01 Thursday May 2014
Posted in Reading
It’s release day for this absorbing novel about love, friendship, theatre and writing, which is set in the 1970s . I hoovered this up like a famished woman who hadn’t seen food for days.! Here is my original review, written after receiving it as an ARC from NetGalley in digital form
02 Wednesday Apr 2014
Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Reading
Gripping and oppressive first novel, almost succeeding.
I came to Sadie Jones’ first novel after I had read The Uninvited Guests (5 star for me) and her 2014 novel Fallout (which will also be a 5 star, for me, when it is published – I had it as an ARC)
So I thought I’d go back to her beginning and read her first novel. She had not figured on my radar when this was published. I think I may have seen the cover and assumed (wrongly) that this was just a slushy period romance
I suspect had I read this at the time I might have rated it a little more highly, turning it from only just reaching four star to perhaps still being four star but almost getting to five.
Jones is an accomplished writer, and what impresses more is that each book has been different, – something which she has developed, strongly in The Uninvited Guests, but also present in Fallout, is a barbed humour, an ability to capture the style of different periods, and to master different types of story and setting
In this first novel, set in a highly oppressive, commuter belt Home Counties upper-middle class setting in the 1950’s, where class-lines are rigid and there is a heavy-drinking culture. Misogyny and casual brutality towards women are hidden behind closed doors. Emotional expression is constrained, repressed and subverted behind a mask of High Tory conformity, and there is a culture of tedious and lengthy church-going which has little to do with personal faith and everything to do with another medium of social control and the laying down of hours of stultifying conformity and boredom.
Jones follows the fortune of Lewis Aldridge, a highly strung little boy, with a playful effervescent, slightly dangerous mother. Like many families at that time at the end of the way, children had been born and had their early years in a world mostly often without fathers, who were away in the army. The return of the father could be difficult, as father and children were strangers to each other. Lewis loses his mother when he is still fairly young, and Elizabeth’s death, combined with the stiff-upper lip culture espoused by his father, Gilbert, has a devastating effect on the small boy. Both Elizabeth herself and the manner of her death put Lewis outside the norms.
Jones is brilliant at evoking this kind of society where violence and raw pain shimmer below the tightly controlled surfaces of ‘good behaviour’ Her ability to write truthful psychology and character are also excellent.
However, I was not completely convinced by the character of Tamsin, the eldest 
daughter of the most powerful family in the community, the Carmichaels. The behaviour and relationship between Tamsin and Lewis felt a little contrived (on Tamsin’s side, rather than Lewis’s) and I thought plot was driven at expense of character. Likewise, the denouement ending where revelation is forced, so that the messy skeletons in Carmichael cupboards can be seen by all, and there is a possibility of redemption for Lewis, just did not feel quite as well judged and believable as the earlier parts of the novel.
17 Monday Mar 2014
Posted in Fiction, Literary Fiction, Reading
Tags
Playing at Love; The Play of Love; The Play’s, after all, The Thing
I hoovered up Sadie Jones’ novel about love, friendship, theatre and writing, which is primarily set in 1970s London, like a famished woman who hadn’t seen food for days.
In fact, it was tempting NOT to stop and explore what there was to eat, as it got in the way of reading time.
Reading Jones bio, it turns out she is the daughter of a playwright and an actor, so I was chortling ‘told you so, told you so’ to myself, as the authenticity of both the theatrical world, the craft of writing for the theatre world, the small-scale brave production world of UK theatre in the 1970s and the world of the acting fraternity, particularly within work, rang out truthfully.
In some ways (the tangle of passion, the tangle of live performance creativity, the tangle of intense belief in what art and theatre might be ABOUT) this reminded me of Michael Blakemore’s Next Season, which has at its centre the actor, whereas here the major role belongs to a writer and his confederates.
Lucasz Kanowski is scarred by being the son of a woman shut away in a mental hospital, and an alcoholic father. He is brittle, fragile, attractive to women and damaged. He is also a compulsive writer, a compulsive reader of plays, drawn to the magic of theatre without ever having seen live performance. It is the 70s before Thatcher, where the Arts were funded, where there was a real buzz around innovative theatre. Luke, later re-inventing himself as Luke Last, has a chance encounter with a young and vibrant would be theatrical producer, Paul, and his possible-might-get-a-leg-over companion Leigh, a sharp tongued young woman with a desire to write. The chance encounter leads to a close friendship between the three, as they pursue their dreams of love and creative work, to a greater or lesser degree of success.
Luke, the central character, pursues and is pursued by women, breaking hearts without 
meaning to, his curious, honest, direct fragility, without any macho notching up conquests, being part of his dangerous allure.
Jones is a clear writer. The narrative proceeds, well; the central three characters are extremely likeable, idealistic and genuine, and the reader cannot help but root for each of them to survive well. There are a circle of less than attractive, also damaged characters in this world, some of whom choose to inflict damage, some of whom inflict damage without consciously trying to do so.
Jones is as adept at charting the shifting shape of love as she is in describing that world of 70’s theatre.
There was no morning, none to recognise. The sun rose and lit the day, but like a mortal thing the love between them had tipped over into decay
“Let’s leave today,” she said.
He tried to find words – he who could always find words. He wanted to make her promises, tell her he could save her, and wouldn’t give up, but he couldn’t find any faith to offer
02 Tuesday Jul 2013
Posted in Fiction, Lighter-hearted reads, Reading, Whimsy and Fantastical
Hay Fever meets Saki and M.R.James
This was a most clever, witty and also unsettling read. Reminding me at times of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, where an upper middle class family, self-obsessed and selfish – but undoubtedly charming – if they want to be – and witty, invite a house-party of weekend guests to be an audience and entertainment for them. Sadie Jones has injected a more consciously spiteful, and even brutal, cast to the family, which points towards Saki as an influence. One of the central characters is even called Clovis, a deadly, sharp, bored, cruel but entertainingly gorgeous young man.
The invited guests are gathered to celebrate the eldest daughter’s birthday, and include several likely young men, who might or might not bring money to our family, if marriage were to result – and money they certainly need, to save their house from being sold. There is also a self-effacing young woman who might provide a love interest for Clovis.
The small group of staff/servants (one of whom is not quite so simply described) are inevitably rushed off their feet, and there is a certain amount of above and below stairs contrast.
However, the nub of the story is the injection of the disquieting M.R.James element. A train crash bring an expanding group of uninvited guests, who are disconcerting to our family because they are of a different class, and also, for other intangible reasons.
Jones has managed to weave together a comedy of manners, set in the first decade of 
the 20th century, with something teetering on the edge of a horror or ghost story. Brittle wit and sharply glacial characterisation is undercut with a whiff of the diabolic and the sinister. Her overall direction is towards the sunny uplands of playful comedy, but the opening of this family’s can of worms, and a nod to the satanic, works well, and creates a very enjoyable read
The Uninvited Guests Amazon UK
The Uninvited Guests Amazon USA
Lady Fancifull 
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