The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble

First published in 1964, The Garrick Year was Margaret Drabble’s second novel, nicely placed between her debut A Summer Bird-Cage (which I loved) and The Millstone (which I have in my TBR). It’s a brilliant, sharply observed book which explores how women’s lives in this era were frequently dictated by the demands of marriage and motherhood, irrespective of any personal ambitions and desires these individuals may have held. We are firmly in the early ‘60s here, when young women were beginning to question these traditional societal expectations while still feeling the pressure to conform.

Drabble’s heroine and narrator is Emma Evans, a spiky, city-loving mother and former model in her mid-twenties. Emma has been married to David, a self-centred young actor, for three years, and they have two children together – Flora, still a toddler, and baby Joe. From the outset, the couple’s relationship has been characterised by ‘provocation and bargaining for domination’, with barbed, wryly amusing exchanges being the order of the day.

Just as Emma is contemplating a return to work in a pioneering, part-time role as TV newsreader – a job she would dearly love to do – David announces a new opportunity of his own. The respected theatre director Wyndham Farrar has approached him to appear in a season of plays at Hereford’s Garrick Theatre. Naturally, David wishes to accept, expecting Emma to put her needs and ambitions aside in favour of his own.

I could hardly believe that marriage was going to deprive me of this too. It had already deprived me of so many things which I had childishly overvalued: my independence, my income, my twenty-two inch waist, my sleep, most of my friends who had deserted on account of David’s insults, a whole string of finite things, and many more indefinite attributes like hope and expectation. (p. 10)

So, while David prattles on about the charms of country living – green fields, cows, peace and quiet, etc. – Emma foresees a year of boredom, frustration and domesticity ahead. She will be lost out there in the wilds – isolated and insignificant.  

Drabble is great on the nitty-gritty of daily life, capturing just how patronising a man can be to his wife or partner. So much of this dialogue rings true to me – especially the last line, which is a killer.

[David:] ‘You can get another job. Someone like you can get any number of jobs.’

[Emma:] ‘In Hereford?’

‘Well, I’m sure there’s something you could find to do there.’

‘You think so? Perhaps I could apply to be an usherette at your theatre, you mean?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, my love. There must be something you can do.’

‘I’m sure, on the contrary,’ I said, ‘that there would be simply, literally nothing that I could do.’

‘You could look after the children.’ (p. 16)

So, reluctant to split up the family while her husband pursues his ambitions, Emma has little option but to up sticks and move to Hereford for the season, leaving her broadcasting opportunity behind. Naturally, she expresses her frustration over the situation, but it’s of little use – after all, the man’s career must come first.

While David would naturally gravitate towards a modern house for comfort and convenience, Emma shuns anything new, opting instead for an older, characterful property despite its impractical nature. It’s a choice that illustrates their different personalities, partly explaining why they match relatively well as a couple irrespective of their bickering!

With David busy in rehearsals all day, Emma sees very little of him, especially when his work spills into the evenings. Moreover, everyone that Emma meets in Hereford assumes she must be an actress or something to do with the theatre. Otherwise, why else would she be there?

Consequently, she finds herself drawn into a dalliance with the director, Wyndham Farrar, who is well into his forties. In truth, only the ‘dark and wanting part’ of Emma responds to Wyndham’s advances, hijacking the rest of her to submit to its whims. Deep down, she knows the affair is ill-judged, but somehow, she cannot stop herself from succumbing, despite recognising it as a sign of her ‘own inadequacy and inability to grow’. 

There would have been no point in saying no, and yet I felt that I had involved myself in disaster by saying yes. It was not merely that our appointment had a distinct flavour of the clandestine, nor that Wyndham Farrar himself seemed to be a dangerous undertaking, though both these factors were involved. It was more that the way I had said yes, the helpless, rash, needing way I had been unable to refuse, laid me open to all sorts of conjectures about myself and my position. (p. 90)

In short, the responsibilities of marriage and motherhood, of constantly caring for two small children, have subsumed Emma’s own personal ambitions. All her social, cerebral and emotional needs have been suppressed – hence Emma’s craving for recognition and self-validation, which Wyndham taps into with his advances, albeit superficially.

I don’t want to reveal too much about how this story plays out, other than to say that Emma comes to a realisation. She is neither the self-pitying type nor the romantic, self-indulgent type who would feel satisfied by an affair with Wyndham. Rather, she is not cut out for it at all.

