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Mothering Sunday: A Romance (Vintage International) Paperback – January 10, 2017
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“Exquisite ... shows love, lust, and ordinary decency struggling against the bars of an unjust English caste system.” —Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian
On an unseasonably warm spring day in the 1920s, twenty-two-year-old Jane Fairchild, a maid at an English country house, meets with her secret lover, the young heir of a neighboring estate. He is about to be married to a woman more befitting his social status, and the time has come to end the affair—but events unfold in ways Jane could never have predicted.
As the narrative moves back and forth across the twentieth century, what we know and understand about Jane—about the way she loves, thinks, feels, sees, and remembers—expands with every page. In Mothering Sunday, Swift has crafted an emotionally soaring and profoundly moving work of fiction.
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateJanuary 10, 2017
- Dimensions5.15 x 0.54 x 7.98 inches
- ISBN-10110197172X
- ISBN-13978-1101971727
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Exquisite. . . Mothering Sunday shows love, lust, and ordinary decency struggling against the bars of an unjust English caste system.” —Kazuo Ishiguro, The Guardian
“A book you’ll want to read more than once—and then urge on your friends.” —NPR
“An exquisite, emotionally resonant romance.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A fairy tale of sexual and intellectual awakening.” —The New Yorker
About the Author
languages.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
“What about the fourth leg?”
“Oh the fourth leg. That was always the question.”
For most of the time it was just a name, never seen, though an expensively quartered and trained name. It had been sold in 1915—when he’d been fifteen too. “Before you showed up, Jay.” But once, long ago, early one June morning, they’d all gone, for the strange, mad expedition of it, just to watch it, just to watch Fandango, their horse, being galloped over the downs. Just to stand at the rail and watch it, with other horses, thundering towards them, then flashing past. He and Ma and Pa and Dick and Freddy. And—who knows?—some other ghostly interested party who really owned the fourth leg.
He had a hand on her leg.
It was the only time she’d known his eyes go anything close to misty. And she’d had the clear sharp vision (she would have it still when she was ninety) that she might have gone with him—might still somehow miraculously go with him, just him—to stand at the rail and watch Fandango hurtle past, kicking up the mud and dew. She had never seen such a thing but she could imagine it, imagine it clearly. The sun still coming up, a red disc, over the grey downs, the air still crisp and cold, while he shared with her, perhaps, a silver-capped hip flask and, not especially stealthily, clawed her arse.
—
BUT SHE WATCHED him now move, naked but for a silver signet ring, across the sunlit room. She would not later in life use with any readiness, if at all, the word “stallion” for a man. But such he was. He was twenty-three and she was twenty-two. And he was even what you might call a thoroughbred, though she did not have that word then, any more than she had the word “stallion.” She did not yet have a million words. Thoroughbred: since it was “breeding” and “birth” that counted with his kind. Never mind to what actual purpose.
It was March 1924. It wasn’t June, but it was a day like June. And it must have been a little after noon. A window was flung open, and he walked, unclad, across the sun-filled room as carelessly as any unclad animal. It was his room, wasn’t it? He could do what he liked in it. He clearly could. And she had never been in it before, and never would be again.
And she was naked too.
March 30th 1924. Once upon a time. The shadows from the latticework in the window slipped over him like foliage. Having gathered up the cigarette case and lighter and a little silver ashtray from the dressing table, he turned, and there, beneath a nest of dark hair and fully bathed by sunshine, were his cock and balls, mere floppy and still sticky appendages. She could look at them if she liked, he didn’t mind.
But then he could look at her. She was stretched out naked, except for a pair—her only pair—of very cheap earrings. She hadn’t pulled up the sheet. She had even clasped her hands behind her head the better to look at him. But he could look at her. Feast your eyes. It was an expression that came to her. Expressions had started to come to her. Feast your eyes.
Outside, all Berkshire stretched out too, girded with bright greenery, loud with birdsong, blessed in March with a day in June.
He was still a follower of horses. That is, he still threw money away on them. It was his version of economising, to throw money away. For nearly eight years he’d had money for three, in theory. He called it “loot.” But he would show he could do without it. And what the two of them had been doing for almost seven years cost, as he would sometimes remind her, absolutely nothing. Except secrecy and risk and cunning and a mutual aptitude for being good at it.
