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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

It Starts with a Letter: Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase and The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle

24/10/2014

12 Comments

 
My Dear Readers,
I know that a novel written in the form of letters is known as an epistolary novel, but is there a word for a novel that starts with an intriguing letter and then goes on to portray the lives of the letter writer and its intended recipient? I’m asking because two novels I read recently followed that format and I’d like to tell you a little about them.
I’d love to hear your views and, if you do wish to reply, you can do so in the comments box below.
With all best wishes,
Annecdotist.
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Surely this is every book lover’s dream? Roberta works in one of those idyllic old-fashioned bookshops owned, not by some faceless conglomerate, but by a true aficionado of the printed word, the laid-back Philip Old. She rearranges the shelves, serves the occasional customer, dust books, and collects the letters, postcards and till receipts she finds between the pages. These serve as epigraphs for the chapters comprising the contemporary strand of the novel.

The first is a letter from Jan Pietrykowski, written in 1941, ending his relationship with Dorothea because he disapproves of something she’s done. Roberta has found this letter in an old suitcase belonging to her hundred-and-ten-year-old grandmother, Dorothea, now residing in a nursing home. She’s never heard of Mrs D Sinclair, whose name is inscribed in the suitcase, but Jan Pietrykowski is her paternal grandfather, dead before Roberta’s father was born. Otherwise the letter makes little sense to the reader, or to Roberta, especially as it contradicts what she’s been told about the family narrative. It takes the rest of the novel for her to come anywhere near to approaching the truth.

Meanwhile, the reader is introduced to Dorothy who, having rushed into an unsuitable marriage to escape her domineering mother, is relieved when her husband leaves to fight the war. Grieving her stillborn son, she survives by taking in laundry and lodgers, two young women from the Land Army, and holding herself aloof from the village gossip. Hope comes to Dorothy in the form of Squadron Leader Jan Pietrykowski and, little by little, the mysterious letter begins to make sense.

Dorothy/Dorothea is a wonderful character: an ordinary woman who discovers enormous reserves of strength when put to the test. Roberta’s ordinariness is less enchanting as it is her passivity that feeds the narrative tension as she hides from life among the bookshelves. But, as I’ve said before, lots of real-life people are not particularly driven, and I admire a writer who can represent this on the page.

Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase is about love and loss, about motherhood and missed opportunities against the backdrop of the Second World War. The secret at its heart is neither particularly shocking nor difficult to guess, but it’s a warm-hearted story and an engaging read. If I was disappointed, it was because, from the publisher’s positioning of the novel as literary fiction, I was expecting something more challenging in content or style. Nevertheless, it’s a fine debut novel – thanks to Hodder for my review copy. For my reviews of other novels about women’s experience in World War II see I Can’t Begin to Tell You; Those Who Save Us; The Undertaking.
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Elizabeth Pringle has lived most of her long life in the same house on the Isle of Arran. With no known living family, she bequeaths her home to a woman who, thirty-odd years previously, had asked Elizabeth to contact her should she ever be considering moving on. The two had never spoken, but Elizabeth had watched the young Anna Morrison singing to her baby as she pushed her up and down Shore Road in her pram. Martha Morrison was that baby and now, with power of attorney over her mother’s affairs, she crosses the Firth of Clyde to assess this unexpected legacy and becomes enchanted by the house, the island and the character of Elizabeth Pringle. Like Louise Walters does in Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, Kirsty Wark leads us through the life and loves of two women, two generations apart, in alternating chapters.

It took me a while to warm to this novel; a good hundred pages, in fact. I balked at the unnecessarily detailed descriptions and even I, unsociable as I am, found it hard to credit that someone would pop a letter through a stranger’s letterbox asking for first option if the house came up for sale, without ever attempting to engage the owner in conversation. Like Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, The Legacy of Elizabeth Pringle is flagged by the publishers as literary and seemed, initially at least, stuffed with those aspects of literary fiction its detractors so love to parody: slow pace; overblown similes; and attitudes and feelings ascribed to inanimate objects. It could be that I was being overly harsh because I’m guilty of similar crimes against good writing myself or because the author, Kirsty Wark, is well known in Britain as a presenter of a flagship TV news programme, and I’m always suspicious that celebrities don’t have to work as hard at their writing to get published.

