annethology
  • Home
    • About Annethology
    • About me >
      • A little more about me
    • About my books
    • Author talks
    • Contact me
    • Forthcoming events
    • World Mental Health Day
    • Privacy
    • Sign up for my newsletter
  • Sugar and Snails
    • Acknowledgements
    • Blog tour, Q&A's and feature articles >
      • Birthday blog tour
      • S&S on tour 2022
    • Early endorsements
    • Events >
      • Launch photos
      • Launch party videos
    • in pictures
    • Media
    • If you've read the book
    • Polari
    • Reading group questions
    • Reviews
    • In the media
  • Underneath
    • Endorsements and reviews
    • Launch party and events
    • Pictures
    • Questions for book groups
    • The stories underneath the novel
  • Matilda Windsor series
    • Matilda Windsor >
      • What readers say
      • For book groups
      • Interviews, articles and features
      • Matty on the move
      • Who were you in 1990?
      • Asylum lit
      • Matilda Windsor media
    • Stolen Summers >
      • Stolen Summers reviews
  • Short stories
    • Somebody’s Daughter
    • Becoming Someone (anthology) >
      • Becoming Someone (video readings)
      • Becoming Someone reviews
      • Becoming Someone online book chat
    • Print and downloads
    • Read it online
    • Quick reads
  • Free ebook
  • Annecdotal
    • Annecdotal blog
    • Annecdotal Press
    • Articles >
      • Print journalism
      • Where psychology meets fiction
    • Fictional therapists
    • Reading and reviews >
      • Reviews A to H
      • Reviews I to M
      • Reviews N to Z
      • Nonfiction
      • Themed quotes
      • Reading around the world
  • Shop
    • Inspired Quill (my publisher)
    • Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
    • Amazon UK
    • Amazon US
    • books2read

About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

The big house in literary fiction: Black Lake by Johanna Lane

20/5/2014

10 Comments

 
PictureNorth Lees Hall AKA Thornfield in Jane Eyre
Grand houses loom large in literary fiction, from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child.  There’s a seductive mythology around country houses that seems attractive even to writers with no direct experience of living or working in one.  They also, as Blake Morrison points out in an article for The Guardian a few years ago, provide a convenient bridge from book to film.  I thought it would be fun to mark the launch day of Johanna Lane’s debut novel, Black Lake, by examining the book from the perspective of the seven factors identified by Morrison as characteristic of the country-house novel.  (Note that I’ve amended a couple of the headings to make them more pertinent to this post.)

Picture
National identity:

Morrison’s article focuses on the English house in a selection of four English novels.  But he acknowledges that other countries have an equal or greater claim to the big-house novel:

It's arguable that Irish country house literature surpasses ours, because the conflicts it dramatises – both political and religious – are on a larger scale.

Black Lake is about one such Irish country house, Dulough in County Donegal.  Its history reflects that country’s tragedies: land sold cheaply after the Famine to a Scotsman when Ireland was still part of the British Empire; dispossessed tenants; a questionable involvement with the IRA.  In composing a history of his ancestral home, John Campbell moves between pride and shame, fiction and truth, so that he can hardly tell one from the other.

Picture
Illicit sex:

The fluctuation in attitudes towards sex between men over the past century is one of the main themes of The Stranger’s Child, set in and around the magnificently ugly mansion, Corley Court.  The couple in Black Lake are too absorbed in their grief to have much of a sex life, either within or outwith their marriage.  But, who knows, perhaps my unconscious recognition of this motif in country-house novels can explain my embarrassing misspelling of the title on more than one occasion.  (How would you feel if your poignant literary novel were announced as Black Lace on Twitter?  Fortunately, Johanna Lane has a sense of humour.)

Rightful ownership:

For every surprise possession of a country house, there must also be a dispossession

says Morrison.  Black Lake is all about this dispossession: the sense of loss and bewilderment experienced by the family when financial pressures force them to move out.  But it’s also about an earlier dispossession when five tenant farmers were evicted from their homes when the estate was first established.

Poetry:

One of the running jokes in The Stranger’s Child is the way in which Cecil Valance becomes a celebrated poet partly by dint of his demise in the First World War and, although heir to the Corley Court estate with its thousands of acres, it’s his verse about the more modest Two Acres (although still rather grand by today’s standards) for which he is best known.  The poetry of Black Lake comes, less in the plot, but in the form of Johanna Lane’s lyrical descriptions of the house and surrounding countryside.

Shifting patterns of wealth:

Over the past century, shifting patterns of wealth have led to many ancestral homes becoming unaffordable to the original families.  Morrison quotes Noel Coward in 1938:

"The stately homes of England / We proudly represent / We only keep them up for / Americans to rent." 