But they had never done anything like this. She had never been in this bed before—it was a single bed, but roomy. Or in this room, or in this house. If it cost nothing, then this was the greatest of gifts.
Though if it cost nothing, she might always remind him, then what about the times when he’d given her sixpences? Or was it even threepences? When it was only just beginning, before it got—was it the right word?—serious. But she would never dare remind him. And not now anyway. Or dare throw at him the word “serious.”
He sat on the bed beside her. He ran a hand across her belly as if brushing away invisible dust. Then he arranged on it the lighter and ashtray, retaining the cigarette case. He took two cigarettes from the case, putting one in her own proffered, pouting lips. She had not taken her hands from the back of her head. He lit hers, then his. Then, gathering up the case and lighter to put on the bedside table, he stretched out beside her, the ashtray still positioned halfway between her navel and what these days he would happily, making no bones about it, call her “cunt.”
Cock, balls, cunt. There were some simple, basic expressions.
It was March 30th. It was a Sunday. It was what used to be known as Mothering Sunday.
—
“WELL, you have a gorgeous day for it, Jane,” Mr. Niven had said as she brought in fresh coffee and toast.
“Yes, sir,” she’d said and she’d wondered quite what he meant by “it” in her case.
“A truly gorgeous day.” As if it were something he had generously provided. And then to Mrs. Niven, “You know, if someone had told us it was going to be like this, we might as well have all packed hampers. A picnic—by the river.”
He said it wistfully, yet eagerly, so that, putting down the toast rack, she’d thought for an instant there might actually be a change of plan and she and Milly would be required to pack a hamper. Wherever the hamper was, and whatever they were supposed to put in it at such inconsiderate notice. This being their day.
And then Mrs. Niven had said, “It’s March, Godfrey,” with a distrusting glance towards the window.
Well, she’d been wrong. The day had only got better.
And anyway the Nivens had their plan, on which the weather could only smile. They were to drive to Henley to meet the Hobdays and the Sheringhams. Given their common predicament—which only occurred once a year and only for a portion of one day—they were all to meet for lunch at Henley and so deal with the temporary bother of having no servants.
It was the Hobdays’ idea—or invitation. Paul Sheringham was to marry Emma Hobday in just two weeks’ time. So the Hobdays had suggested to the Sheringhams an outing for lunch: an opportunity to toast and talk over the forthcoming event, as well as a solution to Sunday’s practical difficulty. And then because the Nivens were close friends and neighbours of the Sheringhams and would be honoured guests at the wedding (and would have the same difficulty), the Nivens—as Mr. Niven had put it to her when first notifying her of these arrangements—had been “roped in.”
This had all made clear one thing she knew already. Whatever else Paul Sheringham was marrying, he was marrying money. Perhaps he had to, the way he got through his own. The Hobdays would be paying in two weeks’ time for a grand wedding, and did you really need to celebrate a forthcoming celebration? Not unless you had plenty to spare. It might demand nothing less than champagne. When Mr. Niven had mentioned the hamper he had perhaps been wondering how much the Hobdays’ liberality could be relied on or how much the day might involve his own pocket.
But that the Hobdays had plenty to spare pleased her. It had nothing to do with her, but it pleased her. That Emma Hobday might be made of five-pound notes, that the marriage might be an elaborate way of obtaining “loot,” pleased or, rather, consoled her. It was all the other things it might entail that—even as Mr. Niven explained about the “roping in”—gnawed at her.
And would Mister Paul and Miss Hobday be joining the party themselves? She couldn’t really ask it directly, vital as it was to her to know. And Mr. Niven didn’t volunteer the information.
“Would you mention these arrangements to Milly? None of it of course need affect—your own arrangements.”
It was not often that he had the occasion to say such a thing.
“Of course, sir.”
“A jamboree in Henley, Jane. A meeting of the tribes. Let’s hope we have the weather for it.”
She wasn’t quite sure what “jamboree” meant, though she felt she had read the word somewhere. But “jam” suggested something jolly.
“I hope so too, sir.”
