At the Jerusalem
by Paul Bailey
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'A very funny book, but never jeering, full of pity, but unsentimentally harsh with the tragedy of old age which institutional kindness cannot cushion' Financial Times. Following the death from leukaemia of her daughter, Celia, Mrs Gadny goes to live with her sullen stepson Henry. But she finds little affection or contentment either with him, or with his selfish wife Thelma, or with their ungrateful children. She is sent to an old people's home, 'The Jerusalem', a converted workhouse, show more green-and-white-tiled. Mrs Gadny is repulsed and humiliated by the home and its inmates: women like acid-tongued Miss Trimmer, the vulgar toothless Mrs Affery, and Mrs O'Blath with her hysterical laughter. Retreating from the kindness offered her by the nurses and the friendly Mrs Capes, she withdraws into her memories, but even their fragmented recollection provides small comfort. Mrs Gadny's only escape from 'The Jerusalem' lies in her own crumbling consciousness. Paul Bailey is sensitive to the exact nuance of conversation, the precise detail that can create an environment or a mood, and draw the reader into it. His book is an exquisitely defined miniature whose impression will not easily be forgotten. With an introduction by Colm Tóibín. show lessTags
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At the Jerusalem remains a striking example of what Philip Hensher, on the dust jacket, calls “imaginative empathy” – a young man’s journey through an old woman’s mind.... Bailey captures Mrs Gadny through her dialogue and her letters, through the observations of other characters, through small pieces of visual description and the quick-fire notation of her thoughts. For a show more first-timer his command of technical resources is bizarrely smooth, if not virtuoso.... I would struggle to name a novel by a living English writer more worthy of republication. show less
added by KayCliff
Author Information
24+ Works 829 Members
Paul Bailey has been the recipient of the Somerset Maugham Award, the E. M. Forster Award, & the George Orwell Memorial Prize. He is the author of six novels, including "Old Soldiers" & "Gabriel's Lament", both short-listed for the Booker Prize. He lives in England. (Bowker Author Biography)
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- First words
- Then there was a dazzle of green and white, white and green.
- Quotations
- This is what you come too: you live for 70 years and you find one night you're stuck in a room, in a chair, and your body's beneath you, waiting for the chill to strike it, till your eyes see only black and no sound to remind... (show all) you. You've memories of rooms and faces and all manner of things but they go as quickly as they come.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Mrs Capes's stories would do the trick. They would keep his interest.
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Statistics
- Members
- 51
- Popularity
- 585,047
- Rating
- (3.58)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 2
