The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns is a vivid, witty and touching story of love and mystery.
Growing up in Edwardian south London, Alice Rowlands longs for romance and excitement, for a release from a life that is dreary, restrictive and lonely. Her father, a vet, is harsh and domineering; his new girlfriend brash and lascivious. Alice seeks refuge in memories and fantasies, in her rapturous longing for Nicholas, a handsome young sailor, and in the blossoming of what she perceives as her occult powers.
A series of strange events unfolds that leads her, dressed in bridal white, to a scene of ecstatic triumph and disaster among the crowds on Clapham Common.
‘A small Gothic masterpiece . . . I have read it many times, and with every re-read I marvel again at its many qualities - its darkness, its strangeness, its humour, its sadness, its startling images and twists of phrase’ Sarah Waters
Sophia Fairclough and Me
I was first introduced to Sophia Fairclough in 1985 by my new English teacher, the kind who came to lessons without notes and charmed those susceptible to such charm with his raw excitement for good...
Read more