Pamela Frankau (1908–1967)
Author of The Willow Cabin
About the Author
Image credit: Pamela Frankau
Series
Works by Pamela Frankau
Marriage of Harlequin 2 copies
Duchess and The Smugs, The 1 copy
Appointment with death 1 copy
A democrat dies 1 copy
"I was the man" 1 copy
Laughter in the sun 1 copy
Jezebel 1 copy
Some new planet 1 copy
Villa Anodyne 1 copy
Fly now, falcon 1 copy
Tassel-gentle 1 copy
A manual of modern manners 1 copy
Born at sea, a novel 1 copy
Three : a novel 1 copy
The fig tree 1 copy
The Duchess And The Smugs 1 copy
Associated Works
Reader's Digest Condensed Books 1954 v03: The Desperate Hours / General Dean's Story / Mr Hobbs' Vacation / The Power & the Prize / The Duchess & the Smugs / Tomorrow! (1954) — Author — 29 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Frankau, Pamela
- Legal name
- Frankau, Pamela Sydney
- Birthdate
- 1908-01-03
- Date of death
- 1967-06-08
- Gender
- female
- Education
- Burgess Hill School for Girls, Sussex, England, UK
- Occupations
- novelist
journalist
short story writer - Relationships
- Frankau, Gilbert (father)
Wolfe, Humbert (lover)
Webster, Margaret (lover)
Frankau, Ronald (uncle)
Danby, Frank (grandmother)
Raymond, Diana (cousin|typist) - Short biography
- Pamela Frankau was born in London, England to a literary family of Anglo-Jewish origins. Her father was the novelist Gilbert Frankau and her paternal grandmother was writer Julia Frankau, who used the pseudonym Frank Danby. Her grandmother's brother James Davis was a musical comedy librettist under the name Owen Hall. Gilbert Frankau abandoned the family in about 1919, and Pamela and her sister had little to do with him until they were nearly grown up. They were sent to Burgess Hill School, a boarding school in Sussex. She began writing at an early age and her first novel, Marriage of Harlequin (1927), was published when she was 19 years old. It was well received and she published 20 novels by age 30. She also wrote short stories and worked as a journalist for The Mirror and The Daily Sketch. She had a nine-year affair with Humbert Wolfe, a married poet, which ended with his death in 1940. During World War II, she worked for the BBC, the Ministry of Food, and then the Auxiliary Territorial Service. Raised an Anglican, she converted to the Roman Catholic faith, described later in her book Shaken in the Wind (1948). In 1945, she married Marshall Dill, an American academic and former naval intelligence officer, with whom she lived in the USA. Their only child died in infancy. She returned to England and divorced in 1951. Her most successful and popular novel, The Willow Cabin, was published in 1949. Some of her novels, including The Bridge (1957), were fantasy or science fiction. She wrote about her distant relationship with her father in Pen to Paper (1961). She also wrote an autobiographical novel, I Find Four People (1935).
- Cause of death
- cancer
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- London, England, UK
- Places of residence
- England, UK
USA - Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Burial location
- Hampstead Cemetery, Fortune Green Road, West Hampstead, Camden, London, England, UK
- Associated Place (for map)
- London, England, UK
Members
Reviews
Pamela Frankau is the author of one of my favourite ever Virago books – The Willow Cabin. I have been meaning to read more of her novels for ages, but only recently managed to acquire a couple. Pamela Frankau was a popular and prolific writer once upon a time, and I find it sad that she is read so much less now, her novels out of print (except for a few POD VMC editions two of which I snapped up the other week). I wasn’t sure which of the two to read first – so I went for the show more fattest.
The Winged Horse – like The Willow Cabin, takes place in both America and England, it is a brilliantly Compelling novel of power, truth and dishonesty.