While there are several novels about the limitations of marriage, motherhood and the desire to feel valued, the sharpness of Drabble’s writing gives The Garrick Year an edge. The novel is laced with wry, pointed humour – partly from Emma’s lively narrative voice, which feels spiky and true. 

I stared hard at people to stop them staring at me: this is one of my amusements. (p. 46)

Drabble’s flair for a cutting observation also comes through in her descriptions of the supporting characters – not least with Sophy, the young, talkative actress fresh out of drama school, who catches David’s eye. She is glossy, well-dressed and a little dim – perfect fodder for the local press and their eager photographers.

She was clearly in her element: she was made, one could tell, for that gluttonous negative machine. (p. 47)

The respected actress, Natalie Winter – a woman with no dress sense whatsoever – also falls under Emma’s penetrating gaze. 

She was wearing a cocktail dress in emerald green, a colour better left to emeralds, with a black satin evening bag and white satin shoes (p. 46)

Drabble is also terrific on the world of reparatory theatre and the people within it – an environment she knew well through her marriage to the classically trained actor Clive Swift.

I like watching rehearsals: they are far more interesting than performances. One can see in a rehearsal every detail of what has preceded: who loves whom, who is nervous, who is confident, who is vain, who has been bullied by the director, who is admired by the rest of the cast, who is on the verge of tearful disaster. (p. 83)

The novel’s 1960s setting – a time of pivotal social change – also makes it feel distinctive. Even though I’ve yet to read The Pumpkin Eater, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Penelope Mortimer’s brilliant, incisive short stories, Saturday Lunch with the Brownings, as I was reading this book.

So, in summary then, The Garrick Year is another excellent novel by Margaret Drabble – a perceptive exploration of the frustrations of putting aside one’s own career and life ambitions for the sake of one’s partner. It’s also very insightful on the minutiae of daily life for a young mother with small children, how you can never take your eyes off a toddler for more than a couple of seconds when out and about. Very highly recommended, especially for readers interested in women’s lives in the mid-20^th century.

Books of the Year, 2023 – Part Two: my favourite ‘older’ books from a year of reading

This year, I’m spreading my 2023 reading highlights across a couple of posts. The first piece, on my favourite ‘recently published’ titles, is here, while this second piece puts the spotlight on the best ‘older’ books I read this year, including reissues of titles first published in the 20^th century.

These are the books I loved, the books that have stayed with me, the ones I’m most likely to recommend to other readers. I’ve summarised each one in this post (in order of reading), but as before, you can find the full reviews by clicking on the appropriate links. There are thirteen in total – a Baker’s Dozen of wonderful vintage books!

The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg (1962, tr. Dick Davis 1985)

I adored this thought-provoking collection of essays; it’s full of the wisdom of life. Ginzburg wrote these pieces individually between 1944 and 1962, and many were published in Italian journals before being grouped together here. In her characteristically lucid prose, Ginzburg writes of families and friendships, of virtues and parenthood, and of writing and relationships. Reading these pieces, we get a sense of how the author approaches her subjects obliquely or at an angle. In short, by writing about one aspect of a topic, Ginzburg triggers reverberations elsewhere – like an echo reverberating around the landscape or stone skimming across a pond – adding a broader resonance to her insights beyond their immediate sphere. It’s a fascinating collection, a keeper for the bedside table as a balm for the soul.

The Lowlife by Alexander Baron (1963)

Baron’s 1963 novella is an entertaining, picaresque story of a likeable Jewish charmer with a penchant for Emile Zola and a somewhat tortuous past. The anti-hero in question is forty-five-year-old Harryboy Boas, a lovable rogue with a conscience who feeds his gambling addiction with occasional stints as a Hofmann presser in the East End rag trade. Harryboy likes nothing more than a bit of peace and quiet, allowing him to read Zola novels all day in his room at Mr Siskin’s Hackney boarding house, preferably untroubled by the need to work. At night, he’s usually to be found at the local dog tracks, gambling away what little money he has, but everything changes when a new family, the Deaners, move in, a development that disturbs the relative calm and familiarity of Harryboy’s world. In short, this is a marvellous addition to the boarding house genre and a wonderful evocation of post-war London life.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba de Cespedes (1952, tr. Ann Goldstein 2023)

