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Day Off
First published in 1933, this outstanding collection is made up of two short novels, A Day Off and The Single Heart , and three long stories which show the variety of the author's great writing skills that make her one of the most distinguished of women writers. In A Day Off , Jameson tells of a day in the life of a middle-aged woman. A lonely woman, snatching at any relationship she can make. It is a story of great perception and understanding but tinged with bitterness and the inevitable sadness of isolation.
122 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1933
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1107 people want to read
About the author
Storm Jameson
79 books23 followersMargaret Storm Jameson was an English writer, known for her 45 novels, and criticism.
Jameson studied at the University of Leeds, later moving to London, where in 1914 she earned an MA from King's College London. She was a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She married writer Guy Chapman, but continued to publish as Storm Jameson.
From 1939, Jameson was a prominent president of the British branch of the International PEN association, and active in helping refugee writers. She wrote three volumes of autobiography.
A well-received biography, by Jennifer Birkett, Professor of French Studies at Birmingham University, was published by the Oxford University Press in March 2009.
Jameson studied at the University of Leeds, later moving to London, where in 1914 she earned an MA from King's College London. She was a teacher before becoming a full-time writer. She married writer Guy Chapman, but continued to publish as Storm Jameson.
From 1939, Jameson was a prominent president of the British branch of the International PEN association, and active in helping refugee writers. She wrote three volumes of autobiography.
A well-received biography, by Jennifer Birkett, Professor of French Studies at Birmingham University, was published by the Oxford University Press in March 2009.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 21, 2016
This is a tough sell all right. A day in the miserable life of a single woman in her 40s, plain, getting stout, works in a glove shop, this is her day off. It’s the 1930s and she’s a working class Northern woman living in London. And she pretty much hates everything and everybody including herself. This novel, it ain’t pretty, not pretty at all.
The focus is in this unnamed woman’s mind, all the time. Storm Jameson has read her Ulysses, (A Day Off published 1933, Ulysses finally published 1932) – you can clearly see that :
They think we get our pleasure listening to their lies. Old as the hills. Older. More fools us always to do it, then.
That could be Molly Bloom. We dip in and out of the stream of consciousness and we traipse hopelessly, bitterly, through this one summer day, encountering various people who she roundly despises (she has no friends, she’s waiting for a letter from her occasional male visitor, she thinks he’s dumped her). There are no laughs to be had anywhere in London. And yet, I’d say this is close to brilliant.
Books and movies fit themselves into many simultaneous categories. With this one I thought of
OBSCURITIES I HAVE QUARRIED OUT OF THE 1001 BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU CHOKE ON A FISHBONE IN A RESTAURANT
1. The Charwoman’s Daughter
2. Things
3. The Life and Death of Harriet Frean
4. A Day Off
NOVELS BY OVERLOOKED WOMEN WRITERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
1. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
2. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
3. The Fountain Overflows
4. A Day Off
NOVELS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS
1. Hunger
2. The Room
3. Dept of Speculation
4. A Day Off
NOVELS ABOUT ONE DAY ONLY (POMPOUSLY CALLED “CIRCADIAN”)
1. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
2. Mrs Dalloway
3. Ulysses
4. A Day Off
NOVELS OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS
1. Sons and Lovers
2. Micka
3. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
4. A Day Off
And there are no doubt other categories too. Oh yes, here’s one –
FOUR AND FIVE STAR NOVELS I WOULD HESITATE TO RECOMMEND TO YOU BECAUSE FRANKLY THEY’RE PRETTY DEPRESSING
1. The Year of the Runaways
2. Fourth of July Creek
3. After Leaving Mr Mackenzie
4. A Day Off
The focus is in this unnamed woman’s mind, all the time. Storm Jameson has read her Ulysses, (A Day Off published 1933, Ulysses finally published 1932) – you can clearly see that :
They think we get our pleasure listening to their lies. Old as the hills. Older. More fools us always to do it, then.
