The L-Shaped Room

Jane Graham #1

by Lynne Reid Banks

'Lynne Reid Banks' compassionate first novel examines the stigma of unmarried motherhood in pre-pill, pre-Abortion Act Britain... While the social climate has changed drastically since publication, a transgressive frisson still crackles from the pages'
The Guardian

Pregnant by accident, kicked out of home by her father, 27-year-old Jane Graham goes to ground in the sort of place she feels she deserves - a bug-ridden boarding-house attic in Fulham. She thinks she wants to hide from the world, but finds out that even at the bottom of the heap, friends and love can still be found, and self-respect is still worth fighting for.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Modern Classics, 20th Century, Contemporary, Feminism

329 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Lynne Reid Banks is a British author of books for children and adults. She has written forty books, including the best-selling children's novel The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 10 million copies and been made into a film.
Banks was born in London, the only child of James and Muriel Reid Banks. She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada during World War II but returned after the war was over. She attended St Teresa's School in Surrey. Prior to becoming a writer Banks was an actress, and also worked as a television journalist in Britain, one of the first women to do so. Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, was published in 1960.
In 1962 Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on an Israeli kibbutz Yasur. In 1965 she married Chaim Stephenson, with whom she had three sons. Although the family returned to England in 1971 and Banks now lives in Dorset, the influence of her time in Israel can be seen in some of her books which are set partially or mainly on kibbutzim.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s such a drag being an unwilling member of the PC Police, scanning fiction from the 1950s for standard racism and homophobia and grilling authors about their gender politics, so that when you choose to read a novel published in 1960 about a 27 year old woman having an illegitimate baby you feel you want to lay all the righteousness to one side and jump into this different pre-swinging time, just as you would a Jane Austin crinolinefest. But this author doesn’t make it easy to do that because she shoves the racism right in your face with her various Jewish characters and her big friendly loveable black jazz guitarist.

Lynne Reid Banks did a 50-year anniversary-of-the-L-Shaped-Room radio programme for the BBC and said that when she reread it for that programme the racism shocked her. “The prejudices existed and they came out in this book and I find them shame-making” she said.

Here’s an example - sorry, but we need to see exactly what we’re talking about. So here’s young Toby explaining to Jane who’s just moved into the grotty Fulham top floor flat that she needn’t be alarmed by her black neighbor John :

You mustn’t mind old John. He’s just naturally inquisitive. Like a chimp, you know, he can’t help it. He could no more resist having a look at you than a monkey could resist picking up anything new and giving it the once-over.

And now Jews. James is Jane’s boss and jumps to a conclusion about the father of the baby here:

How the hell did it happen? Why didn’t you phone me? How dare that little bastard do a thing like this? That slimy, devious little kike, I’d like to break his scrawny Yiddish neck! Don’t get me wrong, Jane, I’ve nothing against the Jews, I like them.

These casual or not so casual racist insults pop up so frequently that it’s like Lynne Reid Banks had some kind of Tourette’s Syndrome – she didn’t have to make her characters Jewish or black, and it almost seems that she did in order to get in passages like this one:

“Say coloureds don’t smell different from us. That one did. Smelt like a polecat.”
“Oh come now, father,” I said, not able to help laughing. “Polecats smell vile. John doesn’t smell like one at all.”

Well, I think there’s something more awkward and unnerving happening here than just the expression of racism. The characters, and I would suggest, the author, are all in various ways trying or being made to realise and perhaps change their ugly attitudes. Just as the whole book is working out a way that a single woman could have a baby and not be socially ostracized, or that a woman having a baby need not automatically grab the nearest guy to be a substitute husband and father. So the whole novel is this desperately uncomfortable fifties-about-to-become-the-sixties time when changes are only just beginning to happen. This means you get Jane veering between sod these men, I am on my own now and that’s okay by me and :

You darling blackbird! I thought, yearning for him, my treacherous female arms longing to imprison him forever.

The L-Shaped Room is a total time capsule, and fits right alongside A Taste of Honey, A Kind of Loving, Alfie and Georgy Girl (all of which are festooned with illegitimate offspring). Two final points : LRB says the movie with Leslie Caron is a travesty, and she also said that the book is totally not autobiographical, leading her mother to ask her if she shouldn’t publish it under a pseudonym as most people would assume it was. (I assumed it was!)

[Susan's Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been searching for this title for a couple of years now!!! (Could not remember the name of the author, and for a while there I thought the room was actually circular, ha ha!)



I read this as a youngster (I was in my late teens) and was intrigued by this story of a young woman who decided to keep her baby despite being unmarried and unsupported by the baby's father. She was very bohemian, but despite the fact that the action of this story is taking place in the swinging 60's, Jane's straight laced father was not "hip with the times." Loved the movie, but the book was better, despite Leslie Caron's excellent performance. (Not that it matters for this particular review, but I am pro-choice. Just wanted to make it clear that I am not advocating or judging anything here.)
I think there are two sequels, which I didn't like as much, but my memory is vague on this.



Now that I FINALLY remember the title to this one, I am going to order a copy from amazon and give it a re-read, to see if it stood the test of time!

