Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923–2014)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-light-years-by-elizabeth-jane-howard/

It is the first book in a series about the Cazalets, a wealthy English family in the international timber trade (like Howard’s own). This one is set just before the second world war, and introduces us to the Cazalet family: three brothers and a sister, the women who are their lovers, their children and their parents, and a couple of other family connections as well. Everyone gets a couple of sections to themselves, the tight-third narrative moving from person to person to highlight the differences and similarities in perspective between the various relatives. The shadow of the first war lies heavily on all of them as they try and avoid thinking about the next one.

It’s a leisurely opening for an epic, and you couldn’t really call it a novel because the story does not end at the end of the book. There are a couple of pretty dark moments as well, setting up more narrative threads for future volumes. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.… (more)

Three stories by Aickman and three by Howard. This was Aickman's first foray into print and Elizabeth Jane Howard went on to become an accomplished writer in the non-weird vein, I think historical fiction. Opinions vary as to how much collaboration there was between the two authors but the best living authority, Howard, says there was very little with Aickman in his lifetime claiming there was more. Howard and Aickman were "involved" at the time.

The View is the only story that appears to be similar to the more mature Aickman. It is anthologized in a slightly different form elsewhere. This version is unique to this anthology. The Trains is Aickman's first published story and it has a fairly conventional ending that pretty much ties things up. The Insufficient Answer is the strangest, for Aickman, story here being a straight Gothic mystery however with some typical Aickman weird elements.

The Howard stories are also very good and although mostly conventional spook stories actually partake of more Aickmanesque elements than the Aickman stories. Three Miles Up you would swear was written by Aickman particularly because of its enigmatic ending and the fact that it entirely takes place on a British canal.

A worthwhile collection particularly as it shows Aickman's development into a more mature and unique writer and all the stories are very good. There is a very good but brief introduction by the publisher R.B. Russell based mainly on interviews with Howard who is still living. There is a transcript of the actual interview not included here somewhere on the Tartarus Press site.… (more)