‘There is a palpable sense as The Girls of Slender Means opens of the curtain rising, catching people in mid-conversation, in half-spoken sentences, and banal acts that, ordinary though they seem, prove to be telling. A slender novel it might be, but every word has heft… This was Spark’s seventh novel, published in November 1963, in the wake of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which had come out two years before. It was, thus, the first novel she wrote when she was famous, conditions she had never before worked under… Opening a few days after the VE Day celebrations on 8 May 1945, rising to a crescendo after the General Election of July, in which Churchill was ousted, and fading out with London’s seething VJ Day party on the night of 15 August 1945, it is one of very few immediate post-war novels by a novelist who lived through it… And for all the soul-searching found in this novel, and its terrible glimpses of evil, it is a book that rings with merriment.’ From the introduction by Rosemary Goring
This is one novel in the absolutely glorious, must-have, complete collection of all 22 novels by Muriel Spark. This series is a wonderful way to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Muriel Spark’s birth. Edited by Alan Taylor, author of Appointment In Arezzo, A Friendship with Muriel Spark, each perfectly sized and beautiful hardback book is introduced by a leading writer. Each introduction, while individually touching on thoughts and feelings, mentions the originality, the wit and humour, the cleverness of the writing. Whether an existing fan, or new to her works, this collection from one of our greatest writers, beckons, and quite simply, just asks to be read and re-read. ~ Lovereading.co.uk
| Primary Genre | Modern and Contemporary Fiction |
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