‘It was an overcast day, and it looked as if every block of flats, every church spire and railway line and council house had been drawn by a giant hand in blunt pencil. At this distance, London displayed all its grubby glamour.’
The wonder of London, arguably the greatest of all cities of literature, is lovingly and meticulously painted in the third novel by Elizabeth Day, a journalist who grew up in Northern Ireland and won the Betty Trask award for her first book.
A strong and gripping story unfolds from the point of view of four characters, representing key social classes: a self-made millionaire, Howard Pink, owner of a chain of fashion stores; Esmé, a journalist with the Sunday Tribune (presumably, Day believes this to be a fictional title); Carol, an "ordinary housewife" in Wandsworth; and Beatrice, a chambermaid. Four social classes and age groups, portrayed with energy, insight and colour. Their individual stories coalesce in a cleverly constructed narrative.
The abrupt collision of the most and least vulnerable characters opens the novel, with Howard Pink’s opportunistic and casual sexual assault of Beatrice. The scene recalls the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case.
The consequences of this shocking but, as the novel implies, commonplace event drives much of the subsequent narrative, and keeps you turning the pages. In addition there is a mystery theme, involving Howard’s daughter, who disappeared many years before the novel begins.
Although the storyline is strong, it is the study of human beings in their setting that makes the novel enthralling. Esmé’s experience will resonate with any journalist, or even book reviewer: “Sunday started . . . with a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach about where her article would appear and whether she’d got any fact or quote horribly wrong.”
Beatrice’s story is the most interesting: she fled from Uganda, using the exorbitantly expensive services of a people trafficker, because as a lesbian she was an outcast in a country where homosexuals are stoned to death – the extreme end of the global anti-gay club that has many associate members.
At home Beatrice was a law student. In London she is lucky to get underpaid jobs first as a contract cleaner and then as a hotel maid. Day describes the life of the invisible underclass of immigrant workers with clear eyes and cold passion.
Grief and sin
The main themes of her novel are how we deal with grief and how sins are forgiven. All four characters have suffered deep personal loss. Suffering, and the wisdom it can bring – a sense of perspective, really – ultimately unite them. Howard lost his daughter, Esmé her father, Beatrice her lover, and Carol her beloved husband. For a young writer Day has a remarkably sensitive understanding of sorrow and the process of mourning. Her exploration of how her characters deal with their emotional wounds is moving and convincing.
Somewhat less convincing are certain other aspects of the novel. Her treatment of the sexual-assault episode, while refreshing in a way, is far from politically correct. The author’s intention may be that readers should question some of the novel’s judgments, but if so this is not very well flagged. There are also a few very implausible plot twists relating to the vanished girl. But the book is not trying to be a mystery or crime novel.
How would you classify it? It reminds me to some extent of the writing of Penelope Lively, Margaret Drabble, Maeve Binchy or Catherine Dunne. Like those writers, Day writes excellent, accessible prose. She has the true novelist’s gift of being able to bring us right into the lives of her characters; into their city, into their homes and into their heads.
This is a novel to escape into and enjoy. But at the same time she encourages us to think. She reminds us that one of the novel’s early functions was to ask how we live a moral life, a good life.
Self-sabotage
Unfortunately, the way Day wraps up this story seems like an act of self-sabotage. The bulk of the book supplies a serious, and entertaining, exploration of humans dealing with serious issues.
But she concludes with a fairy-tale ending. The good and the repentant are rewarded; the bad are abandoned. It is as if, about three-quarters of the way through the novel, she swerves from literary novelist to popular storyteller.
Of course in real life most of us would say yes to happy endings, for those we love, and for everybody. We would give everyone a second or a third chance. But in serious fiction the neat happy ending has not been in vogue for well over a century. A writer, especially a woman writer, can easily push herself out of the running – classify herself as a lightweight rather than a heavyweight.
Maybe Elizabeth Day is just saying to hell with the conventions. And redemption makes a welcome change from existential gloom. So. Literary fiction? (Up to a point.) Women’s fiction? (Yes.) Highbrow chick lit? (What is that, apart from a put-down?) It is, in any event, a likeable and readable novel: “wise, big-hearted”, as one of the blurbs observes, with, for a blurb, more than usual accuracy.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a novelist and short-story writer. She teaches creative writing at University College Dublin
