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The Go-Between

by L.P. Hartley, Colm Tóibín (Introduction)

3.89 of 5 stars 3.89 · rating details · 2,207 ratings · 206 reviews

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

Summering with a fellow schoolboy on a great English estate, Leo, the hero of L. P. Hartley's finest novel, encounters a world of unimagined luxury. But when his friend's beautiful older sister enlists him as the unwitting messenger in her illicit love affair, the aftershocks will be felt for years. The insp...more

Paperback, 326 pages

Published March 31st 2002 by NYRB Classics (first published 1953)

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Feb 10, 2013 [P] rated it 4 of 5 stars

My best friend got married last year, the first of my friends to do so. He has got himself a house in a little village, probably going to knock out some kids in the next few years. Scary stuff. Obviously he has settled down now, but I've known my friend since we were sixteen. I remember when he met his first real girlfriend, I remember the songs he wrote about her, I remember the apology letters [for perceived but non-existent misdemeanors] he penned and pushed under her door. You see, being a t...more My best friend got married last year, the first of my friends to do so. He has got himself a house in a little village, probably going to knock out some kids in the next few years. Scary stuff. Obviously he has settled down now, but I've known my friend since we were sixteen. I remember when he met his first real girlfriend, I remember the songs he wrote about her, I remember the apology letters [for perceived but non-existent misdemeanors] he penned and pushed under her door. You see, being a teenager is all kinds of fun, but it's a confusing time also, when all your emotions are heightened, all your senses tingling. Certainly, with all those hormones running amok in your body you find yourself doing the most stupid and embarrassing things.

I mention all this because The Go-Between [whose plot I won't deal with in detail except to say that is concerned with a 13 year old boy's brief stay with his friend's family. The main focus is his infatuation with the sister, Marian, who takes advantage of him] is often accused of being overwrought, the protagonist a sap, the plot too unbelievable. Yes, young Leo is a sensitive, naïve, boy, but those kinds of boys exist.

There is nothing far-fetched about this story; it is entirely plausible that whilst away from his mother and eager to impress a family who are his social betters he would be pliable. Throw in an attractive, seemingly sophisticated, older woman, who appears to favour him, and his suggestibility is entirely understandable. It is not such a flight of fancy to suppose that he would do things for her, that he would become her stooge, her aspiring knight-in-shining-armour, her go-between. Heck, older guys than Leo behave this way all the time.

To my mind, this is one of the finest novels of adolescence ever written, my appreciation enhanced by the very aspects of it that others seem to deplore. It is not merely a growing-pains tale either, there is also a sinister edge to it, in that this is a novel about adults manipulating children. It is easy to overlook, whilst focused on Leo and his preoccupations, that the adults ought to know better than to use their friendship [and in Marian's case their sexuality] to get what they want from a young boy.

The result of Leo's relationship with Marian is inevitably tragic, and this sense of impending tragedy gives the book a thrilling edge. However, it is Leo's voice that dominates the text, and is its main strength. The prose is uniformly exceptional, the first lines justly famous, but Hartley's ability to capture the workings of a young boy's mind is the real marvel. In conclusion, I say to anyone who can't relate to Leo that you must have been a rubbish teenager. Truly I pity you, because you missed out.(less)

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Jun 26, 2011 Trish rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: british, fiction, literature, one-for-the-ages, classics, author-i-d-most-like-to-meet, teen

Hartley has taken my breath away with the sweep of his story and the majesty of his writing. This book was published when he was fifty-eight, in 1953, and evokes England before the wars "quickly, simply, effortlessly" (Tóibín, Intro p. x). Hartley, in an interview, wrote:

I wanted to evoke the feeling of that summer [in 1900], the long stretch of fine weather, and also the confidence in life, the belief that all's well with the world, which everyone seemed to enjoy before the First World War...Th

...more Hartley has taken my breath away with the sweep of his story and the majesty of his writing. This book was published when he was fifty-eight, in 1953, and evokes England before the wars "quickly, simply, effortlessly" (Tóibín, Intro p. x). Hartley, in an interview, wrote:

I wanted to evoke the feeling of that summer [in 1900], the long stretch of fine weather, and also the confidence in life, the belief that all's well with the world, which everyone seemed to enjoy before the First World War...The Boer War was a local affair, and so I was able to set my little private tragedy against a general background of security and happiness."