That could be Molly Bloom. We dip in and out of the stream of consciousness and we traipse hopelessly, bitterly, through this one summer day, encountering various people who she roundly despises (she has no friends, she’s waiting for a letter from her occasional male visitor, she thinks he’s dumped her). There are no laughs to be had anywhere in London. And yet, I’d say this is close to brilliant.
Books and movies fit themselves into many simultaneous categories. With this one I thought of
OBSCURITIES I HAVE QUARRIED OUT OF THE 1001 BOOKS YOU MUST READ BEFORE YOU CHOKE ON A FISHBONE IN A RESTAURANT
1. The Charwoman’s Daughter
2. Things
3. The Life and Death of Harriet Frean
4. A Day Off
NOVELS BY OVERLOOKED WOMEN WRITERS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
1. Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont
2. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
3. The Fountain Overflows
4. A Day Off
NOVELS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS
1. Hunger
2. The Room
3. Dept of Speculation
4. A Day Off
NOVELS ABOUT ONE DAY ONLY (POMPOUSLY CALLED “CIRCADIAN”)
1. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
2. Mrs Dalloway
3. Ulysses
4. A Day Off
NOVELS OF THE ENGLISH WORKING CLASS
1. Sons and Lovers
2. Micka
3. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
4. A Day Off
And there are no doubt other categories too. Oh yes, here’s one –
FOUR AND FIVE STAR NOVELS I WOULD HESITATE TO RECOMMEND TO YOU BECAUSE FRANKLY THEY’RE PRETTY DEPRESSING
1. The Year of the Runaways
2. Fourth of July Creek
3. After Leaving Mr Mackenzie
4. A Day Off
March 10, 2025
3.5 stars. A sad, depressing short novel about Eleanor, a single woman in her 40s who is down and out, with no man, no job, no money, and a little bit of pride. We follow a day in her life as she ponders her situation in various locations she walks to whilst recalling her past.
She came to London as a young independent teenager and found herself working in a hotel. She met a German married man whose wife was in Germany. The married man and the single woman lived together, running a small cafe business for a few years before World War One.
An interesting, bleak, starkly written, realistic read about a middle aged woman struggling with the mundanity and hardships of life.
This book was first published in 1932.
She came to London as a young independent teenager and found herself working in a hotel. She met a German married man whose wife was in Germany. The married man and the single woman lived together, running a small cafe business for a few years before World War One.
An interesting, bleak, starkly written, realistic read about a middle aged woman struggling with the mundanity and hardships of life.
This book was first published in 1932.
August 28, 2024
Moany old woman spends a day doing boring things and moaning about them. I’d write more but I don’t like to moan.
January 11, 2017
A Day Off is a deeply sad affecting portrait of a woman left. The wretchedness is elegiac in its starkness. I didn't know of Storm Jameson before reading this book, and not sure I have the fortitude to read another book by her, in the immediate future, but gosh she made me care about her creation. The heroine is mean, sad, lost and above all deeply human. There is a scene where she remembers being a child, hiding underneath a table in front of her mother who pretends not to be able to find her which sounds so common place but in its placing was so acute in the comparison between the deeply loved child and the deeply unloved adult, that I did that awful gulping thing when you don't want to cry in public.
April 23, 2015
This is the story of a lonely aging woman who has not made very good choices in her life. She is not a very likeable character and shook me to the core with some of her behavior. However, I found it to be a realistic portrayal of how many lives are led when looking at them in hind sight. The writing was great and I enjoyed the book.
October 8, 2021
The central character is almost comically nasty. She is utterly vile and hates and betrays everyone around her. The book covers one day in her life and the more we see of her the more we dislike and despise her. Her surroundings are as drab and depressing as she is. Reading this is not at all enjoyable.
And yet…there is something very powerful about the writing. It conjures very clear and precise images which stay with you. And although I had no sympathy at all for the horrible woman at the centre of the narrative, there were some especially powerful passages where she thinks back on scenes of her past life and you get glimpses of how very different things could have been if only circumstances had been a little more propitious…or if only she hadn’t made the wrong decision, every time. Was it nature or nurture that caused her to turn out to be such a bitch? The narrative suggests that it was probably both. This led me to uncomfortable speculations about the blasted spring time of my own youth and all my own bad decisions. Well, maybe occasionally thinking on those lines helps one to be a better person. Maybe considering loneliness and bitterness in the life of this unnamed woman helps us to understand, sympathise with and resolve some of the loneliness in ourselves and others. And the poetic beauty of some of the passages describing her early life are all the more powerful because they are suffused with the melancholy of the might-have-been.
