A Little Tea, a Little Chat

This review is published to coincide with the anniversary of Christina Stead’s death (17 July 1902 – 31 March 1983).
Oh, Christina, you were a wicked woman in the best possible way!
Way back in 1948, Christina Stead wrote the ultimate satire of marriage and capitalism when she savaged the predatory male in this witty black comedy that shows in excoriating detail what a hashtag can never could. Her portrait of Robert Grant, whose hobbies are making money and seducing women, is both revolting and hilarious, and readers will be cheering from the sidelines when he meets his match, Barbara, who is every bit as calculating as he is. I wonder what Jane Austen, doyenne of The Marriage Novel, would have thought of it? She would have been show more thunderstruck, I think, but her sense of humour would have held sway…
Girls, think of the sleaziest man you know. Was it your first boss, who these days would be fired for his daily sexual innuendos? Was it your Ex’s ‘mate’ who put the hard word on you when you briefly worked for him? Was it the well-known academic who put his hand on your knee under the table while his wife sat oblivious on the other side of you? Was it the clown at a party who cupped his hands under your boobs from behind and hauled you to your feet because he thought he was irresistible (and who copped a six-inch stiletto in the calf for his trouble)? None of these are in the same league as Robert Grant…
‘A little tea, a little chat’ is Grant’s euphemism for seduction. In 1940s New York, he’s always looking for opportunities to make money and to ‘beguile and betray’ the women he encounters. He has plenty of money to splash around because of all the deals he has made, and now after Pearl Harbour and the declaration of war, he’s busy finding ways to profiteer from it. Stead’s descriptions of this perfidy seem so authentic, she must have heard conversations like it in New York where she lived with her banker husband. There may have been some red faces when the book was published in 1948. But maybe not. Types like this – as we see so often in today’s media – are completely shameless…
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/03/31/a-little-tea-a-little-chat-by-christina-stea... show less

The first thing I must say about this, is that it's totally not what I expected: the era (1940s); the author (female); the publisher (Virago) and even the title give an impression of a feminine themed novel. This is very very different!
I'm at a loss as to what rating to give it, as it IS a very accomplished piece of writing. Getting through nearly 400 pages of closely written, repetitive prose, much of it the incoherent rantings of our lead character, however was a struggle! And whereas I often wonder, as I read a particularly stunning work, "how does s/he WRITE like that?!", here I was particularly struck by however did the author manage to keep it going for so long (and respect, too, to the person who typed it up!)
Set in WW2 New York, show more this is the story of financier Robert Grant. Wealthy, his life a tangle of deals, lies and multitudes of women (the title is Grant's chat-up line..a version of 'come up and see my etchings'), the narrative is achieved almost entirely through dialogue. A random example:
"I mean it, lovely woman, good companion, common sense, business woman, own property, not trying to go through my pockets, own opinions, understands me, consoles me- in your own way. Now this bloody 'ooman - in Jigago- I would never have believed it, I came to her like a little boy, I was looking for a wife, a sweetheart and a sister, and she only thinks of drawing blood, a bloodsucker."
Stead never intrudes into the tale with her own take on it: the dialogue and action tell the story - the latter, too, being written in jerky, breathless style:
"As he went on, names came up of old acquaintances of his, proved scoundrels and promoters, that Grant had sworn were cast out long ago, but who now appeared in this great Blonde Network, as giving him advice, introducing him to lawyers, running between him and the blonde and the husband and the Goodwins and Delafield, and innumersble strange people."

The story centres on Grant and the rather canny floosie, Barbara Kent, the'blondine', who does rather well out of him, despite his tendency to stiff most people for every last cent.This sounds tremendous fun but it's a bit like wading through porridge.

"Her society was full of women like herself, who made connections, put people in the way of things, mentioned names, made love in the routine of business, and in return received money in cash."

Sat up late and made myself finish it. It's clever, I get that Grant's a kind of satire on the wartime US economy, profiting from the to-do across the Atlantic. But I think only Mann's 'Magic Mountain' can beat it as a struggle to the finishing line! show less