[Nigeyb · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's easy to forget how completely different the late 1950s were in Britain when compared with the early 21st century. The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks is a perfect time capsule that puts us right back into that era. Even for readers who know about the differences it's still a shocking read. Crass and cliched racial stereotypes abound and, lest we forget, this was how the majority of British people perceived "foreigners" living in Britain, and - at this book's heart - just what a taboo it was to be pregnant and unmarried.

The L-Shaped Room tells the story of Jane, a single young woman who falls pregnant. Jane is a brave character who decides to bring up the baby by herself, after her father throws her out of home. Her feelings of determination are also saturated by shame. To punish herself she rents a sordid L-shaped room at the top of a run-down boarding house in Fulham. To say more would be to ruin a story that initially felt incidental but became more compelling towards the book's conclusion.

The L-Shaped Room brilliantly evokes a grim era when women were routinely patronised and made to feel guilty, and when being single and pregnant exacerbated this treatment. It also perfectly chronicles the lives of people on the fringes of society thrown together in a boarding house. I realise this might make the book sound depressing, and it contains plenty of downbeat sections, however ultimately it is a novel about courage, friendship, self-discovery, family, and redemption. I thought it was a great read.

After reading the book I listened to a discussion with Lynne Reid Banks on BBC Radio 4's Book Club programme which was really interesting and further enhanced my enjoyment. Click here to listen.

4/5

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting too much from this novel, so I went into it not feeling terribly hopeful, but what I received was a compelling and a somewhat poignant story of what it was to be a pregnant, unmarried woman in 1950's London.

The L shaped room is where Jane retreated to after her Father, her only hope, threw her out on the street. I'll admit, that made me feel pretty angry, but Jane Graham was a surprisingly capable and wonderfully strong character, that was unfiltered and unapologetically, herself. I liked her character, and her will to survive.

Something that I did notice from the outset was the racism present, and this occurred throughout the book. There were also some casual references to being Jewish, and gay, which I thought were quite unnecessary, regardless of the time period this was set it. The racism especially was raging here.

This book explores love, in all of it's various forms, and I enjoyed that. Jane meets people from all walks of life, and realises that she needs these individuals, just as much as they need her, and they help her grow in confidence. As the reader, this was joyous to read about.

I'll always be against the way unmarried women who were pregnant were treated in society back then. In fact, it's infuriating to know they were treated as a lesser individual, entirely because they didn't have a ring on their finger. It seems ridiculous.

This was a wonderful read, with some really clever writing, and I'd recommend to anyone that is seeking a break from the norm.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was published before the sixties swung (1960) and is the story of Jane, an upper middle class girl of 27 who finds herself pregnant and single. She moves out of her father’s house, into an L-shaped room in a dodgy house in a dodgy area.

Her self-awareness and the way she analyses her feelings and those of people around make the novel transcend its period – although she dislikes Toby’s “useless fund of self-knowledge”. At times she wants to punish herself, and telling her father was like a bullfight, “I didn’t want to see the bull killed; I just wanted to know what it would do to me to see it.” There is warmth and humour too, including meeting someone “who wasn’t even the sort of person you could enjoy being rude to.”

It is primarily about different sorts of love, loyalty and friendship, coupled with guilt, fear and thoughts about different sorts of parents and substitute parents. Jane comes to realise she has done everything in the wrong order and is “going to have a baby without ever having understood what love really means”. Later, “I felt the emptiness of fear fill solidly with relief.”

From the first page, it is clear that Jane comes from a “good home” despite, or perhaps because of her detached description of her new and unpleasant surroundings, “It might be rather interesting to talk to one” (prostitute), curtainless windows that make the houses look “like open-eyed corpses” and a damp pavement that “had that sweaty look”.

The analogy of turning a corner in one’s life and the shape of the room could be banal, but is never laboured. I think the main flaw is that most of the major points in the plot are annoyingly easy to spot in advance and although Jane is intelligent and often quite perceptive about people, she doesn’t anticipate any of them. Nevertheless, it generally avoids moralising and sentimentality, even when talking about the “spiritual bleeding” when lovers have to separate too soon after making love.

It is of its time. There is casual homophobia (“disgusting” versus “normal”), anti-semitism, and racism that is sometimes nasty (“an enormous black paw”, inquisitive like a chimpanzee with “an animal smell”) but at other times bordering on the affectionate (the smell was also “oddly comforting and reassuring”). Her initial appointment with a doctor is pretty grim as well and I hope would be equally uncommon now - he even asks about her “acts of fornication”!

Overall, it’s historical fiction that explores universal themes. 1960 is well within living memory (albeit not mine), but this book demonstrates that in many ways, it is VERY long ago.

It's also worth comparing this with Margaret Drabble's The Millstone (a similar situation, written and set at roughly the same time - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...) and perhaps Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach (written recently, set in the 60s, and featuring a woman struggling, in a very different way, with sexual intimacy, against the zeitgeist of the "swinging" 60s - http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...)

