Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
The best birthday gift, a box of books!
This pretty box of books is from U.K. based Persephone Books. If you are not familiar with this publisher and bookshop, prepare to thank me!
Persephone Books was founded in 1999 to reprint neglected, mainly mid-twentieth century, women writers. Most of the novels, short stories, cookery books, and biography reflect in some way or another on women’s lives in the home. To date they have published 150 titles. Two of my favorites are the hilarious Diary of a Provincial Lady (no. 105) and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (no. 21), which was made into an excellent film (2008) starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams.
For my birthday, my niece and nephews gifted me the Persephone Introductory Box Set, which includes Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple (1893-1966), the author of nine popular novels published in the 1930s and 40s.
Someone at a Distance is set in a rural suburb of London where the North family, Ellen, “that unfashionable creature, a happy housewife,” her husband Avery, their two teenage children, a cat, and a horse named Roma live an ordinary middle-class life. Into this benign setting arrives a young, waspish French girl to serve as old Mrs. North’s companion. Avery, foolish and slightly lazy, has an affair with Mademoiselle, which is not a surprise to the reader, but Ellen is flabbergasted. The fallout affects everyone even tangentially associated with the North family, Avery’s business partner, Mrs. North’s maid, Mademoiselle’s parents, the patient and perturbed, Monsieur and Madame Lanier, even Roma. Painful adjustments are made, characters demonstrate fortitude or frailty, and a happy-ish ending is achieved.
Published in 1953, Whipple’s last novel was largely ignored, lacking according to her publisher, the “action and passion that editors are mad for.” Someone at a Distance has plenty of both, but Whipple’s understated style was out of fashion. Later, a reviewer for the Times noted however, “Whipple’s style is clear-eyed and precise, superbly elegant and subtle, witty but never showy.” Brilliant writing is never out of fashion. I zipped through this novel.
Persephone Books reissued many novels by Dorothy Whipple, including The Priory, and They Knew Mr. Knight and They Were Sisters, both of which were made into films.