LoveReading Says
LoveReading Says
Hauntingly tender, and written with powerful grace, Clare Chambers’s Small Pleasures is an absolute joy from start to finish. It’s 1957 in suburban Kent, where Jean writes for a local newspaper with every aspect of her life still dominated by her contrary, controlling mother as Jean approaches forty.
No post-work drinks with colleagues. No friends. No romance. Enter Gretchen Tilbury, an elegant Swiss woman who writes to the paper claiming her daughter was the result of a virgin birth. As Jean investigates the case, she becomes close to Gretchen, her kind, witty husband Howard, and the alleged miraculous daughter, all four of them finding comfortable joy in each other’s company.
“You’ve stirred us out of our routine,” Howard remarks, to which Jean responds, “I would have thought it was the other way about.”
While researching Gretchen’s youth, Jean inadvertently sends shockwaves through the Tilbury family when she reconnects Gretchen to a powerful figure from her past. At the same time, she and Howard find themselves falling for each other, both of them remaining faithful to Gretchen, graciously skirting their attraction - until it’s right to act.
The novel features some of the most finely drawn, endearing characters I’ve encountered in recent contemporary fiction. For all her lonely frustration, Jean isn’t one to wallow. She’s pragmatic, with ripples of not-quite-regret lapping beneath her smooth, reasoned surface - a woman “who took pride in her ability to conceal unruly emotions.” Her domesticity pieces for the paper have something of Carrie Bradshaw’s musings about them, albeit without any in-your-face sex in the city (or the suburbs, in Jean’s case), with their apparently humdrum themes humorously paralleling soul-stirring events in her own life.
Laying bare a quivering three-way tug between obligation, propriety and passion, and the inexplicable way thunderbolt-bonds are formed between similar-souled individuals, Jean’s conflicts and chance to love truly get under your skin. What a remarkable book, with a dagger-sharp climax that will pierce your heart.
Reviewed by Joanne OwenJoanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen About Small Pleasures
In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchettan astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion."e;With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details."e;--The New York TimesLONGLISTED
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Small Pleasures Synopsis
In the best tradition of Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Ann Patchettan astonishing, keenly observed period piece about an ordinary British woman in the 1950s whose dutiful life takes a sudden turn into a pitched battle between propriety and unexpected passion."e;With wit and dry humor...quietly affecting in unexpected ways. Chambers' language is beautiful, achieving what only the most skilled writers can: big pleasure wrought from small details."e;--The New York TimesLONGLISTED
FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR
FICTION1957: Jean Swinney is a feature writer on a local paper in the southeast suburbs of London. Clever but with limited career opportunities and on the brink of forty, Jean lives a dreary existence that includes caring for her demanding widowed mother, who rarely leaves the house. Its a small life with little joy and no likelihood of escape.That all changes when a young woman, Gretchen Tilbury, contacts the paper to claim that her daughter is the result of a virgin birth.
Jean seizes onto the bizarre story and sets out to discover whether Gretchen is a miracle or a fraud. But the more Jean investigates, the more her life becomes strangely (and not unpleasantly) intertwined with that of the Tilburys, including Gretchens gentle and thoughtful husband Howard, who mostly believes his wife, and their quirky and charming daughter Margaret, who becomes a sort of surrogate child for Jean. Gretchen, too, becomes a much-needed friend in an otherwise empty social life.Jean cannot bring herself to discard what seems like her one chance at happiness, even as the story that she is researching starts to send dark ripples across all their liveswith unimaginable consequences.Both a mystery and a love story, Small Pleasures is a literary tour-de-force in the style of The Remains of the Day, about conflict between personal fulfillment and duty; a novel that celebrates the beauty and potential for joy in all things plain and unfashionable.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9780063091009 |
| Publication date: |
12th October 2021 |
| Author: |
Clare Chambers |
| Publisher: |
HarperCollins |
| Format: |
Ebook |
| Primary Genre |
Historical Fiction
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| Other Genres: |
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Clare Chambers Press Reviews
PRAISE FOR CLARE CHAMBERS 'Clare Chambers is a diamond in the dust' Independent on Sunday 'Clare Chambers' characters are so vivid that, by the end of the book, they feel like old friends' Daily Mail This is one of the most tender, beautiful books I have ever read. Please, please order it now for July. I honestly don't want you to be without it. It is exquisite. - Lucy Mangan
Small Pleasures is the best sort of book: full of longing, regret and difficult emotions but leavened with so much warmth and humour it was a joy from start to finish. - Francesca Jakobi, author of BITTER
A delicious mystery and a touching exploration of loneliness and desire in cloying 1950s suburbia - a great read. - Sally Magnusson, author of THE SEALWOMAN'S GIFT
Small Pleasures is a gorgeous treat of a novel: the premise is fascinating, the characters beautifully drawn and utterly compelling, the period setting masterfully and delicately evoked, and the plot is full of unexpected twists and turns. And oh, the finale broke my heart. I just couldn't put this novel down. - Laura Barnett, #1 bestselling author of THE VERSIONS OF US
Small Pleasures is a tender and heart-rending tale that will draw you in from the first page and keep you gripped until the very end. Exquisitely compelling! - Ruth Hogan, author of THE KEEPER OF LOST THINGS
The must-read uplifting book of the summer. - WEST END LANE BOOKSHOP
I adored Small Pleasures. It's engrossing and gripping: you want to race on and relish every sentence at the same time. I love the way Clare writes - her wry, subtle turns of phrase, the humour in the smallest of observations, the finely drawn characters. A wonderful book' - Sabine Durrant, author of LIE WITH ME
Clare Chambers is that rare thing, a novelist of discreet hilarity, deep compassion and stiletto wit whose perspicacious account of suburban lives with their quiet desperation and unexpected passion makes her the 21st century heir to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Taylor. Small Pleasures is both gripping and a huge delight. I loved what she did with the trope of the claim of a virgin birth, and how the hope of a miracle opens the door to love, kindness and hope in an arid existence. This is better than Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and deserves just as much acclaim. - Amanda Craig, author of THE LIE OF THE LAND
The glorious literary equivalent of pulling the duvet over your head... Both an absorbing mystery and a tender love story - and the ending is devastating. Chambers is a writer who finds the truth in things. If you admire Tessa Hadley or Anne Tyler (and there are shades of Barbara Pym too), then this is one for you. -- Alice O'Keefe - The Bookseller, Book of the Month
Author
About Clare Chambers
Clare Chambers was born in 1966, attended a school in Croydon, read English at Oxford and wrote her first novel while she was living in New Zealand. She is the author of Back Trouble, A Dry Spell and Learning to Swim, which won the 1998 Parker Romantic Novel of the Year award. She now lives in Kent with her husband and young family.
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