A Far Cry from Kensington
Ratings5
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings5
Average rating3.9
Set in 1954, this is a tale narrated by one Mrs Agnes Hawkins, a plump, forthright and no-nonsense young war widow. Nancy (as she is called) is the calm at the center of the perennial storm in the offices of a struggling London publishing house in the difficult years after WWII. At work and at her seedy boarding house she is involved with a cast of characters ranging from the charmingly useless to the downright unhinged; included an author she rejects and who tries to revenge himself through a quack science known as "radionics" (use of radio waves to influence health).
Reviews with the most likes.
Loved this so much! Funny, and sharply written with a great plot and a fantastic protagonist. Mrs Hawkins describes her life as an editor living in London in the mid-1950s; the publishing houses, the writers and the people who live in the flats around her. In particular, the fight she has with a terrible writer which drives the plot. I love how Mrs Hawkins is unapologetically fat. There is no guilt or shame about her weight, and no hand-wringing which makes her decide to lose weight. She's practical and unsentimental and doesn't feel the need to fit into any mould. Definitely going to be looking to read more Spark in the future.
I hadn't yet read any Muriel Spark and I'm so glad I did. Truly a unique voice, sparse and yet not unfeeling, with wicked humor and a great sense of eeriness or danger.