Rating this is more or less impossible: I hated it and admired it at the same time.
And yet…there is something very powerful about the writing. It conjures very clear and precise images which stay with you. And although I had no sympathy at all for the horrible woman at the centre of the narrative, there were some especially powerful passages where she thinks back on scenes of her past life and you get glimpses of how very different things could have been if only circumstances had been a little more propitious…or if only she hadn’t made the wrong decision, every time. Was it nature or nurture that caused her to turn out to be such a bitch? The narrative suggests that it was probably both. This led me to uncomfortable speculations about the blasted spring time of my own youth and all my own bad decisions. Well, maybe occasionally thinking on those lines helps one to be a better person. Maybe considering loneliness and bitterness in the life of this unnamed woman helps us to understand, sympathise with and resolve some of the loneliness in ourselves and others. And the poetic beauty of some of the passages describing her early life are all the more powerful because they are suffused with the melancholy of the might-have-been.
Rating this is more or less impossible: I hated it and admired it at the same time.
Read
March 24, 2024Forgot just how excellent this was. Also forgot just how bleak it was. Anyhow, if anybody has a print edition that they would be willing to send me I would be incredibly grateful, though you must read it beforehand, perhaps twice.
“Does he work in Hart’s?” her mother asked.
“There weren’t room for him anywheres else.”
“They say it’s not so bad now,” she said kindly.
“They say owt.”
“They do that,” the capped woman said.
“Does he work in Hart’s?” her mother asked.
“There weren’t room for him anywheres else.”
“They say it’s not so bad now,” she said kindly.
“They say owt.”
“They do that,” the capped woman said.
June 24, 2022
Novel ini mestinya relatable, tapi ternyata tidak enjoyable. Dari awal sampai melewati separuh buku, cerita tampak seperti bayang-bayang random lagi kabur. Cerita baru menarik menjelang akhir, ketika si tokoh utama bertemu wanita tua Jerman yang kesepian yang telah berbaik hati menraktirnya kue tetapi ia malah mencolong tas orang itu dan perasaan-perasaan insecure-nya kemudian setelah membawa-bawa uang "haram". Cuma, akhirannya kembali enggak jelas.
Melihat banyaknya review positif di Goodreads ini, sepertinya masalah terletak pada penguasaan bahasa Inggris saya sehingga kurang dapat menikmati narasinya :v
Saya bandingkan saja dengan beberapa karya lain yang rada-rada mirip dengan novel ini tapi lebih mengesankan kalau buat saya.
The Grass Is Singing
The Grass Is Singing sama-sama mengangkat tentang ke-insecure-an wanita lajang, tapi dibungkus dalam alur yang lebih gereget menurut saya. Padahal saya membacanya dalam bahasa Inggris juga. Selain itu, kalau di The Grass Is Singing ada isu apartheid, di A Day Off ada sentimen anti-Jerman (menguatkan latarnya yang di Inggris setelah Perang Dunia I).
A Confederacy of Dunces
Tokoh utama dalam A Confederacy of Dunces juga despicable. Saya membacanya dalam bahasa Inggris juga dan terlepas dari banyaknya bagian yang sulit buat saya, humornya masih dapat tertangkap sehingga saya pun terhibur dan ada beberapa pelajaran lain yang bisa saya peroleh dari novel ini. Adapun A Day Off saya rasakan tanpa humor, tidak menghibur. Pelajaran yang dapat saya ambil cuma: Don't be like her. Kalau memang enggak mampu hidup "normal", setidaknya jadilah welas asih seperti Dewi Kwan Im sancai sancai amitaba ....