It is 1949 and English newspaper tycoon J. G Baron is a tough no nonsense, charismatic businessman with interests on both sides of the Atlantic. His adult children appear to lead charmed lives at the family house in the English countryside. Favoured employees get invited for weekends, and J.G absolutely believes in the perfect world he has created there with his family. However, while his son Tobias is conscious of never quite measuring up, and his youngest daughter Liz is young, unsure and often afraid, it is only Celia his eldest daughter who recognises J.G for what he is. For J.G is something of a tyrant – his hypocrisy and self-deceit know no bounds. His power is not the bellowing, red faced bully-boy type – but of a quieter more insidious kind that casts a long, dark shadow.
“ ‘My daughter, the late Mrs. Valentine West,’ Baron said. Baron’s family jokes did not vary, they were the clichés of a lifetime; they could be distinguished sharply from his public words, his coarse or his agile phrases; they were stock, paterfamilias stuff, oddly out of date. She could remember his using this worn example when her mother was unpunctual.’ “
As the novel opens, Celia is in the process of separating from her American husband, and travelling by ship with J.G and his entourage back to England, with her young son. J.G has just enticed cartoonist Harry Levitt away from his employers, to work for him, and Harry is aboard ship too. Levitt is drawn to Celia, but Harry is a practised dissembler, and despite connecting briefly, Celia recognising him as such is more interested in going home, seeing her brother and sister again. Harry was stationed in England during the war, and carries a dream of a life there with him, his main reason for accepting J. G’s offer.
Back home at Carlington, Celia sets about settling herself and her son into the newly refurbished nursery wing. Levitt is drawn further into the circle which includes family friend and neighbour; Anthony Carey for who Liz harbours deep feelings. Tobias loves to fly, has been hanging around in France with a much older married actress – much to J.G’s disapproval, his happy go lucky attitude hides his sense of never making his father happy. It is Anthony Carey – sometimes called ‘thank God for Anthony’ or ‘that poor Carey’ by Celia, Liz and Tobias – who J.G favours.
“Downstairs in the green library, Tobias glanced at his watch; it was worn on the right wrist, face inwards, so that he could look at it unobserved. Many people, he reflected, wore their watches this way; there was no need to feel that it was a special anti-J.G device.”
When a tragedy rips through the family, Harry Levitt is on hand to help, and while J. G’s most audacious self-deceit conceals his pain – other members of the family struggle to cope. Traumatised, Celia decides to take a house in London, and her father goes on a trip. Harry Levitt continues to draw cartoons for J.G’s newspapers, spending more and more time at Carlington, seeing Celia in London rarely, he begins to get closer to Liz.
When Harry is sent back to America by J.G for ‘a couple of months’, he understands that it is the beginning of the end for his association with the Baron organisation. He leaves a much sadder man than he arrived. What he unwittingly leaves behind will inspire a betrayal and lead to the slow destruction of a once happy man. Around the same time Celia gets word that her estranged husband has helped himself to some of her money, and travels back to New York to sort it out. Finally, here, Celia and Harry come together again, Celia makes Harry a better man, but J.G does not approve. Stuck in the States trying to sort out the financial mess her estranged husband has caused her, it is not long before J.G turns up like the bad penny he is, and offers to sort everything, as long as she ditches Harry. Celia is not that kind of girl – and so she and Harry resign themselves to having no money (luckily she does still have a small house on Martha’s Vineyard – like you do).
“Celia carried the toy aeroplane out on to the rough lawn and pointed it into the wind. It was a fragile hollow thing of aluminium, attached to a rod and a reel; now the wings revolved frantically, with a spinning, humming noise; they turned into two blurred lines and she could let it fly. The wind took it; she reeled out the line and let it go.”
The title of the book comes from a song, a song the siblings sang as children and particularly associate with Tobias. It is a song to be bellowed, a song of happiness and that feeling of running down a hill with the wind at your back. It is also the name of a piece of art work, which is inspired by a lie, one lie leading to another as they always do.