—
AND NOW they clearly had the weather for it, and Mr. Niven, whatever his earlier misgivings, was indeed getting rather jolly. He was going to be driving himself. He had already announced that they might as well set off soon, so they could “pootle around” and take advantage of such a lovely morning. He wouldn’t, apparently, be calling on Alf at the garage, who—for the right sum—could become a convincing chauffeur. In any case, as she’d observed over recent years, Mr. Niven liked driving. He even preferred the pleasure of driving to the dignity of being driven. It gave him a boyish zest. And as he was always saying, with a whole variety of intonations, ranging from bluster to lament, times were changing.
Once upon a time, after all, the Nivens would have met the Sheringhams at Sunday service.
“Tribes” had suggested something hot and outdoors. She knew it was to be the George Hotel in Henley. It was not to be a picnic. And it might well have been a day, since it was still March, of evil gales, even snow. But it was a morning like a morning in summer. And Mrs. Niven left the table to go up to get herself ready.
She couldn’t ask, even now with Mr. Niven conveniently alone, “Would Miss Hobday and…?” Even if it sounded like just a maid’s idle curiosity. Wasn’t the coming wedding the only current talking-point? And she certainly couldn’t ask, “If not, then what other separate arrangements might the two of them have in mind?”
She didn’t think that if she were one half of a betrothed couple—or at least Paul Sheringham’s half—she would want, two weeks before their wedding, to attend a jamboree in Henley to be fussed over by the older generation (by what he might have called—she could see him speaking with a cigarette in his mouth and wincingly screwing up his eyes—“three bloody showers together”).
But in any case, if she got no further information, it still left the problem that was peculiarly hers on this day, as Mr. Niven knew, of what to do with it. Today it was painfully peculiar. The gorgeous weather didn’t necessarily help at all. It only seemed—with two weeks to go—to deepen a shadow.
She was going to say to Mr. Niven, when the moment came, that if he—if he and Mrs. Niven—didn’t mind, she might not “go” anywhere. She might just stay here at Beechwood and read a book if that was all right—“her book” as she might put it, though it belonged to Mr. Niven. She might just sit somewhere in the sunshine in the garden.
She knew that Mr. Niven could only approve of such a harmless suggestion. He might even think it was a rather appealing image. And of course it would mean she’d be ready to resume her duties at once, whenever they returned. She could find something to eat in the kitchen. Milly, before she left, might even make her a sandwich. She could have her own “picnic.”
And it might even have happened just like that. The bench in the nook by the sundial. Bumblebees tricked by the weather. The magnolia tree already loaded with blossom. Her book on her lap. She knew which book it would be.
So—she would put the idea to Mr. Niven.
But then the telephone had rung and—it being one of her numberless duties—she’d hastened to answer it. And her heart had soared. That was a phrase you read in books, but it was sometimes actually true of what happened to people. It was true then of herself. Her heart had soared, like some stranded heroine’s in a story. Like the larks she would hear in a little while, trilling and soaring high in the blue sky, as she pedalled her way to Upleigh.
But she’d been careful to say, quite loudly, into the receiver and with her best answering-the-telephone voice that was both maid-like and somewhat queenly, “Yes, madam.”
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (January 10, 2017)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 110197172X
- ISBN-13 : 978-1101971727
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.15 x 0.54 x 7.98 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #556,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,118 in 20th Century Historical Romance (Books)
- #2,344 in Historical British & Irish Literature
- #29,258 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Graham Swift was born in 1949 and is the author of ten novels, two collections of short stories, including the highly acclaimed England and Other Stories, and of Making an Elephant, a book of essays, portraits, poetry and reflections on his life in writing. His most recent novel, Mothering Sunday, became an international bestseller and won The Hawthornden Prize for best work of imaginative literature. With Waterland he won the Guardian Fiction Prize, and with Last Orders the Booker Prize. Both novels were made into films. His work has appeared in over thirty languages.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing engaging and insightful. They appreciate the vivid scenes and artistic rendering. However, opinions differ on the story quality, length, and character development. Some find it gripping and brilliant, while others feel the story lacks punch. There are mixed views on the pacing - some find it fast and compact, while others say it's too long.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers appreciate the book's writing style. They find it engaging, with a unique first-person narrative that draws them in from the start. The narrative is perceptive and detailed, providing an insightful exploration of the events in the film.
