Rumour of Heaven

Even the preface to this book admits that (unlike the work of her sister, Rosamond Lehmann) this is a “work of its time” , and can be seen as one of the genre of post WW1 writings that inspired Stella Gibbons’ “Cold Comfort Farm.”
When a ballet dancer wife - married and a mother- goes slowly insane, her sad, author husband is left to raise the 3 children with just a housekeeper, in a mouldering country estate. Eldest daughter Clare devotes herself to her vulnerable father and her (physically) disabled sister and (mentally) adrift brother. Into their world of solitude and love of nature comes a London writer. Damaged by the War, in a difficult marriage, and accompanied by his feckless, effeminate protege….Another arrival is show more author Max Ralston, whose one bestseller details a remote Pacific island he’s found, and plans to return to with a few likeminded folk. Is it real or a scam? The children’s father believes - passionately- and yearns to go there.
Emphatically one for the charity shop. I kept on reading but not recommended. Very airy fairy 1920s style nonsense. show less

Beatrix Lehmann (1903 - 1979) was an English stage actress, well-known in her own right, and sister of novelist Rosamond Lehmann (1901 - 1990). Rumour of Heaven (1934) was Beatrix's second novel, and it initially starts out strong, centering around the Peacock family and its troubled matriarch, former dancer Miranda Mirova. There are many themes to explore here including mental illness and ideas of isolation. We are prepared for a novel about the children--Clare, Hector, and Viola--all of whom survive, but hardly thrive, at the remote country estate known as Prince's Acre. These three characters are fairly vivid, as is Mrs. Humble, the housekeeper. The father flits in and out of the mist.

The middle of the book feels a bit of a misstep. show more The focus shifts to two (well, three, actually) new strangers who come to Prince's Acre. Gillian Tindall's introduction to the Virago edition notes that Max Ralston is a "Conradian character" and he might have been, but he fizzles out of the narrative, so I suppose in that way he operates as a Kurtz a bit, but I would have liked him to be a bit more present and Paul less so. Once this secondary set of characters enters, things feel a bit off the rails and the ending speeds up with a bit of desperation to tie things together. show less