[Petra · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mixed bag of a story. It's good. It tells an important & interesting story. But it's a story of its time (late 1950s) with racism, prejudices and phobias.
It's hard to imagine (thankfully) a 27-year old woman being thrown out of her parental home for getting pregnant and being called a "tart".
The racial slurs towards Blacks and Jews are atrocious.
However, if one reads this as a book of its time, this is a warm, heartfelt story of growth, including getting beyond racial slurs, class distinctions and the stigma of being an unwed mother.
Jane herself is ashamed at the beginning of this story. Over the next 9 months, she matures and grows. She becomes aware of her own insecurities, phobias, fears, prejudices....and their irrelevance.
Jane is an endearing character. At first she came across as arrogant and snotty but maturity gives her depth.

Despite this story's time-based deficiencies, this story is real, showing the dilemma of a young woman who has to find her own way after an unwanted pregnancy changes her life in ways it no longer does today.

I will try to continue with this series. I enjoyed the main characters and hope that Jane continues to find her solid footing.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

The L-Shaped Room

List of characters

Jane Graham
Jane's father
Proprietor of the paper shop
Frank - cafe owner
Malcolm - gay actor
Terry - actor in a travelling theatre troupe
Doris - landlady
John Graham - (no relation) elderly doctor
Mrs Graham - the doctor's wife
Mrs Williams - decayed gentry, had the room prior to Jane
Toby Coleman/Cohen - writer
Mavis - elderly spinster downstairs
John - negro jazz musician (negro was an accepted term in the 1960s)
Jane - older prostitute
Sonia - prostitute
James Paige - Jane's boss
Dottie Cooper - Jane's closest friend
The Management - owner of the hotel, Jane's employer
Charlie - an elderly retired spiv
Addy - Jane's aunt, elderly, wise, strong, self-relient
Billy Lee - publisher, agent
Dr Maxwell

I read The L-Shaped Room while traveling around Outback Queensland through the Channel Country after the region had received extensive rain. The area hadn't experienced that amount of rain in decades. On this trip I packed a bag of books, more than I would get through.  A few weeks into traveling I finished reading Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot, set in Australia and Germany during WWII. A book that very much captures the Australian ethos, though not your typical Australian  book, followed hot in its heels by The L-Shaped room. A world apart geographically and in subject but also a masterpiece just the same.
I started reading The L-Shaped Room in Longreach, as I said, as soon as I'd finished Riders in the Chariot, which, is a good description of Australia under Patrick White's penetrating perception, sparing no one. What better complimentary colour to align the planets to dive into a book set in the grey down-at-heel poorer part of London. Come to think of it, the endearing character Addy would know and recognize the four riders in the chariot - Miss Hare, Mrs Godbold, Himmelfarb, and Alf Dubbo, all sainted souls.
By contrast The L-Shaped Room doesn't have any malevolent nasty hypocrites, which gives the book an inherent charm. The book is a gem that captures the mood and character of the late 'fifties early 'sixties.
The L-Shaped Room contains some beautiful scenarios through the book. Page 142-143, Jane's sudden craving for an Indian curry, the bus ride to the restaurant near Sloane Square and the subsequent meal and what follows.
Addy's home in Surry - her 'cottage constitutes a virtual library.' Addy, who's read everything, tells Jane that 'John Steinbeck had recommended Li'l Abner as one of great satires of our time.' LRB masterly weaves insights and truths into the story. A highlight for me is Page 202, Addy enlightens Jane about the nature of guilt. "The first rule about guilt, you poor fathead, is that almost no one has the courage to admit that's what's the matter with them. If you should ask him why he's drinking, he'll tell you it's because he's ashamed of his daughter. Have a little sense." (which made me contemplate at why the Church is the master at laying the guilt trip on believers).
Page 206-207 Jane reads Addy's manuscript handwritten collection of letters in absorbed amusement for two hours while Addy cooked dinner. Jane is the first person Addy had shown  the manuscript to. Jane asks "Why does he never write to her?" Addy replies "Because he doesn't exist. Men like that never do. They always have to be invented." Addy goes on to say "If ever a work of art was untainted by considerations of commerce, it is this one." I think that is priceless.
Page 209 - has an interesting point about pregnancy, whether the mood and thoughts during pregnancy imprint on the baby, or wanting either preference for a boy or a girl. And also on the effect on a boy who grows up without a father. A boy needs a father. A wonderful sentence in the writing here - "In any case, I was rapidly reaching the stage when I suspected  that every passing thought about the baby could have a positive and permanent effect on it for good or ill - as if it had been made of very soft clay and each thought was a fingerprint."

Product placement in novels always amuses me. Glen Mist, Cinzano, Fortnum and Mason. By the way, is there a hotel named Drummonds?

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

In London, in the late 1950s, society did not look kindly upon unmarried women who fell pregnant.

Jane was nobody’s fool.

She had been an actress, with a touring company, and she was doing well. She didn’t have much money, but she managed, she was happy doing what she wanted to do with her life. But Jane got on the wrong side of a difficult actor, and was ‘let go’.

She was too proud, too independent, to go home and so she took a job in a cafe. And she made a success of it, working diligently and intelligently, standing her ground against a boss who would have been all too ready to take advantage of her, and rising above the gossiping customers who wonder why the actress is working in a cafe.

Jane went home to her father, a reserved man who had raised her alone, at the appointed time and she found a good job in hotel management. She made a success of it.