Ostensibly this is a story about a thirteen-year-old private-school boy, Leo, at the turn of the twentieth century spending a month in the summer at the house of a wealthier school chum, Marcus. It is told from the perspective of that same boy, years later and remembering back. He hints at some dark and irremediable end that casts a shadow through the warm and carefree beginnings of that seminal summer.

This is a slow slide, told through innumerable details, into the deep end of the pool, but we hardly even struggle as the dim end comes. We are watching the process, the progress of our descent. Our boy Leo got a new set of clothes, fell helplessly in love with distant Marian, the older sister of Marcus, and had days of discovery on his own when Marcus came down sick and had to stay in bed. Leo never does get to wear his new swim suit, though I waited for that moment almost as anxiously as I did the larger dénouement that loomed on the horizon that steamy summer. Somehow I thought that nakedness and bathing and water and the thrill of danger would be intertwined with the finish, but that was just another beautifully executed feint where ordinary things take on the weight of portent.

The gentle, teasing story of that languid summer is that moment in a life when mysteries are revealed, truths are uncovered, futures are altered, and no one is ever the same again. The miracle is that Hartley captured it so completely, the sensual detail caught with the enthusiasm and wonder of a boy's eye: the rippling muscle of the farmer, the shock of cold steel and weight of the gun stock, the smell of Marian's perfume and the rustle of her satins as her white arms stretched over recalcitrant piano keys...

But the best, the very best, is the way Hartley brings his story to a close. We hold on through the summer with stomach clenched: when the crisis comes, we are ready, but Hartley teases us on with another suspense, and then another, until we are slowly sated, satisfied, and feel older, wiser, wistful. I adored character Marian at the end, while I hated her throughout much of the story. It was the older man's eyes and her own words that make this transformation, but it made her life and his a celebration, rather than a tragedy. Only time and distance bestows that grace, and Hartley was wise enough to tweek our emotions that one last time. This is the cusp of manhood story that school children should read, but aspiring authors could do worse than study how Hartley did this.

A final word: Hartley was a book reviewer foremost, and "often read as many as five novels a week and reckoned that in all he must have read well over six thousand books."(Tóibín, Intro p. vi). Would that our man were alive and writing today, we would be ever the richer.(less)

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Nov 04, 2007 Karl rated it 5 of 5 stars

This has been my second reading of "The Go-Between," my first having been probably some fifteen years ago. I was a little nervous that the book itself might not live up to my memory of it. I needn't have been. It is one of a handful of books that gets a childhood/adolescent point of view spot on. Andre Aciman's "Call Me By Your Name," Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird," Truman Capote's "Other Voices, Other Rooms," Haven Kimmel's "A Girl Named Zippy," Ann Marie McDonald's "The Way the Crow Flie...more

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Aug 19, 2010 MJ Nicholls rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, sassysassenachs, penguin-classics

Note: This review is from October 2nd 2007 when the reviewer was a spotty man-boy of twenty. Excuse the gaucheness herein.

Hugh Might Enjoy This

Lord up on high, save me from the woeful sound of old people having sex.

It was March 4th 1996 and the occasion was a brief stopover in a B&B during an enthralling coach trip from Dunbartonshire and Clydebank. Those are cities in Scotland, kind reader—of little import to this brief introduction—so we need not trouble ourselves with them at this junctur...more

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Oct 01, 2008 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

Look, just give me a book by a Brit with two initials whose observance is all the more sensual for being somehow repressed, and set him aloose on the pre-war countryside, okay? I'm easy.

The climactic action of this book is when a kid rips up a shrub, yet, I liked it.

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Aug 20, 2007 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: to-re-read

Easily now one of my favorite novels. Hartley's ability to write children is amazing. This is a must-read, heartbreakingly-good.

