When I read Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski a year ago, I felt as if my heart had been ripped out in the heightened emotion of the closing pages; with Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon, the emotional intensity was present from the opening page and sustained throughout; my heart when not in my mouth leapt, contracted and plummeted for the duration of the novel.

From the arresting first pages (which can be read almost in entirety on the Persephone webpage) we know that this is a novel about loss, the unbearable loss of losing a child.

Alex Selky, going on seven, so eager to grow up, kissed his mother goodbye on their front steps on the hot bright morning of May 15 1980, and marched himself down the street on his way to the New Boston School of Back Bay, two blocks from his corner. He never arrived at school, and from the moment he turned the corner, he apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.

We are shown and given insight into the impact of Alex’s disappearance on those who loved him, especially his mother, and Al Menetti, the detective assigned to his case. Still Missing is raw and emotive but never sentimentalises; it provides an inside -albeit fictitious- look at the trauma of a missing child; of the public and media attention; of the overwhelming support and judgment of strangers; of the unrelenting hunt for clues and scanning of children’s faces on the street and in the park; of unrelinquished hope. Susan Selky, mother to Alex, Harvard English professor, recently separated from her husband, refuses to give up hope that Alex will be found; it is Susan’s faith and tenacity that carries -or rather propels- the reader through the novel ‘s thrilling pages. Structured loosely as a thriller complete with a leading detective who first comes off as a Columbo-type, Still Missing has exceptional emotional depth and vivid characterisation.

Gutcheon explores the dramatic behind-the-scenes investigations in a missing child case where nobody is above suspicion and every secret is unearthed and revealed; in the public eye and being under investigation by the police, everyone’s motives and actions are held up to scrutiny and nothing is private, even grief. What Gutcheon does remarkably well is tackle the stereotypes and the judgments that come with a high-profile missing child case; everyone has an opinion and Still Missing does not shy away from showing how the public often react to what they deem to be the parents’ irresponsibility in losing their child or how the parents conduct themselves in the aftermath, which prompts the reader to examine their own prejudices. The stereotypes are infuriating but fitting for the 1980 setting and Gutcheon never endorses them but presents them in the historical framework of the early years of the Gay Rights movement.

Susan Selky is a compelling character; Gutcheon has drawn a vivid portrait of a grieving mother whose pain is palpable. Each of Gutcheon’s characters are very well realised with their flaws on display and private conversations -outwith Susan’s presence- and indiscretions revealed but Susan is particularly memorable. The disappearance of Alex seems very real and the conversations that take place and reactions of Susan -and her husband, Graham- convincing and also illuminating.

Much has been made of the seeming modernity of this in relation to other Persephone Books but it has an almost timeless quality and universal appeal. The Persephone titles I respond to strongly are those that focus on relationships and raw emotions; the highly emotive Still Missing easily joins Laski and Whipple and could be said to be quintessentially Persephone. Preceding its reissue earlier this year I had discussed the book with Lydia at the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop who told me that Nicola Beauman had been wanting to publish it for years, since it inexplicably fell out-of-print in the UK, but that high-profile child abductions had made it inappropriate to reissue earlier.

Still Missing is a powerfully moving novel about the disappearance of a child and the months following (hence the “still”). As the investigation loses momentum Susan sits at her window every morning facing the corner where she last saw Alex and this scene touchingly shifts through seasons.

As the days grew shorter and the chill in the autumn air deepened, the long uneven panes of glass in the living-room were grey with thin frost when Susan went with her coffee cup in the early mornings to sit looking down at the street. From the lush gold and blue, deep as an overturned bowl, of the last morning on earth that she saw her son, the light had changed to the flat grey brightness of impending winter.

The quiet poignancy of the above scene and the pain of Susan is a good example of the tone of the novel; the weather has changed but Susan’s undying hope that Alex is still alive and will reappear has not.

Other favourite passages:

Uh-huh, thought Menetti. Now it starts. It can’t happen to me. It happened to her, she lost her kid, but if there’s something funny about her, then there’s a reason it could happen to her but it couldn’t happen to me. Now starts the drawing away, the pulling aside, the setting the Selkys apart.

