Going into a Dark House

by Jane Gardam

'Molly Fielding's mother had been a terrible woman...' A terrible woman indeed. One need only to look at the old sepia photograph to see a vision of nastiness. The look of cunning, the self-satisfied smile, the aura of hauteur as she watches the little Italian photographer go about his business. They say the camera never lies, but maybe this one did...'Going into the Dark House', the title story of Jane Gardam's passionate new collection, brilliantly captures the subtly subversive qualities of her art. Quietly mesmeric and quite beautifully written, these ten stories are a delight.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literary Fiction

183 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Jane Mary Gardam was an English writer of children's and adult fiction and literary critic. She also penned reviews for The Spectator and The Telegraph, and wrote for BBC Radio. She lived in Kent, Wimbledon, and Yorkshire. She won numerous literary awards, including the Whitbread Award twice. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2009 New Year Honours.

Reviews

[Esdaile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nomen est omen. The tile of Jane Gardham's short collection of short stories “Going into a Dark House” has death as its common theme. There are only ten stories in this collection but not one of them is not worth the time it takes to read it. The especial quality of the writing is to provide a twist to each tale, an unexpected turn, a subversion of our assumptions that lulled us along while we read. In this respect the writing may be said to resemble a traditional English "whudunnit" but with the important difference that the reader is not driven to read by the need to reach a solution to a mystery or make a discovery. The unexpected does not dominate the story, it is integral to it, interwoven with acute insight into human nature and a high descriptive and imaginative power. The discovery or solution or unexpected conclusion rounds off each tale without being the defining substance of it. All beset with the melancholy of death, the stories are without sentimentality and without cynicism. To be realistic and at the same time neither cynical nor sentimtal is an accomplishment in itself. Jane Gardham is a highly accomplished descriptive writer, but she is also able to lace her stories with lightly humorous dialogues. Occasionally perhaps she becomes carried away with her power to describe a scene at which point I gained the impression that she was using her powers to show off for the sake of showing off, to put her writing on display as though she were leading a course in creative writing and was saying “now here is an example of powerful descriptive writing”. This excess is rare; more often her writing nicely provides a strong backdrop to compelling scenes, scenes so vivid that I think of an old painting or photograph whose figures might have suddenly returned to their life of the moment of their depiction. The stories are driven by both human interest, enjoyment of the accomplishment of the writing and the interest of the story itself. United around the theme of death, this is a heterogeneous collection of stories nevertheless, ranging from the unusual circumstances surrounding the protracted demise of a nun, to a tale which covers three generations with an illumination of forgotten or half-forgotten motivation and passion, so that generations are linked by their common humanity, not humanity in a sentimental lukewarm sense of being kind to one another, but humanity in the sense of the variegation and colour of the different characters who abound in life and in memory beyond life and who are all human beings making their brief imprint for better or worse on other human lives, on their own life and on the lives of those around them.

[Buried In Print]

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[Tony Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This set of short stories could be subtitled Tales of Spiritual Starvation. A duchess sweeps cheeses and fruit into her handbag at a charity event; market gardeners wade through produce but can barely set a table of food for their children or themselves; other children grow into desiccated high-flyers.

There is little outright cruelty. Usually the suffering is caused by people (usually women) who are simply stripped clean of imagination or emotional generosity. Mild affectionateness covers the chill incapacity to love.

There are quite a few ghosts, real or otherwise. The stories move back and forth across the border of the supernatural. But I believe the author always uses them as a device to sketch character and real-world circumstance, like an actor using space off-stage, or a photographer ready to perch in any awkward or risky spot to catch the image. Nuns also come into it more than once.

The last three pieces are connected under the title "Telegony", a study of the complex interweave of mother and daughter, and its lingering effects.

The cover of the edition I read is taken from the painting The Harvest is the End of the World and the Reapers are Angels by Roger Wagner. It is the only depiction of Judgement Day that I have ever found frightening.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a truly lovely collection of stories, especially Zoo-Zoo, which I will ruminate on for many weeks to come. I have read a number of Gardam novels now, and she continues to surprise, to delight. I think it is her warm, complex characters and the way she describes little moments, the passing glimpses of the world around. Her stories seem simple, but they are rich and full of poetry, philosophy and wisdom.

From Zoo-Zoo: ''The car careered up the side of the bank as towards them down the narrow road came a machine like a factory. It clattered up, easing itself awkwardly, a multi-purpose thing, a bright-orange, robotic farm-monster, almost exponential. It paused and snarled and thought for a moment about taking the little car up in its teeth and tossing it over into the apple trees.''