But then she met an old friend from her theatre days. A friendship becomes something more, but the romance quickly fades and Jane isn’t sorry when he leaves to go on tour.

It was a little later that she realised she was pregnant. And her father threw her out.

Jane is still proud, still independent. She finds a place to live.

“There wasn’t much to be said for the place, really, but it had a roof over it and a door which locked from the inside, which was all I cared about just then. I didn’t even bother to take in the details; they were pretty sordid, but I didn’t notice them so they didn’t depress me–perhaps because I was already at rock-bottom.”

The l-shaped room. A dingey, grubby, awkward space in a run down boarding house. Jane could have afforded something better – she had savings, she still had her job – but she chose not to.

She planned to keep herself to herself, to keep her baby, and eventually to bring up her child alone.

But she knows she won’t be able to hold on to her job for too long, and she doesn’t know how she will cope when she has to give it up.

Jane doesn’t intend to mix with the other residents of the boarding house, but they are curious about her and in time she is drawn out of the shell she constructed for herself.

She forms friendships. With John, the affable musician who lives in the room next to hers. With Mavis, the elderly spinster who lives in the room below hers. And with Toby, a struggling writer, who could maybe become more than a friend.

But Jane has to deal with the consequences of her pregnancy. And she can’t hide forever.

I was engrossed by Jane’s story. She was real, and I understood her, I cared about what might happen to her, and so it was wonderful to watch her coping with everything that life through at her, with new and old relationships, with her advancing pregnancy.

This is a very human, character driven story. Lynne Reid Banks does characters so very well. Each and every one is a three-dimensional human being, with a life story, with a rounded character, with strengths and weaknesses …

That made the story so very, very real.

There were moments, particularly near the end of the book, when things fell into place a little too well. But I was caught up by them and so I accepted it.

At times Jane seemed to have a little too much good luck, but things never went entirely to plan. And I think she earned some good luck. By working. By coping. By standing on her own two feet.

This is, after all, just one woman’s story. Others, in the same situation at the same time, must have encountered far more difficulties.

The important thing was that Jane grew up. I met a proud and independent young woman, I followed her though many ups and downs, and I saw her mature and become wiser, and more understanding of the people and the world around her.

In the end she had to leave the l-shaped room that she had made into a real home.

I loved this book when I read it first, in my teens, and I love it still.

I’m curious to remind myself what happens to Jane next. I really don’t remember. But I recall not liking the two sequels as much as this book the first time I read them, so maybe it’s better to go on wondering …

[Mary Durrant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jane's struggle to cope is a journey of self discovery and independence..... a wistful and haunting period piece.

You can almost feel the squalor of the stark dingy L shaped room where Jane goes when her father threw her out after he discovered she was pregnant.
Set in 1950's London where life was very different and unmarried mother's were frowned upon!
Jane ends up in a bed sit in a house in Fulham.
Beset by bed bugs, dirt and morning sickness.
Her neighbours bring comfort to her, John the black musician and Toby the Jewish writer.
They bring kindness, compassion and love which helps Jane to find strength to face the future.

Very compelling and beautifully written.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt that there was a certain truth to Jane. She was a contrary little snob filled to the brim with a toxic mix of self-pity, racism, anti-Semitism and homophobia. But I didn't think other aspects worked very well. Aunt Addy arriving on Christmas morning was a bit silly; why hadn't Jane previously mentioned her caring and unconventional spinster aunt as a potential source of support?

If you read this, you need to be prepared for:

"A surge of the powerful negro odour preceded him."

"You might just as well describe your plot to a shop-girl in Woolworth's and hope she'd see its possibilities."

"Do negroes have more teeth than other people? I'll swear they do."

"Better you than some club for Jewish juvenile delinquents. Take it and buy a pram, and if your conscience bothers you, paint 'Down with Arabs' on one side and 'I like Kykes' on the other."

"I knew almost nothing about little boys except that their need of a father was imperative if they were not to grow into Oedipus-riddled weaklings or even outright homosexuals."

[Bookguide · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as a teenager, and it was probably the first teenage book I read. As such, it made a huge impression on me and made me think about gritty social issues which I had never before considered: abortion, teenage mothers, poverty. These were all things which I had no actual first-hand experience of, and the idea of the multiracial society was worlds away in my provincial town. I didn't realise that there were sequels to 'The L-Shaped Room'. It would be interesting to read the whole series to see how it progressed and to examine the issues again, thirty-something years on.

Edited on 10 June 2020 to add:
In light of the current Black Lives Matter protests, I was idly wondering which book was the first book I read with a black character and suspect this may have been the one. For me, reading it as a teenager in the late 1970s or early ‘80s, the thing I remembered most was the experience of having an unwanted pregnancy and the squalor of the room. In my memory, she was a teenager, but
Paul Bryant’s review mentioned she was 27, so hardly a child and he highlights how racist the language was. I remember odd details, like the fact that she hated her ears and chose a hairstyle to cover them. I had certainly forgotten that her neighbour was black and that the language was racist. I used to say it was one of my favourite novels as a teen so I appreciate his detailed review highlighting the things I’d forgotten about it in the interim. It certainly remains as a good witness statement on social attitudes of the period.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

For the most part of this book, this young woman annoyed the life out of me. Jane is the sort of female that I have an abhorrence for because my experience is that such women generally grow old with the same lack of resolve.