I’m conscious, that in trying to avoid spoilers, I’m perhaps not making The Winged Horse sound as good as it is, but it really is excellent. Frankau is superb at building relationships between her characters, her characters are not all perfect, they are real people, living within a recognisable world, even if it is one of sixty pus years ago. There is compassion and understanding in her writing, and even J.G Baron is dealt with, with some sympathy. show less
The Winged Horse – like The Willow Cabin, takes place in both America and England, it is a brilliantly Compelling novel of power, truth and dishonesty.
It is 1949 and English newspaper tycoon J. G Baron is a tough no nonsense, charismatic businessman with interests on both sides of the Atlantic. His adult children appear to lead charmed lives at the family house in the English countryside. Favoured employees get invited for weekends, and J.G absolutely believes in the perfect world he has created there with his family. However, while his son Tobias is conscious of never quite measuring up, and his youngest daughter Liz is young, unsure and often afraid, it is only Celia his eldest daughter who recognises J.G for what he is. For J.G is something of a tyrant – his hypocrisy and self-deceit know no bounds. His power is not the bellowing, red faced bully-boy type – but of a quieter more insidious kind that casts a long, dark shadow.
“ ‘My daughter, the late Mrs. Valentine West,’ Baron said. Baron’s family jokes did not vary, they were the clichés of a lifetime; they could be distinguished sharply from his public words, his coarse or his agile phrases; they were stock, paterfamilias stuff, oddly out of date. She could remember his using this worn example when her mother was unpunctual.’ “
As the novel opens, Celia is in the process of separating from her American husband, and travelling by ship with J.G and his entourage back to England, with her young son. J.G has just enticed cartoonist Harry Levitt away from his employers, to work for him, and Harry is aboard ship too. Levitt is drawn to Celia, but Harry is a practised dissembler, and despite connecting briefly, Celia recognising him as such is more interested in going home, seeing her brother and sister again. Harry was stationed in England during the war, and carries a dream of a life there with him, his main reason for accepting J. G’s offer.
Back home at Carlington, Celia sets about settling herself and her son into the newly refurbished nursery wing. Levitt is drawn further into the circle which includes family friend and neighbour; Anthony Carey for who Liz harbours deep feelings. Tobias loves to fly, has been hanging around in France with a much older married actress – much to J.G’s disapproval, his happy go lucky attitude hides his sense of never making his father happy. It is Anthony Carey – sometimes called ‘thank God for Anthony’ or ‘that poor Carey’ by Celia, Liz and Tobias – who J.G favours.
“Downstairs in the green library, Tobias glanced at his watch; it was worn on the right wrist, face inwards, so that he could look at it unobserved. Many people, he reflected, wore their watches this way; there was no need to feel that it was a special anti-J.G device.”
When a tragedy rips through the family, Harry Levitt is on hand to help, and while J. G’s most audacious self-deceit conceals his pain – other members of the family struggle to cope. Traumatised, Celia decides to take a house in London, and her father goes on a trip. Harry Levitt continues to draw cartoons for J.G’s newspapers, spending more and more time at Carlington, seeing Celia in London rarely, he begins to get closer to Liz.
When Harry is sent back to America by J.G for ‘a couple of months’, he understands that it is the beginning of the end for his association with the Baron organisation. He leaves a much sadder man than he arrived. What he unwittingly leaves behind will inspire a betrayal and lead to the slow destruction of a once happy man. Around the same time Celia gets word that her estranged husband has helped himself to some of her money, and travels back to New York to sort it out. Finally, here, Celia and Harry come together again, Celia makes Harry a better man, but J.G does not approve. Stuck in the States trying to sort out the financial mess her estranged husband has caused her, it is not long before J.G turns up like the bad penny he is, and offers to sort everything, as long as she ditches Harry. Celia is not that kind of girl – and so she and Harry resign themselves to having no money (luckily she does still have a small house on Martha’s Vineyard – like you do).
“Celia carried the toy aeroplane out on to the rough lawn and pointed it into the wind. It was a fragile hollow thing of aluminium, attached to a rod and a reel; now the wings revolved frantically, with a spinning, humming noise; they turned into two blurred lines and she could let it fly. The wind took it; she reeled out the line and let it go.”
