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Shy Creatures – Clare Chambers

Shy Creatures – Clare Chambers

I have put all of my unread books into a spreadsheet (all 240!) and I am using a random number generator to select a book to read. If I don’t want to read it, then I have to move it on.

Shy Creatures was selected first. I enjoyed Small Pleasures, and so happily bought a large paperback version of this one.

Here’s the blurb …

In all failed relationships there is a point that passes unnoticed at the time, which can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park.

Croydon, 1964. Helen Hansford is in her thirties and an art therapist in a psychiatric hospital where she has been having a long love affair with a charismatic, married doctor.
One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance from a derelict house not far from Helen’s home. A mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, with a beard down to his waist, has been discovered along with his elderly aunt. It is clear he has been shut up in the house for decades, but when it emerges that William is a talented artist, Helen is determined to discover his story.

Shy Creatures is a life-affirming novel about all the different ways we can be confined, how ordinary lives are built of delicate layers of experience, the joy of freedom and the transformative power of kindness.

This was an interesting book, I enjoyed the insight into mental hospitals in the 1960s – it seemed a nice place to stay and the staff were kind (no Nurse Ratched!).

There was casual misogyny (as you would expect) and a bit of judgement around mental illness.

‘You mean a mental asylum?’ her mother had said when Helen called to tell her about her new appointment at Westbury Park. ‘Oh Helen.’

The characters are complex – Gil kind thoughtful and caring to his patients thinks nothing of cheating on his wife. William’s aunts, who obviously had their own issues, were trying to keep him safe, but denied him a normal life.

I think it is about our duty to fellow humans, to be kind and not to judge too quickly.

Here is one of my favourite quotes:

It surprised him how much time was taken up with the business of living; half the morning gone already and he hadn’t picked up a book or pencil. He experienced a belated appreciation for the many invisible offices performed without thanks by Aunt Elsie and Aunt Louisa. The jobs women did weren’t difficult, but they certainly ate up the hours.

A review

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Filed under 5, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Paper, Recommended

Small Pleasures – Claire Chambers

Small Pleasures – Clare Chambers

I can’t remember where I first hear about this novel – book club maybe? I had to order it from Dymocks and it did take about 4 weeks to arrive (book shortage).

Here’s the blurb …

1957, south-east suburbs of London.
Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper, disappointed in love and — on the brink of forty — living a limited existence with her truculent mother: a small life from which there is no likelihood of escape.

When a young Swiss woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth, it is down to Jean to discover whether she is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys: Gretchen is now a friend, and her quirky and charming daughter Margaret a sort of surrogate child. And Jean doesn’t mean to fall in love with Gretchen’s husband, Howard, but Howard surprises her with his dry wit, his intelligence and his kindness — and when she does fall, she falls hard.

But he is married, and to her friend — who is also the subject of the story she is researching for the newspaper, a story that increasingly seems to be causing dark ripples across all their lives. And yet Jean cannot bring herself to discard the chance of finally having a taste of happiness…

But there will be a price to pay, and it will be unbearable.

I really enjoyed this novel – it’s beautiful, and sad, and interesting. The writing is lovely. It was well-researched, but unobtrusively so.

Another review

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Filed under 4, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Recommended