This read is in the first person, Jane who is just under 30 but who still acts like a teenager, seemingly unable to make clear decisions regarding her life.

It all starts with her passion for a young man in the theatre group she belongs to after leaving school too soon (not finishing with matriculation) but can never get past the fondling mucking around stage to have a full blown sexual encounter with him. If she had've gone through with it in the early stages she would not have made such an erroneous mistake in pursuing him when older.

Jane has managed to get herself into a reasonable job, the theatre career like most in the arts fails through lack of talent, however this job has eventuated also, only by much manipulation by her immediate boss to the CEO. Seemingly unable to find a suitable male involvement Jane embarks on pursuing this acquaintance from the theatre group all those years ago without realising that every year of our lives our habits, likes and dislikes change. The result is disastrous and Jane without taking precautions becomes pregnant, although it does take her a few months to realise this and then only after seeing the doctor. Her father in shock tells her to leave but instead of waiting until the storm blows over she does just that. She ends up in a flea, bed-bug riddled boarding house which is obviously in stark contrast to where she had been living at the family home. Of course almost 30 and Jane is still living at home is another indicator of her unexceptional life.

At this boarding house nothing changes much for Jane out of her own volition, rather it's the people around her that make the difference in her life. Her favourite Aunt Addy eventually makes contact with her and becomes another who makes decisions for her and ultimately sets her up for life. Her father takes her back home, Terry, the one night stand lover returns from being away but with the one smart decision Jane makes lets him off the hook of parental involvement.

[Maygirl7 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was 22 and living in London. It made me search all Lynn Reid Banks books for a while. Just thinking about this book is causing a rush of memories and remembered emotions. If just thinking about a book can cause that much internal activity, I feel justified in the five stars.

[Annie]

I first read this book in junior high. I read about it in the back of some other book. I put it on hold, or requested it from the library. When it came the library clerk tried to give it to my mother, mistakenly thinking she had requested it. He had hard a time accepting that a tiny little girl like me wanted to read it. ( I may have been around 12 or 13 but I looked like I 8 or 9) I remember him looking at the both of us like I shouldn't be reading this book. My mother never restricted me from reading any book even if it might have "inappropriate" bits in it or bits I wouldn't understand. She let me read whatever I was inclined to read. The only time remember her discouraging me from reading something was when I showed interest in trashy paperback romance novels I had seen at friends house. She objected not because of their content but because they were badly written, with poor story lines and they would be a waste of good reading time. This book makes me think that though she may have been restrictive in other things like T.V. or clothing she never was when it came to books.


Now years later as a reread this book the only thing that stuck in my mind was the title. I know I finished it as a child, I can remember sitting in a Doctor's waiting room reading it and getting odd looks. But putting it on hold again at a now different library I couldn't remember any details of the story.

After the reread I so many mixed feelings about this book. It is well written with a good story line that flows smoothly and likable characters. But, BUT, it has very racist bits that are difficult to get past and ignore. I know I have to consider when it was written. It is not intentionally racist, but racist almost in casual way. I could like this book so much better if it weren't for how the character of John is portrayed. Every time it happened it was just sad and disappointing. So I am not going to rate this book with any stars, I just can't.

[Realini Ionescu · Rating 4 out of 5]

The L-Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
9 out of 10


The L-shaped Room is a phenomenal, mesmerizing book, but somehow it confirms the old adage or maybe it is a saying, perhaps a Bon mot of sorts which claims that it is not the work of art that counts so much as the reader, viewer and what he makes of it.

I found the first part engaging, splendid, captivating, credible so to say, while the second - let's say half - seems to lose gravitas, the proper purpose...in fact I don't even know what if anything happened in the story...it could have been in my mind.
The L-shaped Room has been included on The Guardian list of 1,000 Books Everyone Must Read and you can find it on the Internet...I mean them, both the book and the list.

Jane Graham is the heroine of this narrative and the L-shaped Room is the place where she moves -a rather outre choice for the title of the novel and, maybe even more peculiar, as an object of the affection of the star of the show.
The protagonist is pregnant and when she informs her only remaining parent, her father, this one tells her to get out of his house, although, at a later stage, he would change this attitude dramatically- and it felt as one of the elements that did not connect very well for this reader.

Evacuated, the twenty seven - was she? - year old woman takes refuge in a sordid, bleak house, where the landlady is one unpleasant- to begin with, she becomes more acceptable at the Christmas party and other moments - woman called Doris.
The room is as depressing as it can be, when first looked at, but the heroine becomes so attached to it as to transfer this odd feeling on to the title of the book and then come to see it again, like an old friend, once she finally departs from it.

One other tenant of the house becomes crucial in the scheme of things, one might say the other, second most important character - he is Toby Coleman, as he calls himself in the first place, but his real name is Tobias Cohen, a Jewish man that tries for a while to hide his real origin and he is right, for another key figure in this game, Terry, and many others like him are antisemite, or if not that, prejudiced against the race anyway.
Toby is a confused writer, who has not come to terms with own self, he is uncertain, asks the opinion of unqualified people on his writing, tries to hide his real identity and what is worse, he acts with unpardonable stupidity versus Jane.

