A Different Sound: Stories by Mid-Century Women Writers

Compiled and introduced by the editor and literary critic Lucy Scholes, A Different Sound showcases a range of short stories by mid-20^th century women writers – an anthology so far up my street that it practically knocked on my door and invited itself in for tea…

Scholes’ choice of writers ranges from the familiar (Elizabeth Bowen, Elizabeth Taylor and Daphne du Maurier) to the lesser known (Attia Hosain, Frances Bellerby and Inez Holden). While others, such as Elizabeth Jane Howard, Penelope Mortimer and Stella Gibbons, are probably better known for novels than short fiction, their stories are excellent and do not disappoint. This is a terrific collection of pieces, enabling readers to reacquaint themselves with familiar favourites while also making some new discoveries. (As ever with these anthologies, I won’t try to cover every story included here; instead, my aim is to give you a flavour of the collection and a few overarching themes.)

Unsurprisingly, given the time period, war features in several of these stories, from Diana Gardner’s striking tale of The Land Girl, who cruelly takes her revenge on the family she is billeted with, to Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Scorched Earth Policy, in which an elderly couple push wartime measures to an extreme. But the most chilling example alludes to war in a metaphorical way, echoing aerial attacks during the Blitz and hinting at potential threats on the horizon, particularly from the Cold War brewing in the East…

In Daphne du Maurier’s terrifying story The Birds, farm worker Nat Hocken (still feeling the effects of an old injury from the war) must protect his family when the natural world hits back. After a long, mild autumn, the weather in Britain suddenly changes in early December when a bitter wind sweeps in from the East – a development Nat notices from his home on the south coast. For some reason, the dramatic change in weather unsettles all the birds, prompting thousands of different species – from blue tits and wrens to gulls and gannets – to flock together, patrolling the skies and attacking individuals on sight.

The birds were circling still, above the fields. Mostly herring gull, but the black-headed gull amongst them. Usually they kept apart. Now they were united. Some bond had brought them together.

It was the black-backed gull that attacked the smaller birds, and even new-born lambs, so he’d heard […] They were coming in towards the farm. They were circling lower in the sky, and the black-backed gulls were to the front, the black-backed gulls were leading. The farm, then, was their target. They were making for the farm. (p. 99)

As Nat struggles to seal up the house to protect his wife and children, the birds attack from every direction, pecking at windows, tearing at the door, trying to access the chimney, terrifying the family as they shelter in the kitchen. At first, the Hockens hope for help from the authorities, especially once a National Emergency is declared. However, it soon becomes clear that the general public are largely on their own, forced to take whatever measures they can to safeguard their loved ones. As Scholes rightly states in her perceptive introduction to the collection, The Birds ‘takes on a grim new relevance’ today in the age of environmental disasters linked to climate change. It’s an utterly chilling story in more ways than one.

There are wartime anxieties of a different kind in Stella Gibbons’ excellent story Listen to the Magnolias as a mature widow, Mrs Bestwick, fears the arrival of five American soldiers billeted to live in her house with its three spare bedrooms. Lying awake at night, Mrs B is assailed by a stream of worries. What will they eat? What could she talk to them about? Will she ever be able to use the bathroom again? And who will clean their boots? This is a lovely story with a hopeful end, one of several that challenges traditional clichés and stereotypes to surprising effect.  

In Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Three Miles Up, one of the standout pieces in this collection, a fractious holiday literally veers into unchartered territory when a mysterious but seemingly innocent young woman joins two men on their canal trip. The less said about this deliciously creepy story the better; it really is an unnerving treat!

The canal wound and wound, and the reeds grew not only thick on each bank, but in clumps across the canal. The light drained out of the sky into the water and slowly drowned there; the trees and the banks became heavy and black. (p. 199)

The tension also mounts in Penelope Mortimer’s masterful story The Skylight, in which much of the horror comes from the imagination – our visions (and those of the central character) as events unfold beyond our field of vision. I’ve already written about this one in my earlier review of Mortimer’s brilliant collection of short fiction, Saturday Lunch with the Brownings, but it’s lovely to revisit it here.

Similarly, you can find my thoughts on Elizabeth Taylor’s quietly devastating story The Thames Spread Out in my piece on her collection A Dedicated Man. When a middle-aged single woman, Rose, is marooned in her house by a flood, her lover unable to call due to the weather, she sees the emptiness of her life anew, prompting a reassessment and a new sense of purpose. Another excellent story, fully deserving of its inclusion here.

Perhaps the most interesting discovery for me is Attia Hosain’s The First Party, in which a shy Indian wife – newly married to a Western man – feels desperately uneasy in the company of her husband’s sophisticated friends. Surrounded by these liberated, scantily-clad creatures, all drinking heavily and dancing suggestively, the wife shrinks into her chair, ‘lonely in her strangeness yet dreading approach’.

The woman held a wineglass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. She [the young wife] wondered how it felt to hold a cigarette with such self-confidence; to flick the ash with such assurance. The woman had long nails, pointed, and scarlet. She looked at her own—unpainted, cut carefully short—wondering how anyone could eat, work, wash with those claws dipped in blood. She drew her sari over her hands, covering her rings and bracelets, noticing the other’s bare wrists, like a widow’s (p. 180)

At first, the young wife is unnerved and bewildered by this alien behaviour. But as the party unfolds, these emotions are swiftly replaced by anger, disgust and defiance – a situation made all the worse by her husband’s insensitive response. As Scholes notes in her introduction, Hosain’s story is perhaps the most unexpectedly violent entry in this anthology, a warning of the damage that can be done when Western attitudes and behaviour are imposed on other cultures and traditions.

In summary, then, A Different Sound is an excellent, surprisingly varied collection of stories from familiar and lesser-known mid-century women writers. There is so much for readers to enjoy here, with many stories still feeling relevant today, echoing anxieties from the past, present and future in an increasingly uncertain world.  

A Different Sound is published by Pushkin Press; my thanks to the publishers / Independent Alliance for a review copy.