But warm to it I did and, when the author settled into her story or I settled into her style, I found it an engaging exploration of twentieth century women’s lives alongside the landscape and history of that corner of Scotland. Like Dorothy/Dorothea in Mrs Sinclair’s Suitcase, Elizabeth Pringle is an unconventional woman facing some difficult choices in her determination to be true to herself. She becomes a dedicated gardener and inspiring schoolteacher and, in old age, a good friend to two much younger men. Martha Morrison confronts sibling rivalry and her mother’s dementia, alongside giving up her journalistic career. I was about to conclude that this is a bighearted novel of romance and regret, about mothers and daughters and the conflict between different types of love. Yet my sympathy waned once more with the ending which, although credible, seemed overly sensational and sentimental. While novels can occasionally move me to tears, I hate being told what to feel, leaving me with a sense of a debut novelist trying too hard to be literary.

Thanks to publishers Two Roads for my review copy.

For one of my own short stories told in letters, see Bathroom Suite.


Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
12 Comments
Sandra Davies link
24/10/2014 09:25:57 am

Two points, briefly.
1) I entirely agree with your point about publishers flagging - sometimes by means of misleading endorsements (which, I believe, can be bought) - a book as something it is not - I've just finished reading a 'thriller' which was far more chick-lit than chilling.
2)Sometimes, it is a total pleasure to read a book just for the simple pleasure of the story and not (as I mostly aim to do) as a writer. 'Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase' came solidly into this category for me.

Reply
Annecdotist
25/10/2014 11:27:07 am

Hi, Sandra, thanks for sharing this. Glad you enjoyed Mrs Sinclair. I think the reason I picked up the discrepancy here was that although I was enjoying reading the novel, I kept having a sense of "yes, but" which I couldn't initially pin down. Expectations don't always make a difference, but I think they did here with both novels.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
24/10/2014 08:31:55 pm

I have read books told through an exchange of letters, and through an exchange of emails; but sadly I am unable to help you with a name for novels that begin with a letter and then tell the story of sender and recipient. If swayed by your review to read one of the books I would choose "Mrs Sinclair's Suitcase". It sounds delightful and rather mysterious. I'll have to get back to some fictional reading (or reading of fiction, rather!) I did enjoy your story 'Bathroom Suite'. I have read it before, but thanks for linking to it again.

Reply
Annecdotist
25/10/2014 11:29:38 am

Yeah, Norah, seems a little unusual (if my memory serves me right) to have just one letter. Thanks again for your endorsement of Bathroom Suite. I like your notion of "fictional reading" (you could just imagine doing it) and I know you don't have much time for fiction but Mrs Sinclair is a good read.

Reply
Safia Moore link
26/10/2014 12:15:54 am

Often, advice for new novelists includes, 'don't start with the heroine finding an old diary - it's been done thousands of times'. The letter trope reminded me of that, but having read your review, it sounds like a talented author can get away with it. Which brings me to your second book and the 'celebrity' comment. Unfortunately, I think well-known newbie authors can also get away with things the rest of us can't. At my local book fest last year, two of the lauded authors with the biggest queues for signings, therefore book sales as well, were TV celebs (who'll remain nameless). I picked up one of the books from the shop, read the blurb, sounded okay, started to read the first page, and, well, ..... Aargh - the most annoying and clichéd opening with really clumsy expressions and prose which demanded a really hard edit. I couldn't, wouldn't read beyond the first page, but some Agent and/or Publisher somewhere obviously saw the pound signs flashing before his/her eyes because of the author's celebrity. Having said that, the Kirsty Wark novel appeals to me and it recently took me more than 100 pages to get into a novel by a shortlisted (or was it longlisted?) Booker author (Joseph O'Neill since you asked). Thanks again for some great suggestions for the TBR pile. I've just picked up Lionel Shriver's 'The Post-Birthday World' this morning - have you read that?