Next door to the heroine, there is a friendly, eccentric, we learn late in the story that he is a a gay man, named John, who helps the pregnant woman so much that she states sometime that he and Toby could be called fathers of the baby more than the biological one, given that they will have been so involved, while the "real one" absent altogether, after she had lost her virginity to him, they have both become repelled by the other and then the actor, Terry, who had been her boyfriend for some time departs for France.
Jane has good job in an expensive hotel, where she has a very loyal boss, called James, but she is forced to leave when she is sick one day, because of her pregnancy, and this happens in front of an important client and the owner of the establishment, who had learned about her condition calls his employee and demands that she stops working for them.

The situation was aggravated by the fact that the heroine says she is sick in front of this diva, who takes it as an insult, an expression of the horror felt at her flashy clothes and outfit and this celebrity complains to the management and it all becomes rather dramatic, for Jane had chosen a squalid house because she will be very soon short of money, knowing she would have to stop working in the later stages of her pregnancy.

One night, she is invited with Toby to the club where John is a musician, she drinks too much - they were evidently unaware of the dangers of drinking and smoking for the unborn infant - and the relationship that had been close, amusing, provocative, but platonic and looking like it will forever be that way, becomes as intimate as possible.
It will follow nevertheless a trajectory that did not agree with yours truly, for the reactions of one and the other are more than baffling- that could be excellent, challenging- and become inarticulate, seemingly forcefully patched together...but this is most likely just a wrong, subjective impression.

The fact is that the two main characters make love - while the heroine had a terrible first sexual experience, followed by only another coitus with the same actor, the only "lover" before Toby and just as horrid - and the Male hero declares his love for Jane, who cannot respond at that time and even worse, she departs for the hotel, where she is soon to be sacked.
Meanwhile, John had heard the love making and felt very insulted by it, thinking they do not care about him, perhaps a tad jealous - he could have been jealous - and informed Toby about the condition of the expecting woman, calling her a whore and causing the sudden departure of the insecure lover who would not return for about two days.

The main characters would make peace, but the young man feels awful because he is very poor, unable to provide for the woman he loves and somehow blaming her for the fact that he is unable to write, projecting his insecurities and associating his partner with his anxieties and the failure to achieve much, if anything so far.
Jane has a smart few words to say about success, in the sense that she would love him better if he would be successful, meaning by that that he has to love what he is doing and I guess she defines her success in that way...if one does not find any meaning in his activity, that is the opposite of success and then he or she is nothing...words to that effect, I hope.

There is another interesting commentary, in fact two, one of which is more of a definition the first is offered by one of the prostitutes that live in the basement of the house, who becomes rather close to the heroine...well, not that close, my mistake...they share some moments and the whore might have saved the life of the expecting woman when she fell unconscious, or at least she prevented potential serious damage.

It is more or less like this:
"God thought of sex as a joke - he must have, considering the ridiculous moves in the air that males do when they have intercourse - and when he saw that people took it seriously, he made it a sin, upset by the misunderstanding"

Further on, there is another thought I liked on religion...

"Religion is the pinning up of faith across the ugly vista of logic and reality to fulfill a dream"... Beautiful and deep, isn't it?

To end with, there was also a phrase uttered by the ambulance driver that takes Jane back home...a few words actually...

"Bonjour, as they say in Jamaica"

[Mela · Rating 4 out of 5]

...I learned that 'confession' doesn't ease the soul, but challenges it.

This book was a time capsule.

I agree with Paul Bryant, it was often awkward and unnerving. I didn't know that the 50-ties in the UK had prejudices still 'flowing in the veins'. I am tempted to quote some ridiculous opinions about homosexuality or Jews (or people with darker skin), just to show you their absurdity, but it is better to bury them. By the way, mentioned Paul Bryant wrote that (50 years after the novel was first published) Lynne Reid Banks said she is ashamed of those times/people today.

Nonetheless, it was an interesting (and at many points moving) journey into those times. It was a reminder of how recently some social rules changed. So many things seem obvious that we forget that e.g. women in XX century drunk and smoked in pregnancy.

The love story (two love stories?) was also fascinating.

But there are, I was learning, different landscapes in the country of love.