The title of the book comes from a song, a song the siblings sang as children and particularly associate with Tobias. It is a song to be bellowed, a song of happiness and that feeling of running down a hill with the wind at your back. It is also the name of a piece of art work, which is inspired by a lie, one lie leading to another as they always do.
I’m conscious, that in trying to avoid spoilers, I’m perhaps not making The Winged Horse sound as good as it is, but it really is excellent. Frankau is superb at building relationships between her characters, her characters are not all perfect, they are real people, living within a recognisable world, even if it is one of sixty pus years ago. There is compassion and understanding in her writing, and even J.G Baron is dealt with, with some sympathy. show less
Frankau tells the story of a young and gifted actress who turns her back on a promising career in order to devote herself to a much older, married lover. The setting, London in the 1930s and wartime Britain, is wonderfully done and the level of writing is very high. The story dragged for me a bit in the middle, but just as I was getting tired of all that dogged devotion on the young actress's part, Frankau shifts the story to the married lover's estranged wife. The real pay off is the show more relationship between the two women, who are far more vividly drawn characters than the male lover. This is a wonderful book for the right reader; i.e., one with lots of time and a taste for old-fashioned story-telling. show less
Slaves to the Lamp is the sequel to Sing for your Supper the novel which begins the Clothes of the King’s son trilogy. The novel could be read as a standalone novel, as there is only passing reference to events in the first novel, though naturally I would recommend beginning with the first instalment.
The title; Slaves to the Lamp refers to those who take comfort in their belief in spiritualism, faith healing and other mysticisms. Faith healers and their followers form just one strand of show more this slightly unusual – though enjoyable – novel. In true Pamela Frankau style – the canvas here is large, set in both England and the South of France, Slaves to the Lamp follows the stories of several characters, which inevitably weave together.
At the end of Sing for Your Supper – Thomas Weston, the youngest of the Weston children, elected to stay in England as his older brother and sister, his Pierrot star father and new stepmother Paula set out for America. Despite only being ten, Thomas was allowed his own way, cared for by his grandmother, and his beloved nanny Blanche Briggs – Brigstock as the Weston children call her. Now it is 1937, Thomas is twenty-one – and is working for Romney Butler’s advertising agency. Romney Butler is a wealthy man, but he has been suffering badly from arthritis in his hip, and has only recently returned to London following treatment. Thomas is living in a small flat above a shop – though dear Brigstock still takes care of mending his clothes. Weekends are spent with Carola Toyne, the twenty-eight-year-old daughter of faith healer William Toyne. One of William Toyne’s greatest believers is Robert Macintyre, a wealthy, successful osteopath.
As a child, Thomas had begun to realise he had inherited his grandmother’s gift (or curse) of E.S.P, and – following an incident when his sister Sarah was unwell – of healing. Since that time, Thomas has vowed never to use these talents. So, when Romney Butler’s secretary Queenie, asks Thomas to attend a spiritualist meeting she can’t, to ask a question on behalf of her boss – who she is slavishly devoted to – Thomas is torn.
“ ‘My control,’ said Mrs Swinburne, ‘is a doctor and philosopher who lived in the reign of the first Pharaoh. He will probably begin by telling you something about yourself. Please ask him anything you like. People usually prefer to write down the more confidential questions and hand them to me.’ Here Thomas decided he had lost Queenie’s questions, and began to fish for it agitatedly. ‘If you are wondering how my guide can read English, you needn’t. You will find a full explanation in Harry Masterson’s Facts from the Unknown. You can buy a copy for a shilling at the desk downstairs…”
Thomas’s brother Gerald who has begun to make his name as an actor in America, his sister Sarah, twenty-five and a marriage already behind her their father Philip Weston and his wife Paula are on their way back to England. Sarah has decided to stop off in the South of France – in the place the entire family holidayed together eight years before. Thomas thinks fondly of this time, when he last spent time with the whole family – the twenty-nine summer – seems to exist in his mind as a time of absolute perfection. Thomas revisits this perfect summer when he takes a short break to join Sarah in France. Here he also reconnects with Rab – Paula’s daughter – with whom he was so close as a child in Devon before the Weston family left for America.