The Catcher In The Rye
The Catcher In The Rye juga menceritakan suatu momen dalam kehidupan si tokoh utama ketika ia berkeluyuran tak tentu arah diiringi kecamuk pikiran dan kenangan serta komentar terhadap kejadian-kejadian di luarnya. Karakter si tokoh utama sendiri tidak sepenuhnya likeable, alias memiliki kekurangan-kekurangan juga tapi saya masih dapat bersimpati kepadanya. Selain itu, meski alurnya tampak random, gaya penyampaiannya mengalir dan enak-enak saja diikuti, tidak memusingkan seperti di A Day Off ini. Mungkin karena membaca The Catcher In The Rye dalam terjemahan bahasa Indonesia yang baik, saya bisa lebih menangkap narasinya. Atau, jangan-jangan bisa juga karena tokoh dalam The Catcher In The Rye masih berusia 16 tahun sehingga melihatnya seperti melihat masa lalu sedang diri yang sekarang telah penuh permakluman, sementara tokoh dalam A Day Off telah berusia 46 tahun sehingga melihatnya seperti melihat potensi masa depan yang suram sehingga yang ditimbulkannya adalah kecemasan ....
Melihat banyaknya review positif di Goodreads ini, sepertinya masalah terletak pada penguasaan bahasa Inggris saya sehingga kurang dapat menikmati narasinya :v
Saya bandingkan saja dengan beberapa karya lain yang rada-rada mirip dengan novel ini tapi lebih mengesankan kalau buat saya.
The Grass Is Singing
The Grass Is Singing sama-sama mengangkat tentang ke-insecure-an wanita lajang, tapi dibungkus dalam alur yang lebih gereget menurut saya. Padahal saya membacanya dalam bahasa Inggris juga. Selain itu, kalau di The Grass Is Singing ada isu apartheid, di A Day Off ada sentimen anti-Jerman (menguatkan latarnya yang di Inggris setelah Perang Dunia I).
A Confederacy of Dunces
Tokoh utama dalam A Confederacy of Dunces juga despicable. Saya membacanya dalam bahasa Inggris juga dan terlepas dari banyaknya bagian yang sulit buat saya, humornya masih dapat tertangkap sehingga saya pun terhibur dan ada beberapa pelajaran lain yang bisa saya peroleh dari novel ini. Adapun A Day Off saya rasakan tanpa humor, tidak menghibur. Pelajaran yang dapat saya ambil cuma: Don't be like her. Kalau memang enggak mampu hidup "normal", setidaknya jadilah welas asih seperti Dewi Kwan Im sancai sancai amitaba ....
The Catcher In The Rye
The Catcher In The Rye juga menceritakan suatu momen dalam kehidupan si tokoh utama ketika ia berkeluyuran tak tentu arah diiringi kecamuk pikiran dan kenangan serta komentar terhadap kejadian-kejadian di luarnya. Karakter si tokoh utama sendiri tidak sepenuhnya likeable, alias memiliki kekurangan-kekurangan juga tapi saya masih dapat bersimpati kepadanya. Selain itu, meski alurnya tampak random, gaya penyampaiannya mengalir dan enak-enak saja diikuti, tidak memusingkan seperti di A Day Off ini. Mungkin karena membaca The Catcher In The Rye dalam terjemahan bahasa Indonesia yang baik, saya bisa lebih menangkap narasinya. Atau, jangan-jangan bisa juga karena tokoh dalam The Catcher In The Rye masih berusia 16 tahun sehingga melihatnya seperti melihat masa lalu sedang diri yang sekarang telah penuh permakluman, sementara tokoh dalam A Day Off telah berusia 46 tahun sehingga melihatnya seperti melihat potensi masa depan yang suram sehingga yang ditimbulkannya adalah kecemasan ....
February 9, 2026
The version of this that I read and two short novellas - A Day off and The Single Heart plus 4 short stories. None of them are happy tales and most have female main characters who have bad relationships with men. We also get a German soldier in occupied Czech at the end of the second world war and a young man who discovers his wife has been in love with his foster brother rather than him her whole life.
