I really wish there were more books by Mary Wesley out there. She passed away, wow has it been more than a dozen years now, some time ago. I went through a period of collecting and reading her books. I own all of them (sadly she has gone out of print in paper versions here in the US), but it has been ages since I picked one up by her. I haven't read my way through all of them and the time seems ripe to revisit her work. Let's see, she is like--Rosamund Pilcher, or maybe Clare Chambers or Barbara Trapido or maybe Eva Rice? For me she is one of my 'must read everything' authors who I am trying to concentrate on this year. I started with Katharine McMahon (Mary Wesley is much like Katharine, too--smart fiction yet comforting and entertaining, a wonderful storyteller), then I moved on to Deborah Moggach (just finished a most delightful social comedy) and then decided to return to Mary Wesley. I want to keep reading all these women's books (and can add to that list of 'MREs' Diane Johnson, Rumer Godden, Anita Brookner . . . I could go on . . .).
The only dificult choice was which one to pick up first. But the description of her 1990 novel, A Sensible Life, just jumped out at me and it feels like the perfect summer-soon to be Fourth of July read.
"Flora Trevelyan is a ten-year-old misfit, despised by her selfish and indolent parents, and left to wander the streets of a small French town whilst her parents prepare to depart for life in colonial India. There she befriends the locals, acquires an extensive vocabulary of French foul language and encounters the privileged lifestyle of the elegant, middle-class British families holidaying in 1920s France. Introduced for the first time to kindly, civilised and, above all, caring people Flora falls helplessly and hopelessly in love with not one but three young men. Over the next forty years Flora will grow from an awkward schoolgirl into a stunning beauty and explore, consummate and finally resolve each of these affairs."
I have only the vaguest recollection of this story. Mostly I recall the setting and a fond memory/contented sigh about it from my first encounter. I have only just barely begun reading so here is a little teaser for you. A first sighting of Flora by one of those young men who will become someone important in her life. In the story it is February, but a beach scene nonetheless and perfect for June (and July!), too.
"The child, a girl, trotted along, crossing the beach at an angle. She had thick black hair in pigtails and worse a light brown sweater with a matching skirt which she had stuffed into elastic-bottomed knickers; it gave her the grotesque silhouette of a toffee apple. Her long legs were thin. She paused at intervals to whistle to the heedless dog."
The boy watching is Cosmo and he is fifteen, wanting to know all about girls, but this one is just a child still. I like that Flora is a misfit. And I like, too, that Mary Wesley didn't publish her first adult novel until she was 71! Hooray for women reinventing themselves (or doing new and important things later in life).