“Standing in front of him there was a girl; but a girl who looked more like a boy. She was wearing a blue-and-white striped singlet with blue trousers. He saw the short, silky hair, pale as his own; the tanned face; the wide blue eyes above the bumpy cheekbones, the square, smiling mouth. This catalogue seemed to take him a long time: Rab was exactly as he knew her to be; but he found it hard to understand that he was seeing her.”
When Sarah eventually arrives in London she meets Thomas’s now former boss Romney Butler who is instantly smitten – and soon Thomas finds himself connected with Romney in a way he wasn’t expecting. Gerald has a part in a play – he is surrounded by theatre people, juggling contracts, trying to make his way in a competitive world of easily hurt feelings.
The thing that drives this novel for me is Thomas’s voice – although a third person narrative, the majority of the novel is told from his viewpoint – and Thomas is a very lovable character. He is an unusual character, not least because of his supposed ‘gift’. There are times when the adult Thomas reminded me strongly of the child Thomas in the previous novel – but then in so many ways shows us he is anything but a child. While working for the advertising agency – Thomas find his conscience will not allow him to work on campaigns where he feels lies are being told – his colleagues are puzzled – but Thomas happily shrugs his shoulders and walks out. He takes a job in the shop beneath his flat – and seems very happy. Pamela Frankau’s characterisation is as good as ever in this novel, these people are all fully rounded and explored in depth. There are some unexpected moments, tragedies and dramas – in a novel a little more than 400 pages there is a lot going on.
There were moments when I was a bit discombobulated with these three worlds, spiritualism, the theatre and advertising. In the end, it does all work – everything comes together – and we begin to see the deceits that exist within these different – and yet oddly similar worlds.
Overall I enjoyed this novel – mainly because Frankau writes such compelling stories and her characters are people I like spending time with. This is not such a good novel as Sing for your Supper – but still a really good read, and as I have the third in the series I am looking forward to seeing where the Weston family takes me next. show less
The title; Slaves to the Lamp refers to those who take comfort in their belief in spiritualism, faith healing and other mysticisms. Faith healers and their followers form just one strand of show more this slightly unusual – though enjoyable – novel. In true Pamela Frankau style – the canvas here is large, set in both England and the South of France, Slaves to the Lamp follows the stories of several characters, which inevitably weave together.
At the end of Sing for Your Supper – Thomas Weston, the youngest of the Weston children, elected to stay in England as his older brother and sister, his Pierrot star father and new stepmother Paula set out for America. Despite only being ten, Thomas was allowed his own way, cared for by his grandmother, and his beloved nanny Blanche Briggs – Brigstock as the Weston children call her. Now it is 1937, Thomas is twenty-one – and is working for Romney Butler’s advertising agency. Romney Butler is a wealthy man, but he has been suffering badly from arthritis in his hip, and has only recently returned to London following treatment. Thomas is living in a small flat above a shop – though dear Brigstock still takes care of mending his clothes. Weekends are spent with Carola Toyne, the twenty-eight-year-old daughter of faith healer William Toyne. One of William Toyne’s greatest believers is Robert Macintyre, a wealthy, successful osteopath.
As a child, Thomas had begun to realise he had inherited his grandmother’s gift (or curse) of E.S.P, and – following an incident when his sister Sarah was unwell – of healing. Since that time, Thomas has vowed never to use these talents. So, when Romney Butler’s secretary Queenie, asks Thomas to attend a spiritualist meeting she can’t, to ask a question on behalf of her boss – who she is slavishly devoted to – Thomas is torn.