A remarkable rediscovered gem of Italian literature, a candid, exquisitely-written confessional from an evocative feminist voice. The novel is narrated by forty-three-year-old Valeria, who documents her inner thoughts in a secret notebook with great candour and clarity, laying bare her world with all its demands and preoccupations. For Valeria, the act of writing becomes a disclosure, an outlet for her frustrations with the family – her husband Michele, a somewhat remote but dedicated man, largely wrapped up in his own interests, which Valeria doesn’t share, and their two grown-up children who live at home. As the diary entries build up, we see how Valeria has been defined by the familial roles assigned to her; nevertheless, the very act of keeping the notebook leads to a gradual reawakening of her desires as she finds her voice, challenging the founding principles of her life with Michele. I adored this illuminating exploration of a woman’s right to her own existence in the face of competing demands; it’s probably my favourite book of the year.

Nights at the Alexandra by William Trevor (1987)

William Trevor is frequently cited as a master of the short story, and rightly so. His stories are spellbinding – humane, compassionate and beautifully written. He has a way of getting into the hearts and minds of his characters with insight and precision, laying bare their deepest preoccupations for the reader to see. These skills are very much in evidence in Nights at the Alexandra, a slim collection comprising the titular novella and two short stories. In the novella, fifty-eight-year-old Harry looks back on the days of his youth during WW2, when at the age of fifteen, he formed an unlikely but deeply touching friendship with Frau Messinger, a young Englishwoman who moved to Ireland with her much older German husband. This is a sad, melancholy story, but as Harry looks back at his life, he feels no regret. His memories of Frau Messinger are enough, shot through with happiness despite the spectre of loss. Likewise, the two short stories touch on broadly similar themes. These are quietly devastating tales of everyday country folk caught between the pull of their own desires and the familial duties that bind them to home. Trevor’s prose is exquisite and perfectly judged. 

The Home by Penelope Mortimer (1971)

This perceptive semi-autobiographical novel follows an attractive but vulnerable middle-aged woman, Eleanor Strathearn, in the months following the breakdown of her marriage as she attempts to establish some kind of life for herself, while also delving into the meaning of ‘home’ with all its various connotations. The story opens with Eleanor and her youngest child, fifteen-year-old Philip, moving from their longstanding family home in London to a smaller residence near St John’s Wood. As her other grown-up children have flown the nest, Eleanor approaches her new life with a strange mix of emotions, oscillating wildly between stoic optimism and crushing grief – the latter largely winning out. Alongside the sadness, this excellent, slightly off-kilter novel has flashes of darkly comic humour throughout. Fans of Muriel Spark would likely enjoy this one, and possibly Elizabeth Taylor, too.

The Sea Change by Elizabeth Jane Howard (1959)

The more I read Elizabeth Jane Howard, the more I enjoy her. Subtle, perceptive and elegantly written, her novels frequently delve into the complexities of troubled marriages, and that’s very much the case here. At first sight, this story may seem very familiar – a successful, married middle-aged man falls for a young, attractive ingénue. However, Howard creates such a fascinating set-up, featuring four distinctive, fully fleshed-out characters, that somehow this classic narrative seems fresh and alive. The story revolves around four central figures: Emmanuel Joyce, a successful playwright in his early sixties; his glamorous but fragile wife, Lillian, who is twenty years younger than her husband; Emmanuel’s long-suffering business manager/rescuer, Jimmy Sullivan; and nineteen-year-old Alberta, newly-appointed to the role of Emmanuel’s secretary. This richly textured ensemble piece encompasses the tensions between familial responsibility and personal desire, the dissection of a failing marriage, and the fallout from losing a child. The novel also demonstrates how our lives can turn in an instant, altering our future trajectories in significant and surprising ways.

A Wreath for the Enemy by Pamela Frankau (1954)

A thoroughly immersive coming-of-age novel, brilliantly described by Norah Perkins (on Backlisted) as the love child of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night. Elements of Brideshead Revisited and Bonjour Tristesse also spring to mind, especially for their atmosphere and mood. Central to the story is Penelope Wells, a precocious teenager who spends the school holidays with her bohemian father, Francis, and stepmother, Jeanne, in their small hotel on the balmy French Riviera. When the prim, middle-class Bradley family rent the neighbouring villa, Penelope is fascinated by the new arrivals, but the friendship she develops with young Don Bradley soon comes crashing down. The writing sparkles with just the right balance of humanity, insight and wit, perfectly capturing the intensity of the characters’ emotions as the drama plays out. A wonderful summer read that takes some surprising turns.