To have her house and her heart and her life held open, exposed to the public at this moment, to be robbed of the personal and private in tragedy, was particularly bitter.

Something beneath her ribcage leaped and tore. These slams of pain were so physically felt, she wondered if it were possible to go on taking them without the inner fibres beginning to actually shiver apart, like the creak and scream of a wooden boat breaking up in a storm.

*The very observant of you will notice that this is a re-posting of a review I wrote last year.  It bears repeating and is definitely worth highlighting during Persephone Reading Weekend.

With sporadic blogging over the last few months it has been a while since I posted a Claire’s Corner; it has also been a ridiculously long time since I have posted a review (a subjective and personal response to a book read), which is the main subject of this post.  I have mentioned that I have had a case of reviewer’s block and I think that is as much to do with the backlog of reviews still to write and post than it is to do with being out-of-practice.  Now, I have never been one to rigidly write about every book I read and I think it impractical to adopt that approach to the books I have yet to discuss; there are too many to write up whilst I am still reading (and re-reading, as the case has been recently) some great books that I don’t want to fall by the wayside either.  This is where YOU come in.  I would love if you would help me out by indicating which books you would like me to post about; if you could do so using the survey below -you can check all that appeal- and then perhaps by elaborating why in comments, that would be a great help.  I will then catch up with some of the review backlist interspersing those with the books I am currently reading (it is so much easier to write about a book that is fresh in your memory!)

The books above are not all I’ve read recently and only include up to last weekend but there are a few books that I will not be reviewing at all, but they will be discussed in a series of posts that I have had on the back-burner.

I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett would have made an appropriate Hallowe’en review as would some of the other seasonal (gothic and unsettling) reading that I have done recently.  In an appropriately timely post, the Persephone Forum is hosting a discussion of their creepily-claustrophobic novella, The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski; do please participate if you have read it or find yourself reading it as the nights grow even longer.

A reminder that there are only five days remaining to sign up for this year’s Persephone Secret Santa.  I am having such fun organising this year’s event and delighted that already there are a few more participants than there were last year – the more the merrier!  Not only do we have many of the participants from last year rejoining the fun but we have new bloggers, new to Persephone readers (how much fun to gift someone their first Persephone!) and even some non-blogger Persephone lovers. With a couple of planned visits to Persephone Books with visiting book bloggers this month I know that I am going to be full of the festive spirit joyfully choosing my Santee’s Persephone in person.

When I read Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski a year ago, I felt as if my heart had been ripped out in the heightened emotion of the closing pages; with Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon, the emotional intensity was present from the opening page and sustained throughout; my heart when not in my mouth leapt, contracted and plummeted for the duration of the novel.

From the arresting first pages (which can be read almost in entirety on the Persephone webpage) we know that this is a novel about loss, the unbearable loss of losing a child.

Alex Selky, going on seven, so eager to grow up, kissed his mother goodbye on their front steps on the hot bright morning of May 15 1980, and marched himself down the street on his way to the New Boston School of Back Bay, two blocks from his corner. He never arrived at school, and from the moment he turned the corner, he apparently disappeared from the face of the earth.

We are shown and given insight into the impact of Alex’s disappearance on those who loved him, especially his mother, and Al Menetti, the detective assigned to his case.  Still Missing is raw and emotive but never sentimentalises; it provides an inside -albeit fictitious- look at the trauma of a missing child; of the public and media attention; of the overwhelming support and judgment of strangers; of the unrelenting hunt for clues and scanning of children’s faces on the street and in the park; of unrelinquished hope.  Susan Selky, mother to Alex, Harvard English professor, recently separated from her husband, refuses to give up hope that Alex will be found; it is Susan’s faith and tenacity that carries -or rather propels- the reader through the novel ‘s thrilling pages.  Structured loosely as a thriller complete with a leading detective who first comes off as a Columbo-type, Still Missing has exceptional emotional depth and vivid characterisation.

