I decided to get a little headstart on this week's Persephone reading (don't worry I won't completely bombard you with all things Persephone--I do have a few other posts planned as well) by dipping into both Good Evening, Mrs. Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes and House-Bound by Winifred Peck a day early. I tend to be a slow reader at the best of times (and I also need to read this book this week as well), so I'll take any extra reading time I can get.
Mollie Panter-Downes has been one of my great finds since beginning blogging. I'm not sure where I came across her initially, but I have a feeling had it not been for a mention by another blogger I would never have found her wonderful work (ditto when it comes to Persephone Books--I first came across those dove grey books with the gorgeous endpapers when I discovered Iliana's blog). Happily I did find Mollie Panter-Downes and Persephone Books, so here I am. One Fine Day was my introduction to MPD (I wrote about it here). It's probably her finest (fictional) work--a beautifully evoked story of post-WWII life for one average Midlands family. The story takes place over the course of one fine summer day. Panter-Downes has a knack for describing the natural world yet also subtley portraying the shifting social order that had an impact on so many lives. Her first novel, The Shoreless Sea, was a huge success when it was published in 1923. It's a sweetly sentimental story of a young woman's first love tinged by a melancholy ending, which I'm afraid is out of print.
So, now on to MPD's short stories. She has a collection of 'peacetime' stories, which I plan on getting at some point, but it's the wartime stories that I'm interested in at the moment. I don't usually read introductions before reading the text of a story (or stories), but in this case the editor illuminates her writing so well it was worth it. I plan on rereading it after I finish the stories, but there are a few points the editor raises that are worth taking note of here. Her stories are likened to "war relics": "fragments of domestic life, of social detail, of feelings peculiar to, or enhanced by, war." These are homefront stories and the people are ordinary civilians making do to the best of their abilities under extraordinary circumstances. And usually those people are women. Her writing, like many of her contemporaries, is more akin to journalistic efforts (she also wrote weekly columns for The New Yorker during this period).
"She was able to strike precise, but different, balances in her fiction and non-fiction. Her humanity and neighborliness quietly declare themselves in her reporting; her objectivity and skills of observation underpin her fiction. In the short stories, her point of view is closely related to that of the traditional journalist: maintaining a diffident presence, sensed but not declared, and pivoting on assessment and insight."
She doesn't write so much about events but about conditions according to the editor. Something I didn't know--between 1939 and 1941 there were more British civilians killed than soldiers, so her stories truly are war stories even if they are in a slightly different context than one would expect. By the way, the editor makes note of the short story collection, Wave Me Goodbye edited by Anne Boston, which I read last year and is well worth getting your hands on a copy.
I'm afraid I have less to say as yet about Winifred Peck's House-Bound, which unfortunately has no introduction or preface (though in this case I would read it after I finished the novel). Peck wrote House-Bound in 1942. The story begins when the protagonist visits a business arranging the hire of domestic servants which she's in need of.
"It was as she stood in Mrs. Loman's Registry Office for Domestic Servants that Rose Fairlaw suddenly realized what a useless and helpless woman she was. Up till that moment she had always assumed vaguely that she was a busy and useful member of society."
Although Mrs. Loman doesn't think highly of all her clientele ("For the first time in her career Mrs. Loman was stung, by the insolent tone of command, to lose her temper, and answer back to a lady."), she considers Mrs. Fairlaw a real lady (not one to come into money and then hire servants--these sort of women surely should be able to 'do for themselves') and promises to find help for her. More and more women at this time left the service to work in factories and help the war effort and found the conditions, money, and freedom better and weren't likely to return to their former employment. Mrs. Fairlaw, however, takes to heart the idea that millions of women make do on their own. I'll be curious to see just how Mrs. Fairlaw manages with no prior experience to 'make do on her own'.
I'll let you know how things work out. Now I'm off to read more!