[Jeff Hobbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read so far:

Blue poppies --3
Chinese funeral --2
Zoo-zoo --2
The meeting house --2
The Damascus Plum --3
Dead children --3
Bevis --3
Telegony: Going into a dark house, Signor Settimo, The hot sweets of Cremona --3
***
Bang, bang, who's dead? --2
Light --3
A spot of Gothic --3
The weeping child --3

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some glorious short stories with writing so vivid that you could taste the damson tart and feel the breezes near the meeting house. A wonderful description of a wedding photograph; capturing the scene in so few words. So happy to have had the recommendation for Old Filth from Joan M.

[Susan Hyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten clever, very British, very odd short stories. Wonderful, so very English descriptions.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read all of Jane Gardam's novels, I am going back to her short story collections. These are not included in her anthology "The Stories" and are much older works.
BLUE POPPIES
Lillian's mother is in her nineties and accompanies her daughter to Clere, the home of the duke and duchess. Witty and sensitive.
CHINESE FUNERAL
An Englishwoman and her husband are in Hong Kong and join a trip into China. Not what they were expecting.
ZOO ZOO
Another nonagenarian, Sister Alfege, is a German nun in a convent in Kent. All about how she left her homeland before the war and stayed. She is on her way to a place that can nurse her poor legs. But the nuns who accompany her there have a shock on the way back.
THE MEETING HOUSE
The Quakers have an old building in a deserted place, high up in the hills of the far north west, only visiting in the summer. New arrivals seem to torment them. But is this a ghost story?
THE DAMASCUS PLUM
An introduction to the gourmet food and fish of the East Kent coast. A visitor is young Klaus, very intelligent but with no imagination. Treating him to a dinner of many courses that he enjoyed but never remembered.
DEAD CHILDREN
Ancient Alison Avery is meeting Pete and Annie, her two grown up children to talk about her will. But for various reasons that doesn't happen on this particular day. They walk on the common that is still home to the old lady, her remembering when they were children. But remember the title?
BEVIS
The longest of the stories by far at nearly 40 pages. Our narrator is 13 and his ma a widow. That leaves Auntie Greta Willis and her huge daughter Jilly. The young ones are off to see their frail grandmother in a care home that becomes a surreal adventure. Jilly hopes to meet Bevis, a much older man, the object of her affections. Thwarted by a big twist at the end.
TELEGONY
Three short but connected pieces.
1: going into a dark house
Molly, who we have met before, is now 94 and the narrator's "mother's friend". Molly says she "is frightfully mean" but is the opposite. (Once buying the narrator a car). Her investments are amazing, but she she lived in a house that has no heating. Now in a little house on an estate for retired people, but still driving her own car.
11: Signor Settimo
He is that new photographer that has opened for business in Shipley of all places. Mrs Ironside persuades him to take a photo of her daughter, here is Molly as a schoolgirl.
111: The Hot Sweets of Cremona
We know this is where Settimo came from, but here is Molly's daughter Alice (now herself a grandmother) with a friend talking about Molly, her mother and all that family history. These three short stories are a kind of experiment, but for me, the least successful of all.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant collection of short stories. Themed on death - which is sad as I would like to lend the book to my mum but might not be appropriate as she is 92. Lots of them have twists in the tale (tail?) but apart from one, the twists are extra interest, not the main focus. Another reviewer has said it all - in much more depth than I could do so go and read Esdaile's review.

[Tansy Hepton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully written short stories, slightly surreal but also well observed. Poignant and thoughtful. Only 3 stars because I ran out of steam and didn't finish the last 3-some (which I see some others have picked as their favourite).

[Nik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-crafted prose, but not my favorite Gardam.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.25 stars.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a big fan of short stories but am prepared to make an exception for Jane Gardam

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's rare to read a short story collection so consistently wonderful. Gardam is a supreme craftswoman. Each story ended with that subtle shift in perspective and sense of rightness that make me have stop and savor. "Blue Poppies" was probably my favorite, but there really wasn't a miss here.

[Clare Coffey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really did enjoy this. I have never read any of Jane's work although I have heard of her. This book is a compilation of her short stories and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.
I would recommend this book to friends and colleagues.

[Carlton · Rating 4 out of 5]

As ever, a superlative collection of short stories in Jane Gardam's familiar settings of Yorkshire and London. I especially enjoyed the three inter-connected final stories (Telegony) about Molly Fielding, her mother and daughter.
Bevis was also a superb evocation with a lovely twist at the end.

[Cath Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably the best short story writer alive today.

[Joanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful stories, great author.