"...The novel is a leisurely and very sensuous exploration of the ensuing tryst, for once in the actual home of the young man...." Read more
"...exactly clarify anything, but it does allow you to understand the events of the film better...." Read more
"Although the writing was good, the story was slow with a predicable ending...." Read more
"The book is richly written, but heart-breaking. It's short, intense, and beautifully artistic in its rendering...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and interesting. They say it's a reflective tale that draws them in and lingers in their minds. The book conveys the author's mixed emotions and is thought-provoking.
"...that I loved Mothering Sunday, but I do appreciate the way it lingered in my mind and opened up deeper meanings than were apparent on the surface." Read more
"...I finished it (appropriately) on a Sunday afternoon; it captivated me immediately and never let go...." Read more
"...I found both film and book thought provoking. I would have preferred reading the book first." Read more
"...Enjoyed it because its writing style was different. It draws you in , engaging the reader due to its uniquely intimate manner of writing in the..." Read more
Customers enjoy the visual style of the book. They find it visually appealing and well-written, with vivid scenes. The book portrays the class system sensitively.
"...has just been deprived of the flower of its young manhood, the beautiful entitlement of two young people in love enjoying each other without..." Read more
"...It's short, intense, and beautifully artistic in its rendering...." Read more
"...But then the twist in the story starts to develop. It's a lovely, well-written short novel, sensual, and full of hope. Well worth reading." Read more
"...and never lets you go in a stream of beautiful prose and wonderful imagery. "At 80, she had the face of a wrung-out mop"...." Read more
Customers find the story gripping and brilliant. They describe it as a haunting tale about love, loss, deception, and birth. However, others feel the story lacks punch, with predictable endings and a mental meandering without much of a point.
"...spring, the charm of the English countryside, the quaintness of a vanished style of life, the melancholy of a generation that has just been..." Read more
"...are hints that, although written in the present tense, the story is a retrospective, and that Jane has become a famous author...." Read more
"Although the writing was good, the story was slow with a predicable ending...." Read more
"...All of this makes for a much more interesting story than a love story...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's length. Some find it short enough to read in one sitting, and appreciate the compactness, saying a lot happens on each page. Others feel it's too short and the story is shallow.
"The book is richly written, but heart-breaking. It's short, intense, and beautifully artistic in its rendering...." Read more
"...I read the book in about two hours - a very short novel which I don't like. I like a nice long read!..." Read more
"...I enjoyed the compactness of the short book because a lot happened on each page and it was fast and unusual and immensely fun." Read more
"The only good thing about this book is that it was small. The characters in the book were very uninteresting...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the character development. Some find the characters engaging, while others feel they are not particularly interesting. They also mention the main character's repetitive thoughts.
"...But it could've been, if not for the endlessly repetitive thoughts of the main character and exhaustively detailed descriptions of menial tasks...." Read more
"...I loved the characters so much. I saw the ads for the movie and thought, I bet that’s an amazing book. It was!..." Read more
"...The characters are not particularly engaging. Disappointed." Read more
"Really liked the main character, Jane Fairchild. Jane took what she needed from her situation and made a very interesting life for herself...." Read more
Customers have different views on the pacing. Some find it fast and engaging, while others feel the story is slow and predictable.
"...Gentle, affectionate, sexy: a wonderful novel." Read more
"Although the writing was good, the story was slow with a predicable ending...." Read more
"This slight book has a mesmerizing quality. It takes place in a single day, mothering day, but reflects the narrator's life,how she went from a maid..." Read more
"...of the short book because a lot happened on each page and it was fast and unusual and immensely fun." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's interest. Some find it engaging and surprising, saying they can't stop reading. Others feel it becomes less interesting as they read more, with too many words and repetitive elements.