A Summer Bird-Cage by Margaret Drabble (1963)

This thoughtful, witty debut novel features an intelligent, educated young woman trying to find her place in an evolving world. Drabble focuses on two well-educated sisters here – twenty-one-year-old Sarah Bennett and her older sister, Louise, both Oxford-educated – exploring their different values and preoccupations. While Louise opts for marriage to Stephen, a wealthy but snobbish writer, Sarah tries to figure out what to do with her life. The writing is marvellous, encompassing chic 1960s fashions, hairstyles, and lifestyles, plus glimpses of Louise’s honeymoon in Rome. Drabble also gives us some wonderfully evocative descriptions of London, from Sarah waiting in the pouring rain to catch a bus at Aldwych to the messy glamour of backstage life in the city’s West End. A witty, hugely enjoyable book, shot through with some amusing touches, always beautifully judged.

Uncle Paul by Celia Fremlin (1959)

A wonderfully clever portrayal of what can happen when we allow our imagination to run wild and unfettered, conjuring up all sorts of nightmare scenarios from our fears and suspicions. On the surface, Uncle Paul could be the relatively innocent story of three sisters getting caught up in troublesome domestic matters during a seaside holiday. But in Fremlin’s hands, this narrative takes on a more sinister dimension, tapping into the siblings’ fears of murder and revenge. In short, this is an utterly brilliant novel, a clever, skilfully executed exploration of fear and suspicion, very much in the style of Patricia Highsmith’s and Shirley Jackson’s domestic noirs, laced with the social comedy of Barbara Pym. The seaside setting, complete with a creepy rundown holiday cottage, is beautifully evoked. 

The Mountain Lion by Jean Stafford (1947)

If Carson McCullers and Elspeth Barker (of O Caledonia fame) had run off to the Colorado mountains to work on a novel, this rediscovered gem might have been the result! It’s a haunting, unnerving portrayal of a close but volatile brother-sister relationship, laced with an undercurrent of menace as adolescence beckons on the horizon. Stafford has created such an evocative, relatable world here, instantly recognisable to anyone who recalls the pain and awkwardness of adolescence – from the disdain we have for our parents and elders to the discomfort we feel in our bodies as they develop, to the confusion and resentments that frequently surface as we grow apart from our soulmates. She also infuses the narrative with an ominous sense of mystery, something poisonous and unknowable, especially towards the end.

Sheep’s Clothing by Celia Dale (1988)

Last year, Celia Dale made my annual highlights with A Helping Hand, an icily compelling tale of greed and deception, stealthily executed amidst carefully orchestrated conversations and kindly cups of tea. This year, she’s back with another gripping novel in a very similar vein. The central protagonist is Grace, a merciless, well-organised con woman in her early sixties with a track record of larceny. As a trained nurse with experience of care homes, Grace is well versed in the habits and behaviours of the elderly – qualities that have enabled her to develop a seemingly watertight plan for fleecing some of society’s most vulnerable individuals, typically frail old women living on their own. To enact her plan, Grace teams up with Janice, a passive, malleable young woman she met in Holloway prison. Together, the two women trick their victims in a cruel, callous way, worming their way into people’s homes by posing as Social Services. Another masterful, sinister novel from Celia Dale – all the more terrifying for its grounding in normality. 

Brief Lives by Anita Brookner (1990)

In this penetrating character study novel, Brookner explores a demanding, codependent relationship between two women, Fay and Julia, thrown together by the business partnership between their respective husbands. Once a glamorous actress with Vogue features under her belt, Julia retains delusions of grandeur, thriving on an audience to pander to her whims. At heart, she is selfish, dismissive, cruel and sardonic, maintaining a hold over Fay (and other lonely, suggestible women) by manipulating them rather skilfully. While Fay dislikes Julia and her methods, she struggles to extricate herself from this woman’s grip, partly out of pity and partly from a strange sense of compulsion and duty. There’s a Bette Davis–Joan Crawford vibe to the toxic, codependent bond between Julia and Fay, reminiscent of the sisters’ relationship in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, albeit in a different context. I’m reading Brookner in publication order, and it’s one of my favourites to date.