PS It is amazing how some people can fight for e.g. equal rights for all religions but not for all nationalities, etc.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a strange one. Having read and enjoyed the Indian in the Cupboard as a child, I was intrigued by the idea of reading a 'grown-up' novel by the same author. It was not a great book - characters were characters instead of people was my main complaint and it had the feel of a soap opera or a Romeo and Juliet love story where people seem to have no brains and fall victim to the passion of love when it suits the plot. The strangest part of the book was the constant racist and anti-Semitic comments (He smelled strange, like all black people. Of course he's Jewish - did you see his nose? etc etc). I am unsure if this was a commentary on the reality of the times (the book takes place in the fifties and was published in the sixties) or if the author is/was, well, racist. The only thing that saved it for me was the idea of the main character living in this little room, that she fixes up for herself. Ever since being a child, I have always loved this story line where characters turn a less than ideal living place into a cozy home, ie the boxcar children, pioneer stories etc.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I raced through this book. It's easy to read and the heroine––stubborn, smart, capable––is easy to like. The casual slurs she drops about blacks, Jews, and homosexuals are nasty, but they accurately reflect ordinary thinking in the late '50s; that fact doesn't make them more acceptable, but it does put them into a context. Of course, the viciously casual rejection of such people as being outside social norms and thus undeserving of respect resembles the attitude directed at pregnant single women like the heroine, something she recognises at least partially by the end of the book. It's hard to imagine now just how shocking this book was when it came out, with its pregnant heroine, whom it refuses to condemn (she herself regards the sex that produced the pregnancy as regrettable, not because it was immoral but because she had it for bad reasons and because it was bad sex), and its practical representation of the realities of pregnancy, abortion, sexual activity, and female desire.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in the early 70s. The story probably stood up better then than now. I do not think that you can look at this 1950s story (or the 60s) with todays moral standards. If you became pregnant and you were unmarried it was a disgrace and you had three choses, A shot gun wedding, the unmarried mothers home and adoption or if you were lucky your mother would bring the child up as her own.
Women were wolf whistled and shouted to in the street, plus groped on the tube in the 'rush hour' crush. Sexual harassment was riff in the work place and excepted, a quick slap around the face was a girls only defence.
Females were second class , earning less wages whilst doing the same job as men (no equal pay). They were not allowed to wear trousers in the office, and it was her fault if she became pregnant, not the man (it was only natural for him to try, after all).
If you can understand how things were at that time, then this book has more meaning.

[Louise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book. It's a sad little tale following a pregnant girl/woman who has got 'knocked up' after a brief fling. It follows her life over a year and how she copes with it in an age where unmarried mothers are excluded and shamed.

You do feel for the character but there were lots of points where I'd have given her a slap and told her to get a grip as she was wishy washy. Perhaps that's my personality but I do recommend you read it to see if you agree.

[Emma French · Rating 4 out of 5]

The L-shaped room av Lynne Reid Banks (1960); ahHh vet inte vart jag ska börja. Tycker verkligen om Jane Graham som karaktär. Det känns intimt att följa henne, som att vara någons bästavän på långt håll. Hon är så långt ifrån perfekt att hon som karaktär känns äkta, och därför hade jag nästan svårt att se historien som påhittad. Bitvis är hon irriterande, men det såklart att hon är? Hon är kvinna och hon är gravid och hon har ingen trygghet kvar att hålla fast vid. Alla hade varit irriterande då, arga och ledsna och förvirrade och elaka. Det kändes naturligt och gav boken känslan av en dagbok. Fast skriven långt efter en händelse, som någons eftertanke? Och Jane, med alla sina fel och brister, lär sig i takt med läsaren. Hon lär sig om sig själv och barnet inom sig, den nya miljön hon plötsligt finner sig i och männsikorna där. Det är en vacker historia.

Samtidigt är den här boken ett barn av sin tid, som en liten kapsel från då. Den är fylld av fördomar, framförallt rasism och antisemitism. Läste många recensioner som tyckte att detta va svårt att se bort ifrån. Och kanske gör jag fel som ser mellan fingrarna, men den är skriven på 50-talet i London och det gör den till historia, den visar på sin tids idéer. Det känns farligt att täcka över sånt som varit, vet inte i hur många historietexter till skolan man skrivit "vi lär oss av historien".

Dessutom får vi följa Jane Graham genom en tid av livet då hon stöter på en mängd olika människor, som hon i sitt tidigare medelklassliv aldrig korsat vägar med. Från att till en början stöta undan all form av mänsklig kontakt som någon sorts försvarsmekanism, så finner hon snabbt vänskap i vad som i hennes värld måste betraktas som de mest oväntade personer. Och hon växer på nåt sätt in i både sig själv och sin omvärld.

När jag läste den här tänkte jag på hur lite jag vet om graviditet och vad det gör med en? Förutom hur Jane själv möts av fördomar från samhället, som ogift gravid kvinna, så berör den andra känslor kring vad som händer i kroppen. Utifrån hennes situation tar det lång tid tills hon vågar tänka på barnet i magen som en verklig person. Och när börjar man egentligen älska den som växer i magen? Till och med förlossningen beskrivs, hur allt runt om henne suddas ut och plötsligt är det bara en sak som är viktig. Gud vad svårt att vara en mamma

[Bethany · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't the edition I have. I would add my copy to the goodreads database except it was published in 1975 and has a horrible reeks-of-70s, are-these-even-the-right-characters cover. Every time I look at it I giggle and grimace simultaneously. Also in my edition, on the last page there's a lone ad to buy The Joy of Sex for only $5.95. Woot! I wonder if I sent in the voucher now if I could still get it for such a groovy price.

Anyhow. The L-Shaped Room. In my opinion, not nearly as good as Margaret Drabble's The Millstone which is a similar book. (Both novels tell tell the story of an unmarried woman who becomes pregnant in a time when it was still unacceptable in most circles.)