"...It started out strong and very interesting but became less interesting the more I read. i kept waiting for something more to happen and it didn't." Read more
"Beautifully written. Couldn’t stop reading. Book follows the life of Jane Fairchild, moving back and forth from 1924 to the end of the century...." Read more
"...It could have been a good story, but it was too tiresome , too many words with little substance." Read more
"...It draws you in , engaging the reader due to its uniquely intimate manner of writing in the first person you feel like her confident ." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2017I'm a Swift fan anyway, but this was a special treat -- his best, I'd say, since the wonderful Last Orders. He has never written to a formula, so it's no surprise to find that this is rather different from the others -- although I suppose a surface similarity can be found in his fondness for the English countryside and certain aspects of English life -- in this instance the obsolete (?) tradition of Mothering Sunday -- which, the novel makes clear, had little in common with its modern commercialisation as Mother's Day. Here, in the aftermath of the First World War (the novel takes place in the early 1920's, though its extremely long-lived central character survives almost (?) into the new century), the day is intended to allow the (ever-diminishing number of) servants a day off to go to see their mothers. What Swift homes in on is that this leaves the servanted class to fend for themselves as far as meals are concerned. In this instance, it gives two neighbouring families an excuse for a lunch outing to a nearby hotel -- and the scion of one of the families an excuse to arrange a tryst with one of the maids of the neighbouring family, with whom he has has had an affair for some seven years -- now, presumably, to be terminated by his impending marriage. The novel is a leisurely and very sensuous exploration of the ensuing tryst, for once in the actual home of the young man. (The Modigliani nude on the cover, at first blush somewhat surprising on a Graham Swift cover, is in fact very appropriate to the frank sexuality of the encounter.) And that is about it, with flashes forward to somewhat surprising later career of the young woman, with one surprising development that I won't divulge. It has about it the warm languor of a beautiful day in early spring, the charm of the English countryside, the quaintness of a vanished style of life, the melancholy of a generation that has just been deprived of the flower of its young manhood, the beautiful entitlement of two young people in love enjoying each other without constraint. In some ways, it offers a counterweight to Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach, with its appalled and appalling vision of British sexuality in the early sixties. What a difference forty years made! (And now the pendulum has swung back again.) Gentle, affectionate, sexy: a wonderful novel.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2022When I saw the film version of Mothering Sunday, I knew immediately that I had to read the novel. The characters in the film are enigmatic—you can't tell why they are doing or saying what they are—and events jump from the past to the future, so I hoped that by reading the novel all would be clarified. The novel, I found, doesn't exactly clarify anything, but it does allow you to understand the events of the film better. Once you reconcile yourself to the fact that the entire novel takes place in a few hours (with a few flashes back and forward), you can adjust your expectations accordingly. Since completing the novel, I've passed it on to friends who have also enjoyed it. I'm intrigued enough by it to start reading other novels by Graham Swift.
- Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2016Although the writing was good, the story was slow with a predicable ending. I think there was a great deal of subject matter that could have resulted in further development of the story and characters. I read the book in about two hours - a very short novel which I don't like. I like a nice long read! This is the first novel I have read from the author, but I will try him again to hopefully read a more complex novel as I liked his writing style.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2016one of the pleasures of reading fiction is finding an author who can inhabit the life of a character, especially when the character is different from the author, such as madame bovary from flaubert. jane fairchild is such a character, which is made clear more than half way through the book.
by borrowing cinematic magic, graham swift reduces distance and, drawing closer without switching from the third person, his literary camera pans, possessing his female character. drawing closer still, he allows her to possess the house in which she’s in, and possess all of its possessions, a situation dividing her by class, as she, a maid, intimately walks through the house of an upper class family having made love with a man of the upper crust, turning tables on him, a member of the privileged class, who’s perceptions, by rank, birth, and education, while entitled to him are, by opposite qualifications, denied her.
‘Paul Sheringham had seen, known, explored this body better than she had done herself. He had ‘possessed’ it. That was another word. He had possessed her body—her body being almost all she possessed. And could it be said that she had possessed and might always possess him?’ poor assuming sherringham.
by comparison, in her moment of awareness, of consciousness, jane fairchild possesses more than her body, she possesses everything, and stands with the authors of the Yellow Wallpaper and the Alice books. ‘Can a mirror keep a print? Can you look into a mirror and see someone else? Can you step through a mirror and be someone else?’
this is a moment for the future jane fairchild, which pivots on a memory of mothering sunday in 1924 of a consciousness. the events leading up to that moment and the outcome, by comparison, are incidental, and such events should always be more than incidental. it is jane fairchild’s awakening which moves her beyond the event and defines what she will become. to miss this, is to miss appreciating graham swift’s well-crafted story, where phrases are wrenched tight in place with an extra tug. graham swift is a wordsmith, and in this short novel he works wonders, to everyone’s advantage.