Gutcheon explores the dramatic behind-the-scenes investigations in a missing child case where nobody is above suspicion and every secret is unearthed and revealed; in the public eye and being under investigation by the police, everyone’s motives and actions are held up to scrutiny and nothing is private, even grief.  What Gutcheon does remarkably well is tackle the stereotypes and the judgments that come with a high-profile missing child case; everyone has an opinion and Still Missing does not shy away from showing how the public often react to what they deem to be the parents’ irresponsibility in losing their child or how the parents conduct themselves in the aftermath, which prompts the reader to examine their own prejudices.  The stereotypes are infuriating but fitting for the 1980 setting and Gutcheon never endorses them but presents them in the historical framework of the early years of the Gay Rights movement.

Susan Selky is a compelling character; Gutcheon has drawn a vivid portrait of a grieving mother whose pain is palpable.  Each of Gutcheon’s characters are very well realised with their flaws on display and private conversations -outwith Susan’s presence- and indiscretions revealed but Susan is particularly memorable.  The disappearance of Alex seems very real and the conversations that take place and reactions of Susan -and her husband, Graham- convincing and also illuminating.

Much has been made of the seeming modernity of this in relation to other Persephone Books but it has an almost timeless quality and universal appeal.  The Persephone titles I respond to strongly are those that focus on relationships and raw emotions; the highly emotive Still Missing easily joins Laski and Whipple and could be said to be quintessentially Persephone.  Preceding its reissue earlier this year I had discussed the book with Lydia at the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop who told me that Nicola Beauman had been wanting to publish it for years, since it inexplicably fell out-of-print in the UK, but that high-profile child abductions had made it inappropriate to reissue earlier.

Still Missing is a powerfully moving novel about the disappearance of a child and the months following (hence the “still”).  As the investigation loses momentum Susan sits at her window every morning facing the corner where she last saw Alex and this scene touchingly shifts through seasons.

As the days grew shorter and the chill in the autumn air deepened, the long uneven panes of glass in the living-room were grey with thin frost when Susan went with her coffee cup in the early mornings to sit looking down at the street.  From the lush gold and blue, deep as an overturned bowl, of the last morning on earth that she saw her son, the light had changed to the flat grey brightness of impending winter.

The quiet poignancy of the above scene and the pain of Susan is a good example of the tone of the novel; the weather has changed but Susan’s undying hope that Alex is still alive and will reappear has not.

Other favourite passages:

Uh-huh, thought Menetti.  Now it starts.  It can’t happen to me.  It happened to her, she lost her kid, but if there’s something funny about her, then there’s a reason it could happen to her but it couldn’t happen to me.  Now starts the drawing away, the pulling aside, the setting the Selkys apart.

To have her house and her heart and her life held open, exposed to the public at this moment, to be robbed of the personal and private in tragedy, was particularly bitter.

Something beneath her ribcage leaped and tore.  These slams of pain were so physically felt, she wondered if it were possible to go on taking them without the inner fibres beginning to actually shiver apart, like the creak and scream of a wooden boat breaking up in a storm.

To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski is the fourth of her novels that Persephone Books have published but was the first of those four to be published, in 1946 under the pseudonym “Sarah Russell”.  A unique take on the experience of women in WWII England, To Bed With Grand Music opens with the arresting line, “Graham and Deborah Robertson lay in bed together and tried to say goodbye to each other”; Deborah’s husband is due to leave for Cairo for a desk-job in the war effort and in their goodbye he promises to be unfaithful to his wife, for the duration of his time overseas, only with women who cannot be compared to her, whilst Deborah vows her fidelity. The novel follows with Deborah’s failure to keep that promise throughout wartime until victory and her husband’s impending return home.