A Day Off takes a single day in the life of a middle aged woman who has no real job but is kept by a man who visits on weekends but who hasn't done so for a couple of weeks. You get glimpses into her past and get the impression that he is one of a few men she has used similarly over the years. It's very sad as you get the impression she just wants to be loved and would have settled for married life with some of the ones she met when she was younger.
It's written well in a sort of stream of consciousness style and I particularly liked the day dreams she has as she is sitting in Richmond Park. She imagines various scenarios of life and encounters which you (and she) know are just pipe dreams. Very believable.
She comes across as bitter and angry - again very believable given her situation. She is unkind to some of the acquaintances she comes across in her day but again I see that as a reflection on her situation - at one point she is down to her last 12 shillings.
When it was published in the 1930s this must have been a bit of a shock as it doesn't shy away from a woman's sexual desire and the men in it don't come out of the story well.
Overall I enjoyed the read and her writing style. I also enjoyed the short story which has two forgotten writers meeting up to do the equivalent of a podcast. Maybe a bit of autobiographical writing there.
A Day Off takes a single day in the life of a middle aged woman who has no real job but is kept by a man who visits on weekends but who hasn't done so for a couple of weeks. You get glimpses into her past and get the impression that he is one of a few men she has used similarly over the years. It's very sad as you get the impression she just wants to be loved and would have settled for married life with some of the ones she met when she was younger.
It's written well in a sort of stream of consciousness style and I particularly liked the day dreams she has as she is sitting in Richmond Park. She imagines various scenarios of life and encounters which you (and she) know are just pipe dreams. Very believable.
She comes across as bitter and angry - again very believable given her situation. She is unkind to some of the acquaintances she comes across in her day but again I see that as a reflection on her situation - at one point she is down to her last 12 shillings.
When it was published in the 1930s this must have been a bit of a shock as it doesn't shy away from a woman's sexual desire and the men in it don't come out of the story well.
Overall I enjoyed the read and her writing style. I also enjoyed the short story which has two forgotten writers meeting up to do the equivalent of a podcast. Maybe a bit of autobiographical writing there.
February 18, 2024
This book was very tricky to get hold of, but considering my fascination with the "unhinged spinster" genre, the effort was worth it.
We follow an unnamed woman in her 40s as she spends her day wandering the city, anxious because she anticipates that her lover (and her only source of income) has ghosted her. She is down to her last pennies, is friendless and alone, but lacks all empathy and introspection. Instead of figuring a way out of her troubles, she is angry at the world, pities only herself, and frets constantly about her fading looks. Her attitude towards other women is fueled by jealousy and aggression; when shown kindness by a stranger, she completely betrays the other's good deed.
Though the main character is extremely unlikable and lacks redeeming qualities, I still felt pity toward her due to Jameson's masterful writing style. We follow her thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style, watching her hopes fade as people leave her over and over again. She is unmoored, dependent on men but hating herself because of it, disturbed by her own fragility yet helpless to change her circumstances. Though this book is short, I found it to be a very moving psychological portrait of a desperate, lonely, and bitter woman.
We follow an unnamed woman in her 40s as she spends her day wandering the city, anxious because she anticipates that her lover (and her only source of income) has ghosted her. She is down to her last pennies, is friendless and alone, but lacks all empathy and introspection. Instead of figuring a way out of her troubles, she is angry at the world, pities only herself, and frets constantly about her fading looks. Her attitude towards other women is fueled by jealousy and aggression; when shown kindness by a stranger, she completely betrays the other's good deed.
Though the main character is extremely unlikable and lacks redeeming qualities, I still felt pity toward her due to Jameson's masterful writing style. We follow her thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness style, watching her hopes fade as people leave her over and over again. She is unmoored, dependent on men but hating herself because of it, disturbed by her own fragility yet helpless to change her circumstances. Though this book is short, I found it to be a very moving psychological portrait of a desperate, lonely, and bitter woman.