Reply
Clare O'Dea link
27/10/2014 01:46:42 am

Very interesting Anne. I started Elizabeth Pringle and gave up before the 100-page mark. Normally I would have perservered but I was about to travel home with hand luggage only and there was compeition from other heavy books - like The Goldfinch.
I mentioned Elizabeth Pringle in a blog post back in June because I was struck by the fact that it took her 10 years to write and by the spiteful review the book got in The Irish Times:
http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-nice-fantasy-but-don-t-give-up-the-day-job-1.1777733

Worth reading, it would send shivers down the spine of any writer! Of course the reviewer is herself a novelist whose sales and profile have probably declined since day one so that's where the anger must be coming from. I remember finding the book so laboured and obvious. Don't you remember her looking in the mirror in chapter one? Also the main character was irritating and the love interest could be seen coming a mile off. Didn't like the parts written in the past. I think I would have enjoyed the tension between the sisters and the mother's story but I didn't have the patience.
Safia, I have read The Post-Birthday World and found it absolutely brilliant. The premise, the characters, the suspense. Fascinating stuff. But that was about 8 years ago so maybe it was a timing thing. Let me know how you get on.

Reply
Annecdotist
27/10/2014 08:07:52 am

Thank you, Safia and Clare. I don't think I'd continue beyond 100 pages if I didn't feel some commitment to read for a review. There are so many better books out there, especially if you have to carry the print version!
Thanks Clare for the link to the Irish Times review. I thought it was rather mean even though, reading it through, there wasn't anything I strongly disagreed with – and I'd forgotten about the mirror in the opening, must have repressed that. I think the reviewer was extra cruel because she was expecting something deeper from a woman who comes across as particularly intelligent. I'm sure I was influenced in this way as well in my reading but tried not to let that colour my review too much. But it's difficult, if a book is sold partly on the basis of the author's name and standing, is it unreasonable to judge it on the same basis? If publishers misrepresent a book perhaps they've only themselves to blame if their sales strategy backfires.
I think I've read all – or certainly most – of Lionel Shriver's novels and I did enjoy The Post-Birthday World, especially reading from the point of view of a writer – through the parallel narratives you get to see a writer's mind at work, seeing how the little details feed in differently to the two strands. I hope you enjoy it, Safia.
BTW, did you see the Irish Times is featuring A History of Loneliness this coming month? Now that's a powerful novel if ever there was one!

Reply
Annecdotist
28/10/2014 03:38:44 am

Clare, I keep coming back to that Irish Times review. I know it's kind of tongue in cheek and a huge cliché but that "don't give up the day job" really rankles, and I'm wondering if that's where the envy stems from, not so much that she's written a novel but that she's a famous journalist.
But maybe this was the novel Kirsty Wark WANTED to write, an easy read middle-of-the road kind of thing. Perhaps she wanted to express another side of herself that she doesn't get to show so much in the day job (or is it a night job when she's onscreen late in the evenings). Perhaps before your time but it makes me think of the newscaster Angela Rippon doing the cancan on the Morecambe and Wise show. (And maybe also thinking of myself mostly wanting to be a serious writer but having just posted on spoof bad hair!)

Reply
Safia Moore link
27/10/2014 10:45:50 am

Well, I'm a bit past the 100 page mark with Shriver's 'The Post Birthday World' and loving it - she is such a master of character building and getting inside heads. I bet it was great fun to write too - the structure lends itself to playfulness

Reply
Annecdotist
28/10/2014 03:30:45 am

Glad you're enjoying it Safia. It's a while since I read it so if you have time to do a blog review it would be great to be reminded of how it worked so well.

Reply
Gargi link
21/11/2014 12:48:34 am

Came late to this but it was totally worth it. I havent read many epistolary novels, but my favourite is Ella Minnow Pea ("a lipogrammatic epistolary novel"!).

Also Anne, I love love love "Bathroom Suite". Awesome piece of writing!

Reply
Annecdotist
21/11/2014 06:03:27 am

TY, Gargi, lipogrammatic! Will have to check that one out – certainly sounds different. Thanks also to your endorsement of Bathroom Suite (have to say I quite like it too)

Reply



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