That is where I come unstuck.  I have found it difficult to gather my thoughts and present them concisely on this book because Deborah exasperates, repels and flummoxes me. It is difficult for me to fully articulate my thoughts on this book because I have so many; it is thoroughly though-provoking and Darlene was right in suggesting it for me, on the basis that she entered into a dialogue with herself whilst reading it and thought that I would do likewise.  Deborah is most vexing as is the situation presented.  A husband freely admits -in advance- to being unfaithful to his wife whilst he is serving his country and yet she is to remain the docile wife at home with their son; the double-standard employed in the power dynamic of their marriage infuriates me and yet it was is seen as the norm because men have needs.  Goodness forbid that a woman has sexual needs of her own and that she seeks that fulfillment outwith the sanctimony of marriage, let alone during wartime.  The premise of To Bed With Grand Music is a shocking one but shocking in the sense that such things have rarely been tackled in literature and certainly not on the back of the war itself, when people were acclimatising to peace-time; Mollie Panter-Downes deals with it to an extent in her Mrs Craven short stories and Elizabeth Bowen depicted the sensuality found in the Blitz (or the darkness it resulted in) in The Heat of the Day, which Sarah Waters picked up on decades later in The Night Watch but for the main, those stories of the Home Front have been endearing (I think of Henrietta’s War, myself). What Laski has done is expose the underbelly of how the women left at home could -and often did- occupy themselves whilst the men were at the front (the preface by Juliet Gardiner makes fascinating reading).

Deborah is a thoroughly dislikable character from the outset; she is brattish and selfish.  Being a housewife and a mother to Timmy, their two-year-old son, frustrates and bores Deborah and it is not long after Graham’s embarkation -at the instigation of her mother and housekeeper- leaves the family cottage and goes to find work in London, returning only on weekends to see her son.  Before she  has even set herself up in London, Deborah has experienced her first sexual encounter with another man; she is disgusted with herself but it is not long after moving to London that she conducts her first extra-marital affair and then another and then another, each one more seedy and briefer than the one before.  By the novel’s end, the transformation is complete and Deborah has gone from a doting wife to a tart without a heart who seeks lessons in becoming a good mistress.

There is such difficulty in evaluating what becomes to Deborah because I rail against judging a woman for her sexual liberation and support a woman’s right to use her own body as she wishes but, in effect, Deborah prostitutes herself for dinners and drinks, hats and bags, and black-market stockings and nail-varnish.  Laski presents such a quandary because I struggled so hard not to judge Deborah but I succumbed; Deborah disgusted me in her wanton disregard for the pain she was inflicting (the potential pain that had to be surmised) on the innocent victims of her adultery: her son and the wives of those married men she went with; she even begins to think of her actions as in the best interests of her child.  My own strong feelings against adultery made it impossible to read this novel objectively; it wasn’t an immoral book but I’m not sure of Laski’s intent, whether she was writing a straight-up expose or a condemnation; she certainly did not pain Deborah in a sympathetic light.  Deborah deludes herself  in justifying her actions and it does make compelling reading, if not a completely enjoyable experience because of the frustration felt at Deborah’s actions and her justifications.  It is most definitely a disconcerting read, more for my own reactions to it, and for the unique take on the home front that it provides, which is truly illuminating post black-out.

Despite lacking the emotional intensity of Little Boy Lost, To Bed With Grand Music still has me reeling and unable to express and do justice to how good -not to mention versatile- a novelist Laski is.  I do think that, like me, she judged Deborah and she makes a persuasive argument for doing so.  Graham, the husband, only appears in that opening bedroom scene -excluding some gushing and sexist letters- so we can only surmise how he has been conducting himself whilst absent from home; his absence excuses him from culpability, which is enraging, and is very effective in evoking the double-standard applied to cheating spouses.  This novel is very much one about gender, power and sexual freedom, whether that was Laski’s intention or not.  Yet again Laski has evoked a powerful reaction in me as a reader.

Some representative passages:

It was not until the end of August that Deborah’s content began to break up.  Each autumn in wartime, everyone is slightly more depressed than they were each spring, for they look forward to cold and black-out and bombing, and another Christmas of war.  They have forgotten the fantastic hopes they entertained as the last winter faded away, or, if they remember them, it is only to contrast their past expectations with present reality.

Deborah understood him.  ‘You’re at least the third person,’ she said, ‘who has asked me if it mightn’t be better if I went home to my chee-ild.  Well, darling, that’s just one of the things I’ve really thought out for myself and I know it’s better to be happy than unhappy, and not only for me but for my baby as well.  I like this sort of life, in fact, I love it, and seeing as how I’m hurting no one and doing myself quite a lot of good, I rather think I’ll carry on with it.  I’ve come to the conclusion that conventional morals were invented by a lot of unattractive bitches to make themselves feel good.