“ ‘My control,’ said Mrs Swinburne, ‘is a doctor and philosopher who lived in the reign of the first Pharaoh. He will probably begin by telling you something about yourself. Please ask him anything you like. People usually prefer to write down the more confidential questions and hand them to me.’ Here Thomas decided he had lost Queenie’s questions, and began to fish for it agitatedly. ‘If you are wondering how my guide can read English, you needn’t. You will find a full explanation in Harry Masterson’s Facts from the Unknown. You can buy a copy for a shilling at the desk downstairs…”
Thomas’s brother Gerald who has begun to make his name as an actor in America, his sister Sarah, twenty-five and a marriage already behind her their father Philip Weston and his wife Paula are on their way back to England. Sarah has decided to stop off in the South of France – in the place the entire family holidayed together eight years before. Thomas thinks fondly of this time, when he last spent time with the whole family – the twenty-nine summer – seems to exist in his mind as a time of absolute perfection. Thomas revisits this perfect summer when he takes a short break to join Sarah in France. Here he also reconnects with Rab – Paula’s daughter – with whom he was so close as a child in Devon before the Weston family left for America.
“Standing in front of him there was a girl; but a girl who looked more like a boy. She was wearing a blue-and-white striped singlet with blue trousers. He saw the short, silky hair, pale as his own; the tanned face; the wide blue eyes above the bumpy cheekbones, the square, smiling mouth. This catalogue seemed to take him a long time: Rab was exactly as he knew her to be; but he found it hard to understand that he was seeing her.”
When Sarah eventually arrives in London she meets Thomas’s now former boss Romney Butler who is instantly smitten – and soon Thomas finds himself connected with Romney in a way he wasn’t expecting. Gerald has a part in a play – he is surrounded by theatre people, juggling contracts, trying to make his way in a competitive world of easily hurt feelings.
The thing that drives this novel for me is Thomas’s voice – although a third person narrative, the majority of the novel is told from his viewpoint – and Thomas is a very lovable character. He is an unusual character, not least because of his supposed ‘gift’. There are times when the adult Thomas reminded me strongly of the child Thomas in the previous novel – but then in so many ways shows us he is anything but a child. While working for the advertising agency – Thomas find his conscience will not allow him to work on campaigns where he feels lies are being told – his colleagues are puzzled – but Thomas happily shrugs his shoulders and walks out. He takes a job in the shop beneath his flat – and seems very happy. Pamela Frankau’s characterisation is as good as ever in this novel, these people are all fully rounded and explored in depth. There are some unexpected moments, tragedies and dramas – in a novel a little more than 400 pages there is a lot going on.
There were moments when I was a bit discombobulated with these three worlds, spiritualism, the theatre and advertising. In the end, it does all work – everything comes together – and we begin to see the deceits that exist within these different – and yet oddly similar worlds.
Overall I enjoyed this novel – mainly because Frankau writes such compelling stories and her characters are people I like spending time with. This is not such a good novel as Sing for your Supper – but still a really good read, and as I have the third in the series I am looking forward to seeing where the Weston family takes me next. show less
It is a novel told in three sections, characters moving in and out of view – with some brilliantly plotted connections which make this a wonderfully clever novel. The opening is immediately captivating – Pamela Frankau knows how to get her readers hooked.
“There had been two crises already that day before the cook’s husband called to assassinate the cook. The stove caught fire in my presence; the postman had fallen off his bicycle at the gate and been bitten by Charlemagne, our show more sheepdog, whose policy it was to attack people only when they were down.
Whenever there were two crises my stepmother Jeanne said ‘Jamais deux sans trois.’ This morning she and Francis (my father) had debated whether the two things happening to the postman could be counted as two separate crises and might therefore be said to have cleared matters up. I thought that they were wasting their time. In our household things went on and on happening. It was an hotel, which made the doom worse: it would have been remarkable to have two days without a crisis and even if we did, I doubted whether the rule would apply in reverse, so that we could augur a third. I was very fond of the word augur.”