It isn’t only the Americans who have taken them over: Corley Court is requisitioned as a hospital during the Second World War and, afterwards, turned into a public school.  Dulough in Black Lake is taken over by the government to be turned into a tourist attraction.

Ghost stories and whodunnits:

I used to love those Agatha Christie novels as a teenager where the house-party guests would assemble in the drawing room in the last chapter and the detective would finger the murderer.  You’ve probably gathered by now that Black Lake isn’t that kind of novel.

Upstairs/downstairs:

The Campbells in Black Lake have been supported for years by Mr and Mrs Connelly who cook and clean and care for the grounds.  We don’t see the events from their point of view but they appear loyal and steadfast, yet also more flexible, more able to adapt to the changed circumstances.

In conclusion, Blake Morrison says:

What the contemporary novelist finds in country houses isn't greatness but loss, failure and everyday human struggle, writ large.

I can’t think of a better summary of Black Lake.

Thanks to Tinder Press for my review copy.  For a full review of the novel try Random Things through My Letterbox.

A bit of an afterthought; as I was on the point of publishing this post, the deadline was fast approaching for Charli’s latest flash fiction challenge and I had nothing to show for it. Thought I’d have a go at seeing how many aspects of the country-house novel I could cram into those 99 words:

The Belgian hadn’t summoned us to the library for cucumber sandwiches. Too late for tea and too early for cocktails; besides, who would serve them? The diminutive detective insisted on everyone’s attendance so, as the houseguests lounged on upholstered chairs, the staff lined the bookshelves, dismayed at their idle hands. Daisy blushed when she saw me, as well she might. My groin tingled, his pompous homily receding to a gentle droning, as I envisaged a repeat performance tonight. Until the words, Sir Alfred, directed every face to mine. The bulge in my trousers. I grabbed the pistol and fired.

Have you enjoyed any country-house novels?  Did they fit with any of Morrison’s seven themes?

If you’ve enjoyed this post, and would like to see more in the future, why not subscribe to the blog by email via the sidebar on the right-hand side?

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.
10 Comments
Charli Mills link
20/5/2014 11:54:33 am

Great review on a genre more typical to vacation rental brochures on this side of the pond. It makes me think of the Harry Potter craze--we Americans didn't realize that there was an entire genre of novels set in English schools. So I appreciate the found knowledge, and I reflect upon the history of Irish houses as related to my own family--dispossession. My roots in this country came at the price of uprooting from Scotland and Ireland. I wonder what I might relate to in reading a book like "Black Lake." It has me curious. Your flash reminds me of the board game, Clue! Did you ever play that? Two points of brilliance--one, you worked the flash into a review post. Both effective and efficient. And two, it's a riotous piece of flash! Sir Alfred is quite the character and you've set the perfect "big-house" scene. I think the opening sentence works great for a twist--it let's us know that this gathering is out of the ordinary in a world of anticipated cucumber sandwiches.

Reply
Annecdotist
21/5/2014 02:45:37 am

Thanks so much, Charli, you make a number of interesting points as usual. Pleased you mentioned the vacation rental genre as I've got a review coming up on one of those quite soon – The Vacationers by Emma Straub – and had been wondering myself about the parallel. There's also an American novel, The Cutting Season by Attica Locke, which features a big house and former slave plantation transformed into a kind of theme park – I kid you not – another form of dispossession.
Interesting to explore your European heritage. Johanna Lane is now living in New York so she's crossed the pond too! That may however the novel was less about the house that about themes of loss which many of us can relate to.
So glad the flash worked for you, I really wasn't sure I could pull it off, but it did enjoy playing at being Sir Alfred. The game you mention is probably what's called Cluedo over here ("I accuse Professor Plum in the library with a spanner") which I think was also at the back of my mind along with Agatha Christie when I wrote it. And, as one thing links to another, it reminds me I'm doing another review of a short story collection all about games, but strange no-one thought of that one!

Reply
Charli Mills link
21/5/2014 01:49:27 pm

And my reading wish list grows larger...I'm finishing up a light read (a modern romance) so I need a heavy hitter next. Cutting Season sounds fantastical. Dispossession continues in the USA with banks too big to fail and too cold to care about the foreclosure crisis they caused (through unconstrained mortgage fraud). I wonder if that will become a genre in the future with millions who lost their homes? Or if its still too fresh and painful and a genre for another generation?

Cluedo! Professor Plum I recognize, but our game had a candlestick...what is a spanner? Has Catan hit Great Britain? My kids have me hooked on selling sheep to get bricks to build roads...

Loved your flash--you pulled off Sir Andrew so well I had to read it to bbq guests last night! It was a hit along with the brats and potato salad.