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Apr 25, 2008 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

The New York Review of Books catalog is such a great place to look for a new book, especially when you're in a reading slump; they have such a varied, interesting collection. I usually cruise through it when I can't find something, but my sister was the one who recommended the Go-Between.

It's set in the year 1900, and the narrator, now in his 60's relates a tragedy which took place then, when he was 12. L.P Hartley does such a terrific job of giving the mind of this child, the whole book rides i...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Nick rated it 4 of 5 stars

What I liked best about this novel is Hartley's ability to write the narrator Leo as a child. The narrator is writing from many years after childhood, but the thing that's most interesting is his knack for describing the situations that Leo doesn't understand, but that he finds himself in the middle of (the "go-between" of the title). I'm not sure that any contemporary twelve-year-old would be as naive as Leo was then (1900, or even 1953, when Hartley published it), but the novel isn't really po...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Palmyrah rated it 3 of 5 stars

The year is 1900. Leo, a public schoolboy of somewhat straitened middle-class origins, is spending the summer holidays at a great country house in Norfolk, the home of his schoolfellow, Marcus. He is away from home alone for the first time in his life, a fortnight short of his thirteenth birthday. His friend's family and the rest of their country-house circle welcome him and make much of him – so much so they begin to turn his head a little – but they also make use of him in a way that shatters...more The year is 1900. Leo, a public schoolboy of somewhat straitened middle-class origins, is spending the summer holidays at a great country house in Norfolk, the home of his schoolfellow, Marcus. He is away from home alone for the first time in his life, a fortnight short of his thirteenth birthday. His friend's family and the rest of their country-house circle welcome him and make much of him – so much so they begin to turn his head a little – but they also make use of him in a way that shatters his childhood innocence and effectively destroys his chances of a happy life. This they do unwittingly; they intend him no harm, but are too wrapped up in their own escapades and concerns to see the effect their demands are having on the boy.

The year is 1950, or thereabouts. Leo, now an elderly, unfulfilled man, discovers the diary kept by his younger self half a century ago, is reminded of that summer in Norfolk, and begins reminiscing about it.

The book is rather slow going at first. It gives us a lot of weightily introspective preamble before the action begins; the grave tone of voice in which this is delivered ill suits the action, cast or setting – a schoolboy's-eye-view of a country-house party in summer – and made this reader wonder what frightful damage done to the narrator could possibly justify such portentousness. Some modern tabloid drama of black magic rituals or child molestation, perhaps? But middlebrow English novelists of the 1950s didn't go in for that kind of subject-matter. At times, during the first third or so of the book, the narrator's slightly portentous manner seemed almost ridiculous. The dénouement, one thought, would have to be pretty hot to justify all this solemnity.

But perseverance is rewarded. When the climax arrives at last the author has done his work, and you are fully caught up in the story. The scene is shockingly and dramatically presented, though by modern standards its action is tame. The plot improves by leaps and bounds once it gets going; the final third of the book is crammed with action and incident, including three brilliant set-pieces – a village cricket match, an amateur concert in the village hall and an agonizing birthday-party which the narrator must endure before the final climax. There is even an epilogue that tells us what became of the various characters in the Ever After. A very satisfying read in the end, though perhaps not precisely this reader's cup of tea.

Three things remain to be noted.

First, that the narrator does not regale us with excerpts from his rediscovered diary. About a page or so of what is written there is quoted; in addition, a couple of letters are quoted in full. But this is no Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and readers who are put off by that style of storytelling need not fear this book.

Second, that although this novel is not one of the great works of English literature, it begins with one of the most-quoted first lines in that literature: 'The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.'

Third, readers of Ian McEwan's Atonement will find many similarities between that novel and this.

Post scriptum: since writing the above, I have learnt that Hartley was a homosexual; in the light of this knowledge, certain scenes and descriptions in the book take on a completely different aspect – but this is not, despite one reviewer's opinion, a gay novel.(less)

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Jul 18, 2012 Billierosie Billierosie rated it 5 of 5 stars

“The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”

L.P.Hartley’s inspired opening sentence to his remarkable novel, “The Go-Between” is memorable and often quoted.