February 25, 2023
I had mistakenly assumed this day-in-the-life novella was designed as a working woman's down-to-earth response to the fanciful Mrs Dalloway. What I found was yet another fictional fat white woman whom nobody loves, labouring in vain beneath the burden of her 'thickened body' -- 'oh, the weight of it! -- with a 'sour heavy feeling' (64) and a 'heavy sour reluctance' (1) to make good use of her unwelcome furlough. She looks 'sourly at her drink' (92) feeling only a 'sour rage' at the unspecified source of her grievance, avenging herself on other friendless women. It's not at all clear from what she is seeking respite: the men who have deserted her, the women who have maligned her or the work that has destroyed her. Her life on and off duty is sketchily portrayed, perhaps because Jameson had no idea what working women actually did with their fixed and free time: 'none of these events were as real to the woman as her thoughts' (13). Sadly, the thoughts are as vacuous as the events scarcely observed. Only the woman's anger and self-pity survive, and the unconvincing authorial verdict on a life ill-lived: 'Look once more and you can see how beautiful she is. Poor woman, let her sleep.' Perchance to dream of a less dismissive narrator? My admiration for Jameson's political and social engagement does not extend to her fiction. According to the entry in the Encyclopaedia of British Women's Writing, 1900-1950, 'Jameson never insults the reader's intelligence by careful explanations.' This reader would have liked to find some extenuation of the author's lack of sympathy for her subject. It's really rather nasty, brutish and, mercifully, short.
May 24, 2020
I loved Storm Jameson's stories once upon a time...now I find them too dreary and depressing. They run the gamut from pitiful to heartrending. They were important to me in my youth, as some of many literary sources that validated and helped me shape my feminist leanings. I just didn't enjoy these stories in the least. Tastes do change. But the author was a very talented writer, no doubt of that.
May 26, 2021
This 1933 book felt really surprising to me. The main character (unnamed) is a single woman in her 40s and something about her voice felt uniquely relatable to me because I, too, am a deeply moody person. Also, I read this on my day off.
April 30, 2022
4.5/5
very very very good
very very very good
September 13, 2016
A Day Off: One of the least likeable main characters I have seen for a while. It is supposed to be a story about loneliness, but really is is more about bitterness and lack of money. It was written in 1932, and I imagine that it takes place in the beginning of the depression where being an unmarried woman must have been quite a challenge. I liked the middle part best where she decides what to do around the start of the first world war. It is obvious what would have been the best and right thing to do, but it is also not surprising why she does, what she did. At that point we have had 45 pages to get to know her personality. I think that was rather well written.
October 6, 2015
A Day Off is the story of one day in the life of a lonely, middle-aged woman who realizes she is past her prime and is about to be dumped by her current lover. She is starting to feel a little desperate and decides to give herself a day in the park, using up the last of her money on train fare, tea and maids of honor cakes. During her day, she relives her life story--and a pretty sad thing it is too, having bounced from one lover to the next, being 'kept' by them till they tire of her. She is the kind who always makes bad decisions...even now.
This is excellent writing but I just couldn't warm up to this rather pathetic character so I'm only giving it 3 stars.
Worth reading though.
This is excellent writing but I just couldn't warm up to this rather pathetic character so I'm only giving it 3 stars.
Worth reading though.
October 12, 2012
Not a main character I could like, but the way the story is written gives you an insight into her character, and why she does and thinks the way she does. We're given glimpses of her past, her teenage years, her first love, the man she was with before the war and the man she's currently with.
All this takes place in one day, a day where she takes herself to the park, visits old haunts and meets up with the people who are part of her neighbourhood.
All this takes place in one day, a day where she takes herself to the park, visits old haunts and meets up with the people who are part of her neighbourhood.
April 5, 2008
This book contains three short stories and two longer ones, set in the first half of the 20th century, in England, Czechoslovakia and Italy. My favourite was The Mask, a simple love story.
December 11, 2019
She writes sentences that make me stop and put my head in my hands.
Really takes my breath away.
Sad story beautifully written.
One of the best writers I know of.
Really takes my breath away.
Sad story beautifully written.
One of the best writers I know of.
November 20, 2025
Nature abhors a vaccum : la nature a horreur du vide
wish-list
January 8, 2019
"Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed."
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews