'The Happy Tree' - Rosalind Murray

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Persephone Books. I love the warmth of them, the feel-good factor of many, and the insight into lost worlds and ways of lives in almost all of them. The idea behind Persephone Books is charmingly simple: to republish and celebrate forgotten classics, most of which were written by women, and bring them to light and to a new audience. And the formula works so well.

Which is why it makes me sad on the very, very rare occasion when I come across a Persephone book that I just don’t enjoy, and I’m sorry to say that Rosalind Murray’s 1926 novel The Happy Tree is one such book.

In a nutshell, The Happy Tree follows our protagonist Helen, who grows up with her grandmother in London but spends her holidays with her cousins Guy and Hugo, and their mother, in the countryside. It’s an idyllic time, spent in and around the ‘Happy Tree’ of the book’s title. And although Helen evidently falls in love with the enigmatic Hugo, she ends up marrying the boringly stolid Walter… which whom she is left after her cousins go off to fight in the war, for which Walter is declared unfit. In simplicity, The Happy Tree is a novel about how the war swept up previously happy families, tore them apart and left misery and desolation in its wake. But that’s a very stark description of this novel, and one that doesn’t really do the delicate content justice.

Rosalind Murray’s writing style was where I struggled with The Happy Tree, and I found it very hard to become engaged in the book or to want to follow the narrative on. Her sentences are often very staccato, and the prose is very factual with heavy description of rooms and items, but seemingly little drive to the narrative. Personally, I find this style of writing hard to engage with, but clearly the team at Persephone disagree and found much in The Happy Tree to make them choose to republish it.

I’d love to hear from others who’ve also read the book and find out what you think. Maybe I’m alone in my disappointment with The Happy Tree? I’d heartily recommend one of this season’s other Persephone reprints instead: Because Of The Lockwoods by the ever-reliable Dorothy Whipple, which is impossible to put down. Review here.

'Sugar Hall' by Tiffany Murray

Although I’m not traditionally a fan of ghost stories, what with being a susceptible fool who is easily spooked, I ended up reading Tiffany Murray’s latest novel Sugar Hall in almost a day… as I just couldn’t put it down.

Loosely based on the spooky Littledean Hall near the Forest of Dean, the Sugar Hall of the title is a grandly imposing, and reputedly ugly, old stately home built by the fortunes of the Sugar family – who made their money via the equally ugly businesses of sugar trading and slave purchasing. With centuries of grisly stories embedded in its walls and surrounding woodland, the latest inhabitants of the Hall are Lilia Sugar and her two children Saskia and Dieter.

Lilia is the widowed wife of Peter Sugar, who was the final surviving descent of the Sugar family. As such, their young son Dieter Sugar is now the only living heir to the crumbling Sugar empire. Lilia and her children have inherited the freezing Hall in Peter’s will, and with fate not on their side, they’re forced to up sticks from their cosy London flat and move down to the chilly, alienating old house to see if they can make it home.

Despite warnings from various locals who know the hold the Hall has over the Sugar sons… and despite the chilling stories Dieter tells her of the boy with the silver collar who he finds around the place… Saskia militantly remains rooted to the Hall, trying her best to make it work for her two children.

But as the months pass, creepy event after spooky encounter stack up… and everything comes to a head.

Tiffany Murray’s writing style is engaging, and after only two or three chapters I was gripped and literally couldn’t put the book down all day, not until I had found out how it all worked out. She paints such a vivid description of the hideous Hall and its world that I was desperate to see a real picture for myself, to see if the image I’d painted in my head matched the actual Hall. But it is her creation of the manipulative and sad slave boy, who himself suffered at the hands of a former Sugar master, that is truly at the heart of Sugar Hall.

Sugar Hall is up there with Helen Dunmore’s The Greatcoat as one of the two finest contemporary ghost stories I’ve read in recent years.

'Because Of The Lockwoods' by Dorothy Whipple

There’s a formula to Dorothy Whipple books and it’s a winning formula – that’s why back in the 1940s and 1950s she was such a bestselling author, and that’s why the Persephone Books reprints of those novels continue to remain among the publishers’ bestselling novels today.

The latest, and penultimate, Persephone reprint of a Whipple is Because Of The Lockwoods, which follows Dorothy’s formula to the letter and with glorious success.

Our heroine Thea is the youngest daughter of the Hunter family, who sadly lost their father far too young and his death plunged them into relative poverty. They were patronised and pitied by the loathsome Lockwood family, who indulged the Hunters with contemptuous charity… thereby fostering growing hatred towards them by the Hunters, especially Thea.

In the classic Dorothy Whipple style, our heroine is served a great injustice by the hands of a seemingly powerful man, Mr Lockwood… and the book is spent with her resolving to wreak her revenge, see justice done and ultimately emerge the victor. It’s giving nothing away to say that Thea does just this… and in delicious fashion.

Because Of The Lockwoods takes us on a lengthy, but thoroughly enjoyable, journey from outer Manchester to rural France and back again. As with most Dorothy Whipple books, this is a real doorstopper of a book; chunky and weighty. But as with all Dorothy Whipple books, this is also a deeply enjoyable, page-turner of a hotwater bottle book.

I first read this book several years ago during a summer heatwave in a Somerset garden, and although I generally try not to read a book twice (if you’ve got time to read one book twice, you’ve got time to read two books – is my rule of thumb), Because Of The Lockwoods was equally, if not more so, delicious the second time.

Revenge, as Thea finds, is a dish best served cold (with a wintry reading).

'Funny Girl' by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby’s latest novel, Funny Girl, is essentially a love letter to Lucille Ball – the grand dame of 1950s’ TV comedy. Our hero Barbara is a working-class Blackpool girl blessed with beautiful looks, headstrong determination and a self-defined funny bone… who makes her way to London in pursuit of aping her hero Lucille and becoming a comedian herself.

But given the set-up for Funny Girl, it’s notable how little of this story is actually Barbara’s – or Sophie, as she soon becomes known as. Maybe this is because Funny Girl is written by a man, but we read very little of the book from Barbara’s perspective, instead following the story from the men that surround her: co-star Clive, producer Dennis, scriptwriters Bill and Tony. We’re only a few chapters in before Barbara herself seems like simply a device to drive the men’s stories forwards.

Once in London, Barbara/Sophie quickly attracts the attention of a kindly agent and before long she is cast as the lead in a new BBC sitcom – which naturally becomes a hit, catapulting her into the limelight and role of national darling. Yet we read very little of how all of this affects Barbara/Sophie and of the world in which she lives, instead we read more about Bill’s literary ambitions, Tony’s charade of a marriage, Clive’s emotional immaturity, and Dennis’ torch that he holds for the funny girl of the title.

But Funny Girl is an enjoyably readable book – the most engaging and compelling of Nick Hornby’s novels, in my opinion, since High Fidelity back in 1995. Maybe this is because Hornby’s own love for Lucille Ball rivals his passion for glorious record shops? I found it frustrating that so little of Funny Girl focused on the funny girl of the title, and that we learned so little about why Lucille Ball was such an inspiration on Barbara/Sophie, but as a call back to the golden age of light entertainment, the novel is a fun and light read.