Posts Tagged ‘writers’

 My fifth account of a book on the Romantic Novel of the Year long list, though actually this is one I had already read before the list was published.

THE SUMMER HOUSE by Mary Nichols spans World Wars 1 and 2, metropolis and village, big house and slum terrace.   It was a time of enormous change, in social conventions, moral values, class structures and education and one of the many delights of this book is the author’s unobtrusive but faultless sense of place and time.  

Essentially, this is the story of tragedy in three women’s lives – and how they survive and grow afterwards.  The constraints of the times affect the practical outcomes.  But the feelings, described here with a restraint that makes them all the more painful,  are universal.  During the Great War young Lady Helen marries a man her family feels at home with and then, finding him a stranger, falls in love with someone else.  Her family cannot permit her to keep a child that is not her husband’s, so she is hustled into something close to prison until the birth and then the child is taken away.  The moral disdain of those employed to help her through the birth is chilling but the withdrawal of affection from her family is worse and rings heartbreakingly true.   Eventually, widowed and orphaned by the War, Helen sets out to find her daughter.  But the lies she has been told, and holes in the records make it  very difficult – and when she does, she has to confront a whole human dilemma.

Anne  sacrifices everything, including the emotional honesty of her marriage and her own self-aproval, to have a child.  And Laura,  the precious and beloved daughter,  discovers when Anne dies that she has been lied to throughout her life.  The relationship of the three women is spiky and difficult and utterly believable.  They may be jealous, they are certainly fearful, and they have deep wounds to deal with, but they all, in their own way, try to be reasonable, even to those who can hurt them.  Laura, caught up in the consequences of old secrets, does cry out at one point, ‘It’s like a contagion, spreading and spreading.  I don’t feel like being fair.  No one’s been fair to me.’   But these women are practical and honest and, in the end, Laura is fair, in spite of intense provocation.  It is nothing short of heroic.

The most important love affair – well, this is long-listed for the Romantic Novel of the Year, after all – is mainly told from the hero’s point of view, and is a real heart-turner.  He is one of the good guys, quiet and responsible and outshone by flashier chaps – at least two of them in this book.  And then the awful thing happens and he starts to think of himself as a monster.  

A rich, understated book of many dimensions -  including a whole East Anglian village coming to terms with the wartime arrival of American troops.  It is  a five handkerchief weepie along the way with, ultimately a  deeply satisfying resolution, in which steadfastness is rewarded and endurance justified.   A feast

 DECLARATION OF INTEREST   Mary Nichols is an author I am proud to call a mate.  She is also a Treasure of the Romantic Novelists’ Association.  In 2009 she had three books, all in different genres, published within six weeks of each other and celebrated her diamond wedding anniversary.  She got a card from the Queen – and a blog post from us.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when two or more crime writers are gathered together, one of them will say, ‘But of course, Romantic Novelists are the ones who really plunge the knife between the shoulder blades.’ All laugh.

Last night at the Crime and Thriller Awards, it was Ian Rankin.

Bum. Because Ian Rankin is one of my favourite authors and I wanted him to be – well – not up for a lazy laugh, frankly.

To some extent, I see why he did it. Of course, it ought to be true. Writers live by dramatic irony, after all.  In real life, the gore and cruelty merchants should be stamp-collecting trainers of guide dogs for the blind. The love-conquers-all mob should demean their rivals, dispose of surplus spouses and destroy the universe while they’re at it.

But life isn’t like that.

I’ve just been diving through the Archive of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and, in fifty years, what comes across most strongly is the sheer good heartedness of most of them.  No spite,  no briefing against.  There are disagreements, of course;  even rows.  (Usually when there wasn’t enough tea.  But then that first generation was mainly from a class who Told Cook and hadn’t actually had to provide it themselves before.  They soon adjusted.)  But they liked each other and they had a damn good time – and genuinely rejoiced in fellow writers’ success, especially those who came through the RNA’s unique New Writers’ Scheme.  In fact some, like Sheila Walsh and Elizabeth Harrison, stayed on for life, through chairing the organisation and beyond. 

And they, we, have gone on doing it for fifty years.

I didn’t find the Romantic Novelists’ Association until well into my career, and I can honestly say I’ve never found so many friends and like minds in one place before – though we quite often disagree.  And from those who don’t like me, I receive courtesy and a hearing.  How many organisatons of 700 people can you say that about?  

To be honest, the worst you can say about Romantic Novelists is that we can be just a touch defensive.  Rosie M Banks we can take.  (Well, actually, some of us are enthusiasts.)  George Orwell we have learned to live with  - romantic novels should be read by ’wistful spinsters and fat wives of tobacconists’.  But when fellow popular novelists call us back-stabbing harridans, it hurts

And it’s not true.