Annecdotist
22/5/2014 02:52:50 am

Thanks, Charli, I would recommend The Cutting Season but should point out it's a crime novel complete with police investigation which isn't generally my thing but I was desperate to read it from hearing her on the radio talking about the slave plantation theme parks/wedding venues.
Thanks for sharing my flash around – really honoured.
I think a spanner is a wrench, a tool for tightening nuts and bolts. It's really interesting these different words we have on different sides of the ocean.
I haven't come across Catan, but sounds great: construction rather than destruction.
Yeah I'm sure someone must be writing about the financial crisis and its consequences – not sure I could pull it off though.

Norah Colvin link
21/5/2014 09:15:23 pm

Hi Anne, love the post and the way you describe features of the country-house novel. This talk about novels with country houses immediately brought to mind some by a local author from south-east Queensland (Brisbane) that I thoroughly enjoyed. The author is Kate Morton http://www.katemorton.com/ and the books are "The Shifting Fog" (published internationally as "The House at Riverton") and "The Forgotten Garden". The books are set in both Australia and UK and I thoroughly enjoyed them though couldn't give a synopsis at the moment. She also has a couple of other books now.
I love your flash piece and was interested to see that it reminded Charli of "Cluedo". It did me too! When I read the piece first I misread the final word as 'fled' which conjures up quite a different picture from the one you intended. However I'm not really sure just what you intended. I'm wondering what he shot and why. It leads to all sorts of questions. But maybe I am missing something? It's a lot of fun anyway. You have packed a lot of story into those 99 words! Well done!

Reply
Annecdotist
22/5/2014 03:02:31 am

Thanks, Norah, I'm off to look up Kate Morton now. Haven't read enough Australian fiction since Neville Shute, apart from Tim Winton who is great.
I'm more than happy for you to misread and create a different story if it works for you – for me that's one of the most exciting things about fiction – but it sounds as if the ending was a bit too unclear for you? I'd wanted to leave it ambiguous but there's a fine line between a creative ambiguity and writerly laziness – and I think there might have been a bit much of the latter here. It was a bit rushed and I probably didn't allow myself the time to think through an ending that was right for me, or the words within the constraints of the task to elaborate it. Good that you picked it up.

Reply
Ava link
22/5/2014 06:36:55 am

Always learn a lot from your posts. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
23/5/2014 02:03:11 am

Thanks, Ava. How are your Liebster responses progressing?

Reply
Safia link
22/5/2014 07:24:31 am

Loved this post and had to drop what I was doing to pop over! So pleased to see the first point mentions the Irish contribution - big house is like a genre in Irish lit studies. Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth (1800-ish) may be the first, but one of my favorites is The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen - a subtle take on the demise of the Anglo-Irish with just about all the elements you mention via Blake Morrison. Off to check out Black Lake - anything set in Donegal is up my street.

Reply
Annecdotist
23/5/2014 02:13:37 am

Glad it grabbed you, Safia, and thanks for sharing your knowledge of Irish literature. It was a pity I had to use an article on ENGLISH country house novels to explore this theme in Black Lake. I think the theme of dispossession is pertinent in lots of countries; it also crops up in Aminatta Forna's latest novel The Hired Man on ethnic cleansing in Croatia.
Hope you give Black Lake a go, it's very lyrical.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Free ebook: click the image to claim yours.
    Picture
    OUT NOW: The poignant prequel to Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home
    Picture
    Find a review
    Picture
    Fictional therapists
    Picture
    Picture
    About Anne Goodwin
    Picture
    My published books
    entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice
    Picture
    My latest novel, published May 2021
    Picture
    My debut novel shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize
    Picture
    Picture
    My second novel published May 2017.
    Picture
    Short stories on the theme of identity published 2018
    Anne Goodwin's books on Goodreads
    Sugar and Snails Sugar and Snails
    reviews: 32
    ratings: 52 (avg rating 4.21)

    Underneath Underneath
    reviews: 24
    ratings: 60 (avg rating 3.17)

    Becoming Someone Becoming Someone
    reviews: 8
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.56)

    GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4 GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator, Issue 4
    reviews: 4
    ratings: 9 (avg rating 4.44)

    The Best of Fiction on the Web The Best of Fiction on the Web
    reviews: 3
    ratings: 3 (avg rating 4.67)

    2022 Reading Challenge

    2022 Reading Challenge
    Anne has read 2 books toward their goal of 100 books.
    hide
    2 of 100 (2%)
    view books
    Picture
    Annecdotal is where real life brushes up against the fictional.  
    Picture
    Annecdotist is the blogging persona of Anne Goodwin: 
    reader, writer,

    slug-slayer, tramper of moors, 
    recovering psychologist, 
    struggling soprano, 
    author of three fiction books.