“The Go-between was first published in 1953, the following year it received the Heinemann Foundation Prize of the Royal Society of Literature. Its film version was also very successful and won the principal award at the Festival de Cannes in 1973. The novel is a memory story: a man in his sixties looks back on his boyhoo...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Vanessa Wu rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is one of the most perfect novels ever written. It has many layers and levels, thanks to its brilliant narrative structure of an old man recollecting a tragic love story he witnessed in intense close up as a young boy. It is a rare case of a complex narrative structure actually being necessary for the proper exposition of the plot. For the story is not just about what happened when the narrator was a boy, but how it changed his life as a man and how, towards the end of his life, writing abo...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Waynesf rated it 5 of 5 stars

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there." And thus begins L.P. Hartley's classic novel, "The Go-Between," a breathtaking piece of literature that I somehow missed during my younger years, but placed near the top of my reading list this past June after hearing Ann Brashares' "You Must Read This" essay on NPR.

Invited by a school mate to spend the sweltering summer of 1900 on the English estate of Brandham Hall, thirteen-year-old Leo Colston finds himself in the middle of t...more

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Oct 22, 2011 Aaron Mcquiston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nyrb-classics

The Go-Between is really good. This isn't the sort of description that will wow anyone, but there is not much else to say. It is kind of a coming of age novel with the main character, Leo, being forced into adulthood with a situation that quickly gets a little out of hand. When Leo spends some weeks with a boarding school friend, Marcus, it is Marcus's older sister that draws his attention. He is young, turning thirteen, and he is naive. This naivete is exploited and a subject of mirth for Marcu...more

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Sep 03, 2011 TrumanCoyote rated it 4 of 5 stars

A bit wordy. Also the verbiage can get on the nebulous and imponderable side (I can see why Proust is one of Hartley's favorites). But wonderfully well-plotted and with crackling-good characters (also gotta love the repartee between the narrator and Marcus..."Hello, mollusk face"...lol). This was my second reading, and this time around the climax (no pun intended...okay, pun intended) did not seem such a stretch; after all, I see that he had a lot more to contend with than just seeing them doing...more A bit wordy. Also the verbiage can get on the nebulous and imponderable side (I can see why Proust is one of Hartley's favorites). But wonderfully well-plotted and with crackling-good characters (also gotta love the repartee between the narrator and Marcus..."Hello, mollusk face"...lol). This was my second reading, and this time around the climax (no pun intended...okay, pun intended) did not seem such a stretch; after all, I see that he had a lot more to contend with than just seeing them doing it (there was what happened to Ted right afterward--albeit that was perhaps a bit of a leap--as well as the fact that poor Leo inevitably thinks it was his spell--or curse--that was the cause of it all).

Also, although I agreed with Hartley (in his interesting introduction) that the episode seemed tacked-on the first time around, here I found it much more agreeable. I think it was good to get a glimpse of Marian's outlook on the whole matter, and Leo seeing the SW view of the place at last (in the final sentence) was a nice touch. This time around too his use as a go-between was to repair a rift, not to arrange an illicit tryst (and perhaps this time he will even eliminate a curse, not induce one). It's also interesting that his role of postman here will get him back in touch with people rather than leading to a life of trauma.

Funny to read Hartley's take on morality tales. Actually, nothing could be less interesting to me than the sort of thing he describes; fortunately though, he must've realized that one of the most foolish things you can do is to take your own opinions too seriously, so he gave life (and sympathy) to both Ted and Marian, and they come across as wonderful real breathing characters, not just cardboard cutouts drawn on toward their inevitable penance in some morality play. Marian in particular comes across to me as someone very vital trapped in an utterly stifling situation; okay, maybe she's not too profound or anything, and I suppose she is a bit self-absorbed, but then what else could she be in that place? And she is very much alive, in a circumstance where that is a mixed blessing at best. And of course Ted is also in a no-win position, and attempts to make the most of it as best he could (with all the attendant confusion and anger).
(less)

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Jul 25, 2011 Carolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This author is an amazing architect of the written word. The characters are so vivid. The author, L.P. Hartley, wrote this book in the 1950's about the experience of a thirteen year old boy in 1900 in class conscious England. He tells us the story from the point of view of a now sixty year old man whose memory is jogged by found memorabelia of his thirteenth year. An experience that completley colored the entire rest of his life.