Our narrator is Penelope Wells, one of several voices that tell this story of non-conformity, friendship and family. As the novel opens Penelope is a precocious fourteen-year-old compiling an anthology of hates (this alone made me love her). She lives in a small hotel on the French Riviera with her poet, father and her stepmother. The hotel is often empty, Francis Wells having a somewhat relaxed attitude to business he is as likely to refuse entry to his establishment as he is to welcome visitors. The walls of the bar are adorned with the photographs of famous guests, and those guests who do arrive are generally eccentric, bohemian types.
Penelope; who calls her father and stepmother by their first name, – has this wonderfully unique way of speaking – her conversation is a delight. Quite obviously, a child who grew up surrounded by adults and her nose in a book – she speaks like the characters she has come up against in fiction. With her powers of imagination and observation, Penelope is ripe to be swept up in a childish infatuation for an English family staying next door to the hotel. The Bradleys are middle-class well behaved, conventional, their meal times run to a predictable timetable – their lives are ordered, unlike Penelope’s life at the hotel. It seems – from a distance to be an ideal life. Francis – much to Penelope’s irritation calls them The Smugs – it’s a pretty perfect name.
“They laughed when I shook hands with them, and Don made me an elaborate bow after the handshake. Then they laughed again.
‘Are you French or English?’
That saddened me. I said, ‘I am English, but I live here because my stepmother is a Frenchwoman and my father likes the Riviera.’
‘We know that,’ said Don quickly. ‘He was shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans and escaped and fought with the Resistance, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. That is how he met Jeanne.’
‘And he’s Francis Wells, the poet?’
‘Yes’
‘And the hotel is quite mad, isn’t it?’
‘Indubitably,’ I said. It was another of my favourite words. Eva doubled up with laughter. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m always going to say indubitably.’
It is the Bradley children; Don and his sister Eva, thirteen, who Penelope is particularly charmed by. Their lives are so well ordered that Penelope is able to predict exactly when they will appear in the garden. It isn’t long before the three meet – and Penelope delights Don and Eva with her unusual conversation, and tantalising tales of the hotel. Just as Penelope starts to get to know her new friends, the hotel welcomes one of its most colourful and frequent guests; the Duchess – who Penelope doesn’t much like – though the Duchess seems to adore her.
However, childhood, as we know is full of small betrayals, and Penelope’s fledgling friendship is doomed when the Bradley parents declare the hotel to be an unsuitable place for Don and Eva – who are not so used to such grown up surroundings. The disappointments and betrayals of childhood and adolescence are so formative, they direct so much of what comes next – and how we build relationships.
In the second and third parts of the novel we move forward four and five years respectively, and hear from Don Bradley in England, and other characters. At seventeen, at boarding school, Don is straining against his father’s rigid conventionality – his greatest friend a middle-aged man in a wheelchair who owns the estate where Don goes to ride and mess around happily with horses. Deeply affected by events in France four years earlier, Don is in need of counsel, and in this most unlikely of friends Don had found the friend he lacks in his own father. Crusoe is a straight-talking breath of fresh air to Don – his easy unconventional way of life is attractive. Crusoe challenges Don’s way of thinking – and so there’s bound to be tensions when Don’s parents meet Crusoe.
In the final section of the novel, another year has passed, and we’re are back with Penelope – among others. I’m certainly not going to say too much about this section – but here we meet Cara – another superb creation from Pamela Frankau, brittle, damaged and potentially damaging – whose life is destined to collide with that of Penelope’s.
I still have two other Pamela Frankau novels waiting to be read – but she was pretty prolific – and although out of print – some of her books are available – and I have two more winging their way to me from a rash ebay purchase the other day show less
“There had been two crises already that day before the cook’s husband called to assassinate the cook. The stove caught fire in my presence; the postman had fallen off his bicycle at the gate and been bitten by Charlemagne, our show more sheepdog, whose policy it was to attack people only when they were down.
Whenever there were two crises my stepmother Jeanne said ‘Jamais deux sans trois.’ This morning she and Francis (my father) had debated whether the two things happening to the postman could be counted as two separate crises and might therefore be said to have cleared matters up. I thought that they were wasting their time. In our household things went on and on happening. It was an hotel, which made the doom worse: it would have been remarkable to have two days without a crisis and even if we did, I doubted whether the rule would apply in reverse, so that we could augur a third. I was very fond of the word augur.”
