The Sin Eater

Alice Thomas Ellis practices a peculiar form of aesthetic satire: pastiche in domestic decor. Rose, in The sin eater, parodies periods in her rooms: `Part of her fondness for the house was based on the ease with which she could make a fool of it'. Likewise of her guests: `"This is a lovely room," said Angela, ... "It's what I always call a traditional drawing room". The element of pastiche introduced by Rose -- the tropical shells displayed on a small table, the wax flowers under a glass dome -- seemed to have escaped her notice'. Rose stages her meals. Planning a tea to follow the cricket match, she considers, `An Edwardian tea on the lawn, white cloths and the Crown Derby ... a thirties tea on the terrace ... a traditional farmhouse show more meal ...'.
`Once she had cooked dinner for a Midland client of Henry's ... she had given him prawn cocktail, steak and pretty little chips, and an antipodean thing called a pavlova - the sort of meal the family described as "Uxbridge Country Club" ... he was a nice man and appreciative, and had left happily, sure he had had a splendid evening'.
Ellis's views are based on deeply held traditional moral values (she is a fervent Roman Catholic). She deplores and condemns the vulgar modernization of village life and of the church, bitterly presented in The sin eater as corruption:.
Through the bitter satire comes a yearning for the old, cherished values and ways: `Violets and wild strawberries had grown in that field once, and the ewes with their lambs had found it comforting after the winds on the hills. ... Once, when you went out you could hope to see at least a few beautiful [nuns] in ample shapely robes, veils lifting on the wind real clothes, with the significance clothes should have: reassuring, decisive. Now nuns were the ugliest people on the street.' show less

Like everything from Ellis, written angelically, but with a heavier touch (didactically) than in her later novels. It's also bleaker; almost as remorseless as the poison-brewing Rose herself, almost as cruel. Describing it like this, however, obscures the book's excellences with are many and surpassing. Notable for a description of the most horrible party ever. Highly recommended, although Inn at the End of the World would be the one to read first.

"Tanned men are on the dole, on the game, or on the run"

"[A]dultery is a filthy habit," said Rose, "like using someone else's toothbrush."

another british writer who seems to be very poorly known here even though her books are fantastic vignettes of british class culture and social manners. Incredibly witty internal and spoken dialogue of everyday characters that we have all met in daily life. The characters and dialogue will have the perfect veneer of manners and decency while their thoughts and often their barbed or veiled comments reveal the true inner thoughts not only of them but that we too all share. Hilariously funny too.

I didn't think I had read this before, but I'm no longer sure. Maybe I just recognised the unlikeable characters and their contempt for those around them from other books by Alice Thomas Eliis.

The afterword (written by Thomas Meagher, whoever that might be) of my Common Reader edition (Akadine Press) of The sin eater is lyrical about the novel and its author, Alice Thomas Ellis, a kind of enthusiasm I do not share.

Many books have been written by British authors, Welsh, English and Scottish, about groups of characters convening in a countryside cottage or house for whatever resolution, and then go their own ways. Any particular wit (I did not notice), any outstanding dialogue or conversation (must have escaped my attention), any brilliancy otherwise, I could not detect.

Apparently, The sin eater which came out in 1977, is Alice Thomas Ellis' debut novel (the author of the afterword describes how he retrieved a copy from an show more antiquairian book shop), but her style is reminiscent of the 1930s or 1940s. What makes the novel somewhat unusual, perhaps, at least within the realm of British fiction, is its sense of Christian background, often absent from other English literature.

There wasn't anything that attracted me to this novel. show less

check my copy when home - is setting England or Wales ?
think I bought this from Common Reader