become the metaphor for the feelings that haunt our steps.
Ann Lee’s (Elizabeth Bowen): A shopping experience turns mysteriously sinister when a man enters a hat shop igniting a strange interaction. One of the finest and most cryptic stories by Bowen.
‘’One has to face most things alone,’’ said Elizabeth, ‘’but it’s worth it.’’
The Snowstorm (Violet M. MacDonald): A snowy day provides the setting for the elopement of a peculiar ‘’illicit’’ couple in a haunting, reflective, and eerie story.
November Fair/ Ffair Gaeaf (Kate Roberts, translated from Welsh by Joseph P. Clancy): The aches and joys of a lively group of people within a single day, the day of the November Fair.
My Life With R.H.Macy (Shirley Jackson): An endless sequence of numbers, memos and a protagonist that has six numbers instead of a name. It’s her first time as a shop assistant at Macy’s, but will she return for her third day?
The Cold (Sylvia Townsend Warner): Mrs Ryder - one of the most exhausting characters you’ll ever meet in the pages of a book - manages to turn the annual common cold into an outrageous social criticism, based on her prejudices.
The Prisoner (Elizabeth Berridge): I’m sorry, but am I supposed to be moved by the wet dream of an idiotic middle-aged virgin who decides to fancy a young German POW? Really, girl? Tell your dramatic story about wanting a dick between your fat legs to the ones who were massacred in the concentration camps by the Nazi monsters. And she thinks that the Russians are monsters? Guess again, ‘’lady’’...
This story should NOT have been included in this collection. It is disrespectful, out of place, and frankly? Extremely badly written!
‘’But the roads were grey, the houses were grey, the rocks were grey. The wind was grey; and salty grey - like a licked seashore pebble- tasted the cold air in one’s mouth. Judith loved everything deeply.
The Cut Finger ( Frances Bellery): Young Judith believes that a trip to the seaside in the heart of winter is going to be an exciting adventure. The truth, though, will break her heart.
The Thames Spread Out (Elizabeth Taylor): A middle-aged woman waits for her lover across a flooded landscape. Father Thames has risen, prompting her to contemplate her failures, leading a life of affairs with married men, living on the expenses provided for her…services. Strangely enough, Taylor manages to create a story of haunting beauty, built on a character that you can’t help but like.
The Smile of Winter (Angela Carter): Naturally, the last word belongs to the one and only Angela Carter and her achingly beautiful musings on winter.
A collection marvellously edited and introduced by Simon Thomas. I can assure you a man does know how to compose an anthology of stories written by women. Perhaps if some of you weren't so absorbed by the latest pseudo-feministic cries and dying your hair green, purple or pink, you'd have the chance to sit down and read a proper book…But I guess that would require an immense effort on your part…And if you can’t ‘’find’’ the connection between these stories and winter, you need to have your brains checked.
‘’Do not think I don’t realise what I am doing. I am making composition using the following elements: the winter beach; the winter moon; the ocean; the women; the pine trees; the riders; the driftwood; the shells; the shapes of darkness and the shapes of water; and the refuse. these are all inimical to my loneliness because of their indifference to it. Out of these pieces of inimical indifference, I intend to represent the desolate smile of winter which, as you must have gathered, is the smile I wear.’’...more
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