The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger (1966)

I loved this utterly gripping novel with a morally ambiguous German character at its heart. Central to the story, which is set in the mid-1960s, is Karl Braun, a cultured, mild-mannered German émigré working as a piano tuner in London. On the surface, Braun’s work colleagues and fellow lodgers assume their friend came to England to escape the Nazis. However, the more we read, the more we realise that Pressburger’s protagonist is haunted by the past. His wife and child perished in an Allied bombing raid over Hamburg – a tragic incident that might well have killed Braun himself had he not rushed to work that day to attend to pressing business. Soon, other more sinister details emerge, creating the impression that Braun is in hiding from something – or possibly someone – with a link to his past. As the narrative unfolds, this quiet story of an émigré trying to make his way in 1960s London morphs into a noirish thriller, the tension escalating with every turn of the page. A complex, deeply unnerving read that will test the reader’s sympathies in unexpected ways.

So, that’s it for my favourite books from another year of reading. Do let me know your thoughts on my choices – I’d love to hear your views.

All that remains is for me to wish you a very Merry Christmas and all the best for the year ahead – may it be filled with lots of excellent books, old and new!

A Summer Bird-Cage by Margaret Drabble

Sometimes, various factors align and point us towards specific books, and that’s certainly what happened here! Last week, the Backlisted team released their latest podcast, which featured a marvellous discussion about Margaret Drabble’s best-known book, The Millstone, first published in 1965. Funnily enough, a few weeks ago, Drabble’s debut novel, A Summer Bird-Cage (from 1963), caught my eye during a bookish trip to Bath. So, having been captivated by Linda Grant’s and Lucy Scholes’ enthusiasm for Drabble on Backlisted, I decided to give Bird-Cage a try – with, as it turns out, excellent results. It’s a terrific book – a thoughtful, witty and erudite novel featuring an intelligent, educated young woman trying to find her place in an evolving world. I can’t quite recall the last time I enjoyed a debut novel this much; it was such an unexpected delight!

Drabble started writing at a time when young women were beginning to question the traditional societal expectations of early marriage and motherhood, especially for those with good educations. Instead, many of these women were looking at alternative options – finding stimulating work, embarking on fledgling careers, possibly travelling abroad, delaying marriage, or eschewing it altogether in favour of other paths in life. It’s a theme that Drabble starts to explore here by focusing on two well-educated sisters, twenty-one-year-old Sarah Bennett (our narrator) and her older sister, Louise, both with degrees from Oxford.

I thought about jobs, and seriousness, and about what a girl can do with herself if over-educated and lacking a sense of vocation. Louise had one answer, of course. She was getting married. Moreover she was marrying a very wealthy and, in a minor way, celebrated man. It seemed to be one way of escaping the secretarial course-coffee bar degradation that had been creeping up on her ever since, two years ago, she too had left the esoteric masonic paradise of Oxford. (p. 2)

Louise is about to marry Stephen Halifax, a wealthy, successful writer, and Sarah has been called home to Warwickshire to be a bridesmaid at the wedding. Both sisters are clever and highly educated but very different from one another in nature. So, while Sarah is kind, witty and reasonably pretty, Louise is vain, selfish and stunningly beautiful, regularly turning heads. Their relationship is a thorny one, characterised by Louise’s rejection of her sister’s affections during the girls’ formative years.

…there had been a time when, happily oblivious of my own undesirability, I had pursued her and waited on her and yearned for the crumb of her company that never fell my way. This had lasted from the age of eight until I was thirteen or so: before I was eight she used to play with me quite often, and after the age of thirteen I learned at least superficially to ignore her and to get on with my own life. But the humiliating period after she had cast me off and before I learned to appear to have cast her off I remember very clearly. (p. 101)

In fact, it was only during her time at Oxford that Sarah began to shrug off this sense of defensiveness and inferiority, finally ushering in an appreciation of her true worth. Nevertheless, these experiences have soured Sarah’s relationship with her sister, leaving it lacking in openness, understanding and warmth.