The story is really about the affects of brining a child into an ad...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Donna rated it 5 of 5 stars

The household will be happy to have my attention again. It hasn't seen a flicker of it since I started reading this book. I've seen the movie. Liked it very much. Yet even knowing what was going to happen, the story in the book still felt new to me. That's a quality in the writing; it's the kind that makes everything new. And by the end of the book, the crystalline narration , that is never precious, had made his memories, my memories. I haven't had a narrator do that since Nick Carraway. And th...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Hannah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: not-owned, love-the-book-dislike-the-editor, coming-of-age, portrayal-of-class, 20th-century, classics, historical-fiction, portrayal-of-women

I have only just started, and despite really enjoying Hartley's lyrical prose I'm finding that the heavy-handed editing (in the 2003 Penguin edition)is getting on my nerves. I'm one of those people foolish enough to read the introduction before I start and to at least try to read the notes, but Brooks-Davies has committed the cardinal sin of thoroughly spoiler-ing the book in the introduction then adding insult to injury by over end noting (at least five notes per page)with further spoilers and...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Stenwjohnson rated it 5 of 5 stars

LP Hartley’s “The Go-between” (1952) is roughly contemporary with Evelyn Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” and Anthony Powell’s “Dance to the Music of Time” cycle, and fans of “Downton Abbey” will see a timeworn blueprint in these school-and-country-house classics: Bullying, supercilious schoolboys who address other by last names, unexpected entrées to dying aristocratic worlds, and an ethereal longing for a past order.

The comparisons end quickly. “The Go-between” may offer some affinities in form...more

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Nov 16, 2009 Kristy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

I haven't read much other fiction from this period so this seemed like an unusual book to me. The narrator Leo, an older man now in his sixties, is looking back and describing a summer spent with a classmate at the turn of the century. The book really gives a sense of the social changes that were happening at the time, the subtle collapse of the system of titles and landed gentry, symbolized by the way his classmate's older sister (the classmate's family itself being somewhat of an upstart, mone...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Peter rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

An oft heard and quoted line but one until starting this book I had no idea as to its provenance. My education was sadly missing not unlike young Leo Colston's.

I won't dwell too long on the plot other than to say that a 60+ year old man finds an old diary from the year 1900 which rekindles memories of a summer spent age the of 12 with the family of a schoolfriend and their house guest, the local viscount, at their country estate...more "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."

An oft heard and quoted line but one until starting this book I had no idea as to its provenance. My education was sadly missing not unlike young Leo Colston's.

I won't dwell too long on the plot other than to say that a 60+ year old man finds an old diary from the year 1900 which rekindles memories of a summer spent age the of 12 with the family of a schoolfriend and their house guest, the local viscount, at their country estate in Norfolk. When his chum is confined to bed Leo looks for something to fill his time so starts to run messages between his friend's older, and seemingly mature and enigmatic, beautiful sister Marian and her secret lover, a local farmer called Ted Burgess. As the summer temperature rises so do passions between the lover's with life changing effects for both them and Leo.

Both the year and the boy's age are highly relevant to the story because we see not only a boy's dreams for the coming century but he is also about to become a teenager with all the angst that that brings. So too is the perspective of the two Leos, the young innocent boy and the older man. The book could be described as either a sort of coming of age or an end of innocence drama but this would certainy do it a diservice and would be a little simplistic as there are also elements of class, morality, friendship, obligation and love to name but a few within it.

In this day an age where youth are bombarded with sexual images in the media and other outlets it may seem a little unbelievable that Leo could be so gullible but this book was written in 1953 and is about an age before TV and Social Media. The prose is beautiful and always engaging and whilst the ending is pretty obvious a long way out, secrets never remain that way forever, it still feels shocking when it comes.