The end-papers from To Bed With Grand Music are taken from a 1940 Jacqmar scarf, ‘Good Night Everybody’ from a private collection.

On Monday I presented you with the most perplexing of Persephone problems … what book should I most definitely read this week?  To help me with this I dangled a dazzling carrot in front of you: the person who gave the most persuasive argument would win a Persephone book of their choice and I have received some fabulous answers with The Home-Maker being the most popular choice.  However, the brief was the most persuasive entry, the one that persuaded me to pick up that Persephone this week, if not then and there; of course, that is entirely subjective and what worked on me wouldn’t necessarily work for somebody else but my give-away, my rules! Hee.  Suffice to say, somebody was successful in persuading me which Persephone to read and though a Persephone that I have been itching to read, one that was on the agenda this week, the response pushed me to immediately reading it.  I had planned on keeping the give-away open until 12pm GMT tomorrow but once this was posted, it was a one-horse race, a Lipizzaner, if you will, and there was no other Persephone that could pip it to the post.  The winning entry was this one:

You’ve placed my choice for you firmly on the top of your stack! While turning the pages of this book, I wondered what you would think of certain characters and situations. The fact that someone writing ‘F**k you, Marghanita Laski’ in a review for Little Boy Lost, promptly had you ordering a copy was an indication of the emotion you like a story to evoke. This book had me running a dialogue, sometimes silently and sometimes not, with several characters as their actions would really have me ticked off! I’ve been dying to know your thoughts on To Bed with Grand Music for months, Claire. Put me out of my misery!

This was the SECOND entry, by Darlene, and it was all over.  It was Darlene who prompted me to pick up Little Boy Lost last Persephone Reading Week by alluding to the book review she mentions and it was my highlight of the week and now one of my all-time favourite Persephones; there was no resisting Darlene’s temptation, she fully convinced me and I reached for my copy of To Bed With Grand Music and finished reading it earlier today.  Congratulations and thank you, Darlene!  Have a long, hard think of which Persephone you would love to add to your collection and email me please.  Thanks to everyone else who entered and please remember that there is this give-away still to enter as well as another tomorrow and those being hosted by my co-host.

A review of To Bed With Grand Music will follow shortly.

Nicola Beauman of Persephone Books very generously gave Verity and I new copies of books for give-aways during this Persephone Reading Week.  Lydia from the Lamb’s Conduit Street shop and myself carefully selected a few; Doreen by Barbara Noble was to mark the forthcoming seventieth anniversary of the Blitz (please see Verity’s WWII quiz), The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple (see our welcome posts) because Whipple is Persephone’s most popular author and yet the stories the least referred to of her books, another (forthcoming this week) was more left-field, and The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski.

I opted for the Laski because it is the Persephone that a number of new-to-Persephone readers choose to read (it was my second) and because it was recently reprinted so hasn’t been available for people to purchase. over the last number of months.  This give-away will be ideal for 1) Persephone newbies yet to read/own a Persephone 2) those who have read and loved the book but do not own a copy of their own 3) those Persephone lovers who have not read nor bought the book.  All you have to do to win the prize copy of The Victorian Chaise-longue is email me the answers (using the contact option on top right, unless you already have my email address) to the following quiz questions by 12pm BST on Sunday 9th May.  This give-away is open worldwide; I also have a few of the above postcard and will happily post to some random runners-up.  Answers to the questions can be found on the Persephone website and/or posts from the first Persephone Reading Week (which can be found in blog archives or by clicking on the Persephone Reading Week tag) and from this week’s posts.

1. Which number of book in the catalogue is The Victorian Chaise-longue?

2. Who painted the above postcard?

3. How many titles written by Marghanita Laski do Persephone publish?

4. What is the pattern of the endpaper to The Victorian Chaise-longue taken from?

5. How many reviews of The Victorian Chaise-longue were there during last year’s Persephone Reading Week?

6. Where is the novella set?

7. What are the names of both female protagonists in The Victorian Chaise-longue?

8. Who wrote the preface to The Victorian Chaise-longue?

9. Which famous female novelists did Marghanita Laski write books about?

10. Which Laski novel did I read for the first Persephone Reading Week last year and which am I intending to read this week?