In the end she taught me the art of competition, […] She taught me to want to outdo her. (p.  103)

The situation is further complicated by the fact that Sarah has taken against her sister’s future husband, Stephen, who she sees as tactless, snobbish and lacking in understanding and compassion. She also detests his novels (a series of sneering social satires) despite their critical success. Perhaps most galling of all, Sarah cannot figure out why Louise is marrying Stephen – or, for that matter, what he sees in Louise. Maybe Stephen is after a trophy wife, a beautiful, socially acceptable ornament for his gilded world. But, with her vanity and ruthless tendencies, Louise dislikes playing second fiddle to anyone, making the match seem even more puzzling. If anything, Sarah wonders whether her sister might be more interested in John Connell, a dashingly attractive actor who happens to be Stephen’s best man – a train of thought that develops further as this delectable novel unfolds…

After the wedding, Sarah doesn’t know what to do with her life, except she would like to write a funny book, something like Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim. (It would be wonderful to write a novel like that!) So, to escape the emotional demands of her mother, Sarah moves to London, gets a flat-share with Gill – an Oxford friend who has recently split up with her husband, Tony, another Oxford grad – and finds a job with the BBC. The role isn’t particularly stimulating, but it’ll do for now, giving Sarah the space to consider her future.

Sarah is a thoughtful narrator, full of observations and questions about the lives of those around her, particularly their relationships and behaviours. Society has long placed various restrictions on women, but now some of those traditional expectations are beginning to be challenged.

Why did I want to reconcile everything? Why couldn’t I jump for the unreliable with both eyes shut, as Gill had done? Why did I want to have my cake and eat it, as far as security was concerned? How could one expect people to be reliable about some things and not about others? (p. 39)

When Louise and Stephen return from their honeymoon in Italy, Sarah finds herself being drawn, somewhat reluctantly, into their lives through a sequence of parties, chance encounters and conversations with friends. From these positions, she is able to observe the nature of her sister’s marriage, which is looking increasingly shaky, particularly as questions of fidelity begin to emerge. This, together with insights into the failure of Gill’s marriage to Tony, prompts Sarah to wonder whether she will ever want to get married herself – and if so, what kind of relationship it will be. Nevertheless, there is a strong sense of loneliness here, following the regular social contact and lively community of her old Oxford days. In particular, Sarah desperately misses Francis, her unofficial fiancé and love, who is currently in the US on a Harvard scholarship.

Alongside these beautifully fleshed-out central characters, Drabble introduces a range of secondary players, partly to illustrate how other educated young women are faring in their lives. There’s Sarah’s plain, unattached cousin, Daphne, who teaches history in a Warwickshire school; fellow Oxford graduate, Gill, who is miserable following her split with husband Tony over an unwanted pregnancy; and Stella, an Oxford contemporary of Louise’s, now trapped in a poky, cluttered house, married with two young children and little money coming in. Unsurprisingly, none of these outcomes seem attractive to Sarah, never mind the kind of marriage she observes through Louise.

Drabble also does a terrific job of capturing the tensions between Sarah and Gill as they try to rub along with one another in their Highbury flat. The realities of day-to-day life soon kick in, from quarrels over dirty saucepans, messy rooms and when to do the washing-up to pussyfooting around sensitive subjects such as Tony’s love life now that he and Gill are no longer a couple.

There are hints, too, of some of the themes Drabble would go on to explore in future books – for instance, the dilemma of whether to allow an unexpected pregnancy to run its full term or to seek an abortion, with all the stark horrors the latter option involves.

Naturally, the writing is marvellous, encompassing chic 1960s fashions, hairstyles and lifestyles, plus glimpses of Louise’s honeymoon in Rome. Drabble also gives us some wonderfully evocative descriptions of London, from Sarah waiting in the pouring rain to catch a bus at Aldwych to the messy glamour of backstage life at a West End theatre.

Finally, I love Drabble’s use of humour. This is a witty, hugely enjoyable book, shot through with amusing touches, always beautifully judged.

Wilfred tells me that Stephen is writing another novel with Louise as villainess: I foresee a book about a woman who is destroyed by a fatal streak of vulgarity, manifested by an inability to resist shades of mauve, purple and lilac. (p. 212)

In summary, A Summer Bird-Cage is a thoughtful, intelligent and thoroughly engaging story of an educated young woman trying to find her way in the world. It also touches on the folly of marriage, especially when pursued for dubious reasons. Drabble prompts us to consider the pitfalls of thinking that the grass might be greener on the other side – it rarely is! The possibility of having one’s cake and eating it is another pertinent theme, especially for women in the ‘60s – an excellent novel with plenty of food for thought!

A Summer Bird-Cage is published by Canongate; personal copy.