If you want in your face sensation then don't bother but if you want to lose yourself in another gentler era then this is a gem. A real classic in every sense.(less)

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Dec 30, 2012 Greta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: descent-literature, modern-fiction, recommendations

One of the best books I've ever read. I loved it. You should not go into this book knowing much about it..it needs to unfold. I loved the subtley. The imagery is excellent. Exploration of innocence is not in a corny way..it's fresh and alive and pulsating with life. Book unique for me in its exploration of passage of life.

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Jun 06, 2012 Elaine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wow, Hartley did an amazing job capturing a little slice of time -- 1900. Our narrator recounts the holidays he spent with a friend from school the year he was 13. Found himself the messenger for the young lady of the house and her lover, the farmer down the way. Just incredibly well-written -- captures the characters, the rigidity of society, the importance of the traditions and niceties, and the hints at how it was changing. My heart just ached for this little kid caught in a world and a situa...more

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Jan 24, 2013 Caitriona rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: a-level-books

This book contains one of the most famous opening lines ever: "The past is a foreign country, tey do things differently there". But fame does not make a book easy to review: it certianly isn't. It certainly connected with me on an emotional level, but precisely WHICH emotion is still up for discussion. I should probably explain but first, the plot.

The story follows Leo Colston, who one day finds a box of odds and ends that jogs his memory back to the summer of 1900. He was 13 years old and stay...more

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Aug 12, 2010 Holly marked it as to-read

From Bean Books: This book provides a window into both the world of a young Public School boy and Edwardian society. The book is written with great descriptive detail that (surprisingly to me) does not provoke boredom. I think it's because the language is so very careful and the thoughts so precise: everything advances the character and situational elements. There is a sense of impending crisis. The reader knows that it will happen and that it is unavoidable. The tension between the static Edwar...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Jamie rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: did-not-finish-it

I so wanted to like this book, to finish this book--maybe if I had finished it I would've liked it? Well, we'll never know for sure because 44 pages was enough for me. What made me stop was the narrator's annoying habit of saying the same thing three "different" ways for three sentences in a row. And the fact that the big event or tragedy or whatever it is, is alluded to on every page (almost!) but I could tell the build-up was going to kill me and probably not reward me in the afterlife for sti...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was recommended to me by goodreads, so I thought I'd give it a try. I read it and was glad I did, but I honestly didn't *love* this book as much as I thought I might. I'm not sure that I liked the protagonist (Leo); he seemed a bit stuffy and prudish for someone on the cusp of becoming a teenager, but he's a fatherless schoolboy in living in England in 1900 (and somewhat between social classes and therefore still figuring how to relate to others without much to go on), so I cut him som...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was first published in 1953 and is set at the turn of the century (1900) when the war that is referred to is the Boer War. The prologue of the book starts with “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” How true that is when you think about it.

The story is set in the summer when the (only) son, Leo, of a poorer solo mother goes to stay with a school friend, Marcus, from a wealthy estate (Brandham Hall) and his family. He is seconded by Marcus’s sister and her l...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, british-classic

Thirteen year old Leo spends the summer of 1900 with his wealthier school friend, Marcus, at his family estate. I have never been a thirteen your old boy but I can only imagine that this narrative from inside Leo's head is spot on. Leo is intrigued by the adult world while still enjoying childish games of sliding down the haystack or playing in the rubbish. Not fully understanding the situation, he becomes the 'go-between' for Marcus' sister Marian and the neighboring father Ted Burgess. Through...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Ian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, 1001-books

This may be just one of the most perfect novels I have ever read. In conception and execution, it is absolutely first class; in tone it is pitch-perfect from first word to last; its range covers the intimate and general with utmost confidence; every character rings true. In the summer of 1900, young Leo Colston spends the holidays with the family of his friend at their stately pile in Norfolk. His innocence allows him to be manipulated by the adults into carrying messages to abet a cross-class a...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Fiorella Maria rated it 5 of 5 stars

A stunning, heartbreaking book set in the forgotten world of pre-First World War England. I was not sure I would get on with the novel at the start, I found the opening quite slow and the use of memorabilia a rather cliched way of going back in time but when the story really got going it had me hooked. I was struck by the vulnerability of Leo and the utter selfishness of Marion, but most of all by the powerful way in which the author brings the household and all its members to life. I am always...more

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