Top reviews from other countries
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ARMELLEReviewed in France on October 24, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Très bonne découverte
Sensuel et subtile, une histoire d'amour sur fond de différences sociales, où un maître bienveillant ou le geste symbolique d'un amant peut changer le cours des choses et le destin d'une femme. Tout en finesse et magnifiquement écrit
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CarmenReviewed in Spain on January 6, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Todo ok
Un libro estupendo. Llego perfecto y a tiempo
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Ursula RothReviewed in Germany on February 16, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars Mothering Sunday - sehr empfehlenswert
Eine Geschichte, die sich von der Zeit löst und in schönen Einzelheiten erzählt wird.
Sie ist nicht nur in inhaltlicher sondern auch in sprachlicher Hinsicht zu empfehlen.
- WhatCathyReadNextReviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars An exquisite story of desire, secrets and memories
Mothering Sunday is one of the novels on the 2017 shortlist for The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. This is the first book I’ve read by Graham Swift and on the strength of the writing in this book, boy, what I have been missing. He is a master of observation with meaning drawn from gestures and objects, even from the way a man dresses.
‘Dressing, anyway, among their kind, was never conceived of as just flinging on of clothes. It was a solemn piecing together.’
‘It was in some way all for her – that she should watch him dress, watch his nakedness gradually disappear. Or that he just didn’t care. The sureness, the aloofness, the unaccountable unhurriedness.’
For a housemaid, Jane is unusual in that she has been taught to read and write. Foreshadowing her later life, she loves books and has a writer’s interest in words and their meanings. So when Milly the cook asks Jane, ‘Are you an orchid?’ when she clearly meant orphan, Jane muses:
‘And did it matter if she’d used the wrong word – if the wrong word was a better one? …And what if orphans really were called orchids? And if the sky was called the ground. And if a tree was called a daffodil. Would it make any difference to the actual nature of things? Or their mystery?’
Of course, Jane’s interest in words is a manifestation of the author’s own interest. A love of language, playful at times, is apparent throughout the book with words explored for oppositions and multiple meanings.
‘The sunshine only applauded their nakedness, dismissing all secrecy from what they were doing, though it was utterly secret.’
‘She knew him and she didn’t know him. She knew him in some ways better than anyone – she would always be sure of that – while knowing that no one else must ever know how much she knew him. But she knew him well enough to know the ways in which he was not knowable.’
‘He had ‘possessed’ [her body]. That was another word. He had possessed her body – her body being almost all she possessed. And could it be said that she had possessed and might always possess him?’
However the attraction of this book is not only about the wonderful quality of the writing. There is narrative power too as it takes a sudden, devastating turn a third of a way through, conveyed in just two simple sentences. As well as the story of an assignation between people of different positions in society on a pivotal day in both their lives, it seems to me the book is a meditation on words, writing and story-telling. This aspect becomes more of the focus in later parts of the book. As Jane reminisces about the events of that Mothering Sunday, she observes, ‘Well there was a whole story there, a story she’d sworn to herself never to tell. Nor had she. Nor would she. Though here she was, look, a storyteller by trade.’ But, of course, Jane has told us, the reader, her story.
I thought this was an outstanding book and I’m afraid no review of mine can do it justice. I loved the sensual, lyrical writing. I also have to mention the absolutely stunning cover. Whoever chose the painting that appears on the Scribner edition – Modigliani’s “Reclining Nude” – deserves a prize as well.
- Jason NeustaeterReviewed in Canada on June 20, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars A short perfect tale
This is something that can be read and enjoyed at one sitting with time passing much at the speed of Jane's Sunday afternoon. The slow moment to moment pace of one critical day juxtaposed with the reflections of Jane's 90 year old self.