Good luck!

Here they are, the first books of 2010. I’ve even read one already and began another!

The Spare Room by Helen Garner: Canongate declared this “the decade’s best unread book”, I popped it on my wish-list and when Frances of Nonsuch Book was cleaning out some book, I took this one off her hands; Frances describes it as “Spare and dark and unsentimental treatment of caring for a cancer patient not viewing their illness with much realism. Quick and memorable read.”

To Bed With Grand Music by Marghanita Laski: As you know I acquired several Persephone Books recently when I visited the shop with Verity of The B Files but this is the one I purchased and that I am most excited about. I intend to read this soon not least of all because I know many of you are tempted by this one yourselves.

Life & Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace was one of my favourite reads last year and Coetzee an amazing new-to-me author discovery. I couldn’t resist his other Booker winner when I found a new copy for £2 and I’m tempted to go on a bit of a Coetzee binge this quarter.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates: this is the book that I wish I had read last year. The film adaptation was sublime and I am excited to finally read this, more so as Rachel of Book Snob is hosting a Season of Yates and has some lovely things to say about him (but then she has lovely things to say generally).

Les Liaisons dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos: Polly of Novel Insights chose this as our next Riverside Readers book group read and I purchased it immediately, I was so excited. This is a French classic that I have been wanting to read for some time, I have never seen the film (I intend to before we discuss the book) and I have started to read the book and I am enjoying it immensely.

The Passport by Herta Müller: until Müller won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year I knew nothing about her and this was something that I sought to rectify. The Passport is a slight novella by her, which seems to be touted everywhere as the book of hers to read, so I thought it was the one to go for; Simon of Savidge Reads implies that it is a challenging and unique reading experience, which makes it sound as if it could be inaccessible but I’m up for a challenge! Ultimately he enjoyed it though so that’s all that matters.

Pastors and Masters by Ivy Compton-Burnett: a good friend wrote her Master’s thesis on the works of Ivy Compton-Burnett when we were at University together and that was going on four years ago … I have been reading to read Ivy since that time and Simon of Stuck In A Book has been another advocate. Simon recently reviewed Pastors and Masters and conveniently I had just won a copy to review from Hesperus Press (via LibraryThing). Simon classes it as “ICB-lite” so I’m thinking it is a good place to start.

Audition by Ryu Murakami: another writer that I’ve been wanting to read for some time and one I was discussing with Jackie of Farm Lane Books in relation to gritty Japanese thrillers last month. Ôdishon was a Japanese film released over a decade ago based on Ryu Murakami’s novel; Bloomsbury released the novel in translation last year and kindly sent me a copy.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez: this novel was cited in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz and I wanted to read it from then and when Nymeth of Things Mean a Lot reviewed it shortly after, I purchased it. I am trying not to plan my reading but it is all I can do not to score out a couple of days in my diary in early February so that I can curl up and devour this book.

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde: I have already read and reviewed this acquisition (because I couldn’t wait!) Many thanks to Steph of Steph & Tony Investigate for sending me a copy of this book when I won one of their generous bloggiversary give-aways. I loved this book and have no qualms in declaring it my favourite and most enjoyable read of 2010 so far.

Wild Child by T.C. Boyle: Bloomsbury also sent me the latest collection of short stories by T.C. Boyle, which I am looking forward to savouring. T.C. Boyle is a writer I admire a lot, whose works I plan on reading more of this year and that is thanks to JoAnn of Lakeside Musing and her enthusiasm for him. It’s been a few years since I read any of his novels but read his short story “Chixiclub” recently and he can write short fiction along with the best of them.

The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski was the second Persephone I read, in October last year, and I enjoyed it but wasn’t wowed or as thoroughly charmed as I had been with my first foray into the world of the dove-grey book, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. My third Persephone, Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple, however, I adored for its emotional intensity and raw evocation of infidelity’s effects on all concerned. This week I have been tempted to revisit The Victorian Chaise-longue and I definitely will to see if my opinion changes any, but it perhaps explains why I didn’t instantly read Little Boy Lost; now that I have, I will be purchasing and reading The Village as soon as I am able and the forthcoming title by Laski published this October, To Bed With Grand Music, was one that appealed anyway.

