We continue our series on books with reviews of two Sussex-based authors who both write about formidable women protagonists.
The similarities end there. Regular Sussex Bylines writer Tom Serpell shares his love of the Mapp and Lucia novels, set in the 1920s and ‘30s. These affectionate satires of genteel Sussex society have continued appeal today.
In contrast, Caroline Coxon describes Cathryn Kemp’s debut about a notorious female poisoner in 17th century Rome. The novel contains some harrowing detail but is a compelling read.
The Mapp and Lucia novels of E.F. Benson – Tom Serpell
Sussex is rightly renowned for its picturesque villages. Alongside Amberly, Alfriston, Burwash, Rye and so many others, writers have contributed fictional additions.
Perhaps the name alone warrants mention of Howling, of Cold Comfort Farm fame, with its pub ‘The Condemn’d Man’. There is another, altogether more salubrious, which stars in its own right almost as a character: Tilling, whose sequential doyennes were the subject of a series of six novels by E.F. Benson – the well-loved Mapp and Lucia.
The National Trust is to be commended for, at Christmas time just past, dressing its property Lamb House in Rye as ‘Mallards’ in Tilling, from where both protagonists, Mapp and then Lucia, kept their beady eyes on the comings and goings of their neighbours and rivals. It was, after all, the author’s home as well as that of his more fêted predecessor, Henry James.
The Mapp and Lucia novels, published in the 1920s and ‘30s, have a priceless place in Sussex culture. The first two, it is true, are set in fictional Riseholme (Lucia’s original home), said by some to be based on Broadway in the Cotswolds but as easily likened to Sussex’s Mayfield, with its Elizabethan buildings, single street and proximity to both London and Tilling.
All six devote themselves to the well-heeled, mainly female residents of these Arcadian communities. There are wonderfully drawn and amusing male characters, it is true, but these are mere acolytes to the leading ladies. The leading male, Georgie Pilson, himself borders on the feminine in his habits.
Of the less monied classes we hear little. Servants and tradespeople appear but we learn little of their lives. This is all about the gentry’s sybaritic lives on unearned incomes which protect them from doing anything really interesting or worthwhile. They occupy themselves in trivial diversions and social climbing which Benson narrates for our amusement.
The books are essentially satires on the idle rich, immune to the real world, filling their days with genteel past-times and intrigues confected for their often quite malicious amusement. So isolated are they from the rigours faced by most of society of the 1920s and ‘30s that there is scarcely a hint throughout the whole oeuvre of wars past or threatened, the General Strike or the Stock Market Crash. Almost every featured character is idle, nosey, malicious and pretentious and their doings can make the reader cringe.
And yet… these stories, no matter how unreal, improbable and class-ridden, are huge fun. They are witty glimpses of a particular subset of English society, perhaps even a celebration of the very Sussex villages in which they are set. There is undramatic charm, guarded affection, and humanity, rather akin to the post-war novels of Barbara Pym, which also focussed on women’s lives, though of a less affluent class. Like the latter, they are books repaying reading; a worthwhile gem of English literature and Sussex heritage.
Perhaps all this is best summed up in the words of Benson’s character Olga Bracely: “It is all so delicious. I never knew before how terribly interesting little things could be.”
The Mapp and Lucia novels are published by Penguin Books.
A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp – Caroline Coxon
I love a good gothic historical novel and even more so when the author is local. Cathryn Kemp is from Hastings, a Sunday Times bestselling ghostwriter. A Poisoner’s Tale is her first sortie into fiction and having read it, I hope it’s not the last.
Based on the true story of Giulia Tofana, dubbed the first female serial killer, we are catapulted into the seamy side of 17th century Rome where there is an outbreak of mysterious deaths amongst the husbands of the city.
The tiny details of everyday life drew me in. Some harrowing moments of public execution and descriptions of domestic violence and sexual assaults against women had me reeling – so not always an easy read but certainly always compelling.
One comment I read about A Poisoner’s Tale really resonated: “If you have some serious female rage going on, then I highly recommend picking this up – and if you don’t, you probably will by the end of this beautiful book!”
There’s a question posed on the cover: “Murderer or saviour? You decide.” I am genuinely, after several months, pondering how I will answer this.
Read it and help me to make up my mind!
A Poisoner’s Tale is published by Penguin on 6 February. ISBN: 9781804992241 (400 pages).
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