Our narrator is Penelope Wells, one of several voices that tell this story of non-conformity, friendship and family. As the novel opens Penelope is a precocious fourteen-year-old compiling an anthology of hates (this alone made me love her). She lives in a small hotel on the French Riviera with her poet, father and her stepmother. The hotel is often empty, Francis Wells having a somewhat relaxed attitude to business he is as likely to refuse entry to his establishment as he is to welcome visitors. The walls of the bar are adorned with the photographs of famous guests, and those guests who do arrive are generally eccentric, bohemian types.
Penelope; who calls her father and stepmother by their first name, – has this wonderfully unique way of speaking – her conversation is a delight. Quite obviously, a child who grew up surrounded by adults and her nose in a book – she speaks like the characters she has come up against in fiction. With her powers of imagination and observation, Penelope is ripe to be swept up in a childish infatuation for an English family staying next door to the hotel. The Bradleys are middle-class well behaved, conventional, their meal times run to a predictable timetable – their lives are ordered, unlike Penelope’s life at the hotel. It seems – from a distance to be an ideal life. Francis – much to Penelope’s irritation calls them The Smugs – it’s a pretty perfect name.
“They laughed when I shook hands with them, and Don made me an elaborate bow after the handshake. Then they laughed again.
‘Are you French or English?’
That saddened me. I said, ‘I am English, but I live here because my stepmother is a Frenchwoman and my father likes the Riviera.’
‘We know that,’ said Don quickly. ‘He was shot down and taken prisoner by the Germans and escaped and fought with the Resistance, didn’t he?’
‘Yes. That is how he met Jeanne.’
‘And he’s Francis Wells, the poet?’
‘Yes’
‘And the hotel is quite mad, isn’t it?’
‘Indubitably,’ I said. It was another of my favourite words. Eva doubled up with laughter. ‘Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m always going to say indubitably.’
It is the Bradley children; Don and his sister Eva, thirteen, who Penelope is particularly charmed by. Their lives are so well ordered that Penelope is able to predict exactly when they will appear in the garden. It isn’t long before the three meet – and Penelope delights Don and Eva with her unusual conversation, and tantalising tales of the hotel. Just as Penelope starts to get to know her new friends, the hotel welcomes one of its most colourful and frequent guests; the Duchess – who Penelope doesn’t much like – though the Duchess seems to adore her.
However, childhood, as we know is full of small betrayals, and Penelope’s fledgling friendship is doomed when the Bradley parents declare the hotel to be an unsuitable place for Don and Eva – who are not so used to such grown up surroundings. The disappointments and betrayals of childhood and adolescence are so formative, they direct so much of what comes next – and how we build relationships.
In the second and third parts of the novel we move forward four and five years respectively, and hear from Don Bradley in England, and other characters. At seventeen, at boarding school, Don is straining against his father’s rigid conventionality – his greatest friend a middle-aged man in a wheelchair who owns the estate where Don goes to ride and mess around happily with horses. Deeply affected by events in France four years earlier, Don is in need of counsel, and in this most unlikely of friends Don had found the friend he lacks in his own father. Crusoe is a straight-talking breath of fresh air to Don – his easy unconventional way of life is attractive. Crusoe challenges Don’s way of thinking – and so there’s bound to be tensions when Don’s parents meet Crusoe.
In the final section of the novel, another year has passed, and we’re are back with Penelope – among others. I’m certainly not going to say too much about this section – but here we meet Cara – another superb creation from Pamela Frankau, brittle, damaged and potentially damaging – whose life is destined to collide with that of Penelope’s.
I still have two other Pamela Frankau novels waiting to be read – but she was pretty prolific – and although out of print – some of her books are available – and I have two more winging their way to me from a rash ebay purchase the other day show less
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