Do not miss the wonderful opportunity to read this book. It is a egregious crime that it ever fell out of print, for Persephone Books to have to rescue it, but I am glad that they did. Little Boy Lost has a reputation as a heartbreaker and rightly so but although disheartening, it is not completely devastating. I don’t want to spoil this book but the unbearably poignant closing lines elicited such a powerful, emotional response in me; I don’t think I have ever been so moved by a book’s ending. I instantly wanted to reach over and wake up my boyfriend to tell him all about it as I knew I couldn’t tell any of you, unless you had also read it. This is a book that I hugged upon closing, with watery eyes.

I hope Jessica Crispin of Bookslut doesn’t mind me posting the first part of her review of Little Boy Lost from earlier this year but is truly too good not to share (for the second half of the letter, click on the link and scroll down to January 14th; she doesn’t spoil anything.)

Dear Marghanita Laski:

Fuck you. Because of your novel Little Boy Lost, I spent ten minutes yesterday on my living room floor, crying. Over a story about a man incapable of love and a boy who might be his son in a post-WWII orphanage. Are you fucking kidding me? But really pissed me off is the fact that your book is not at all sentimental! Not even a twinge of manipulation, just told simply and plainly. I started muttering to myself about halfway through, talking back to the book, calling Hilary an idiot. Then came the heavy breathing, and then the crying.

How evocative a response to a book is that? When Darlene quoted the review opening in her comments earlier this week, it convinced me to pick up Little Boy Lost. I am so thankful to Darlene (and Jessica) for that; I enjoy being emotionally wrung out by a book and this one does that so wonderfully well, without being emotionally manipulative.

The beautifully understated and emotionally evocative novel concerns Hilary Wainwright, a poet and intellectual, who has to leave his wife, Lisa, and their newborn baby, John, in Paris when WWII breaks out. Hilary is English and Lisa is of Polish birth, and part of the Resistance movement; Lisa gives their baby to a friend when she discovers the Gestapo are aware of her involvement and is killed (all of this is discovered in the opening pages). When Jeanne, Lisa’s friend, is also killed, the baby boy is thought lost but after the War, Hilary returns to France to search for his son, with the help of Jeanne’s fiancé, Pierre. A boy of the right age, blood type (of course during a time when DNA testing was not an option), and circumstances is located in a provincial French town but there is no way of accurately determining whether the boy, Jean, is indeed Hilary’s son.

The crux of the novel is of Hilary and Jean’s growing relationship over one week and of Hilary’s ambivalence towards his growing feelings for the boy, who may or may not be kin, and his contempt for the post-war corruption of France. The emotional state of Hilary is beautifully evoked, and although he and his choices are not always agreeable, his character is sympathetically portrayed. Hilary has experienced such unbearable loss that he closes himself off to loving again because that opens him up to future potential pain; such conflict within his inner-self is deftly evoked.

The traitor emotions of love and tenderness and pity must stay dead in me. I could not endure them to live and then die again.

Jean is once of the sweetest and heartrending children that I have come across in literature and it is impossible not to give your heart to him and his potential fate. “[Jean] walks straight into the reader’s heart. He is, in one sense, every lost child of Europe”, wrote novelist Elizabeth Bowen and the poet Stevie Smith wrote: “The poor, cold child, starved of love but most endearing, and the father who fears he cannot love, seem frozen in time; there is great depth of feeling in this story and an admirable simplicity of style.”

One of my favourite passages, that accurately sums up the dilemma Hilary faces in recognising his son, and is central to the plot:

If he is my son then we met once at the moment of his birth and have had nothing in common ever since. He might tell me what toys he played with – but I have never seen them. He might tell me of other children he knew – but I have never met them. If he remembered being kissed on this particular spot, being put to bed with that particular formula, I would still not know if those were the things that happened between Lisa and my son. I don’t even know the little pet names they would have had for each other.

Please read Little Boy Lost. Elizabeth Bowen also wrote in her review that “to miss reading Little Boy Lost would be to by-pass a very searching, and revealing, human experience.”