    LATEST POSTS HERE
    I don't post to a schedule, but average  around ten reviews a month (see here for an alphabetical list), 
    some linked to a weekly flash fiction, plus posts on my WIPs and published books.  

    Your comments are welcome any time any where.

    Get new posts direct to your inbox ...

    Enter your email address:

    or click here …

    RSS Feed


    Picture

    Tweets by @Annecdotist
    Picture
    New short story, “My Dirty Weekend”
    Picture
    Let’s keep in touch – subscribe to my newsletter
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Popular posts

    • Compassion: something we all need
    • Do spoilers spoil?
    • How to create a convincing fictional therapist
    • Instructions for a novel
    • Looking at difference, embracing diversity
    • Never let me go: the dilemma of lending books
    • On loving, hating and writers’ block
      On Pop, Pirates and Plagiarism
    • READIN' for HER reviews
    • Relishing the cuts
    • The fast first draft
    • The tragedy of obedience
    • Writers and therapy: a love-hate relationship?

    Categories/Tags

    All
    Animals
    Annecdotist Hosts
    Annecdotist On Tour
    Articles
    Attachment Theory
    Author Interviews
    Becoming Someone
    Being A Writer
    Blogging
    Bodies
    Body
    Bookbirthday
    Books For Writers
    Bookshops
    CB Book Group
    Character
    Childhood
    Christmas
    Classics
    Climate Crisis
    Coming Of Age
    Counsellors Cafe
    Creative Writing Industry
    Creativity
    Cumbria
    Debut Novels
    Disability
    Editing
    Emotion
    Ethics
    Ethis
    Family
    Feedback And Critiques
    Fictional Psychologists & Therapists
    Food
    Friendship
    Futuristic
    Gender
    Genre
    Getting Published
    Giveaways
    Good Enough
    Grammar
    Gratitude
    Group/organisational Dynamics
    Hero’s Journey
    History
    Humour
    Identity
    Illness
    Independent Presses
    Institutions
    International Commemorative Day
    Jane Eyre
    Kidney Disease
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Live Events
    Lyrics For The Loved Ones
    Marketing
    Matilda Windsor
    Memoir
    Memory
    Mental Health
    Microfiction
    Motivation
    Music
    MW Prequel
    Names
    Narrative Voice
    Nature / Gardening
    Networking
    Newcastle
    Nonfiction
    Nottingham
    Novels
    Pandemic
    Peak District
    Perfect Match
    Poetry
    Point Of View
    Politics
    Politics Current Affairs
    Presentation
    Privacy
    Prizes
    Psychoanalytic Theory
    Psychology
    Psycholoists Write
    Psychotherapy
    Race
    Racism
    Rants
    Reading
    Real Vs Imaginary
    Religion
    Repetitive Strain Injury
    Research
    Reviewing
    Romance
    Satire
    Second Novels
    Settings
    Sex
    Shakespeare
    Short Stories General
    Short Stories My Published
    Short Stories Others'
    Siblings
    Snowflake
    Somebody's Daughter
    Stolen Summers
    Storytelling
    Structure
    Sugar And Snails
    Technology
    The
    The Guestlist
    Therapy
    TikTok
    TNTB
    Toiletday
    Tourism
    Toxic Positivity
    Transfiction
    Translation
    Trauma
    Unconscious
    Unconscious, The
    Underneath
    Voice Recognition Software
    War
    WaSBihC
    Weather
    Work
    Writing Process
    Writing Technique

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Picture
    BLOGGING COMMUNITIES
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from havens.michael34, romana klee, mrsdkrebs, Kyle Taylor, Dream It. Do It., adam & lucy, dluders, Joybot, Hammer51012, jorgempf, Sherif Salama, eyspahn, raniel diaz, E. E. Piphanies, scaredofbabies, Nomadic Lass, paulternate, Tony Fischer Photography, archer10 (Dennis), slightly everything, impbox, jonwick04, country_boy_shane, dok1, Out.of.Focus, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region, Elvert Barnes, guillenperez, Richard Perry, jamesnaruke, Juan Carlos Arniz Sanz, El Tuerto, kona99, maveric2003, !anaughty!, Patrick Denker, David Davies, hamilcar_south, idleformat, Dave Goodman, Sharon Mollerus, photosteve101, La Citta Vita, A Girl With Tea, striatic, carlosfpardo, Damork, Elvert Barnes, UNE Photos, jurvetson, quinn.anya, BChristensen93, Joelk75, ashesmonroe, albertogp123, >littleyiye<, mudgalbharat, Swami Stream, Dicemanic, lovelihood, anyjazz65, Tjeerd, albastrica mititica, jimmiehomeschoolmom