Though The L-Shaped Room had a much more sordid setting, it was more fairy tale-ish in its conclusions. From my remembrance, The Millstone was more humorous, yet more realistic. Characteristically, I prefer the latter.

For a while, I was unable to put down The L-Shaped Room and I really liked it, but those feelings faded for a multitude of reasons (most of which I can't shape into coherent thoughts).
Also, I must say in some ways it was uncharmingly dated. (It was set and written in the 1950s.) There were derogatory views of gays, Jews, and black people... and the main character drank like a fish all throughout her pregnancy. Cringe!

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few weeks ago I happened to catch the 1962 film with Leslie Caron on TCM and liked it so I tracked down the book, which I liked as well. It is about a young, pregnant woman who's father has thrown her out and she goes to live in a boarding house. She vows to herself not to become involved with the the other tenants while she decides what to do with her life as that will only complicate her situation. Of course she does and it does. It was a good story, kept me interested, nice detail. It was, I surmise, a bit forward for its time as it does discuss abortion but at the same time was a bit backward regarding gays and blacks. The film chose to make another character gay and I thought did a bit better job of it.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The L-Shaped Room is one of those books that was incredibly brave and daring for its time (1960) and I feel like I would have perhaps enjoyed it a lot more had I read it back then. I didn't really warm to the main character Jane very much, a young pregnant woman who has been kicked out of her family home by her father. She ends up renting the 'l-shaped room', a shabby and dirty flat in the rough end of town, with prostitutes in the basement and begins to interact with the various other tenants. My main gripe though was the blatant racism and homophobia, I know it was written in what seems like a completely different world to the one we live in now, but it was certainly difficult reading some parts. I give it 3.5/5, I'm glad that I read it, but I wouldn't want to read it again.

[Nicholas Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deeply flawed because of the blatant racism. Secondary characters are thinly sketched with the egregious example of the "Negro musician" reduced to an infantile caricature. Shame really as this is a solid portrayal of a single pregnant women striving to assert her independence in the UK beset on all sides by a society that is still solidly patriarchal. Worth reading for the solid core of this novel, while cringing at the attitudes to Jews, Homosexuals and the aforementioned musician.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stars Lynne Seymour

Category:
Drama

after 5 episodes I have firmly decided that the subject does not appeal.

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half dragged a bit, but eventually I started to get into the story more. It may have had more to do with the times we are currently living through.

[MargaretDH · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this up because as a kid, reading Lynne Reid Banks books really fired my imagination, and I had no idea that she wrote any books for adults. So I was curious to see what she would do with adult themes.

And I was pleasantly surprised by this, with some important caveats. Let's get the bummer parts out the way first. This book is of its time, and very racist. This is a book partly about outsiders, so there's a black character, more than one Jewish character, and more than one homosexual character. There's lots of slurs, some casual comparisons of black people to animals in smell, mien and instinct, and just general grossness. Reid Banks said later that these bigotries were floating all around her, and came out in her writing, and that re-reading it in the 21st century, she finds it 'shame-making.' Look, I know lots of older books have lots of 'ists' in them, but this one was really something. I also know that she was purposefully writing about outsiders - an unwed mother was a deeply shameful thing to be, and the main character retreats to the margins of society, so of course we will find other marginalized people there. And in many ways, the marginalization of all of the characters in the book is shown to be unfair and unwarranted. But some of this is just bigotry. We could have seen John the black man as marginalized without our narrator referring to his 'paw' rather than hand, for example.

Written in the 50s, this book explores what it was like to be an unwed mother. It explores themes around love and how we give it, coming terms with the self, and transformation. It's also about social mores, and how they are enforced. Even though Jane is 27 at the beginning of the book, she becomes an adult through the course of her pregnancy, and becomes truly independent. The eponymous l-shaped room is the room Jane rents in a run-down rooming house after her father kicks her out because of her pregnancy. When she arrives, it's about as grim as it could be. But slowly, through her own work and through accepting the help of others, Jane improves the room until it's a home - a home totally of her own.

Of course, as Jane improves the room, she improves herself. As she gets to know her neighbours (even one of the prostitutes in the basement), she realizes that even though they're different than her previous social circle and family, they're humans with love to offer of their own. As she lets them into her room, and goes into theirs, she learns more about herself and how to make choices that will allow her to love and be loved, and live with dignity and integrity. The metaphor is never strained, and it's a rather lovely story.

If you'd like to see what it was like in 1950s London before the 60s started to swing and before the taboo around unwed motherhood loosened, pick this up. Jane is an interesting character, forthright, honest with herself, and occasionally selfish and impetuous. I would recommend this, but do be aware that the racism and homophobia here is very much out loud.

You can listen to Reid Banks talk about this book on the fiftieth anniversary of its publication (and her experience of being one of Britain's first on camera woman reporters) on the BBC website. It's well worth a listen.

[Rick Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this a bit of a mixed bag. The writing style felt a bit stilted and pedestrian, but maybe that’s just down to when it was written — it was first published in 1960.
What’s really interesting about it, though, is the way it captures social prejudices of the time. It’s not just about the stigma around unmarried mothers; it covers pretty much everyone who didn’t fit the mold — women in general, non-whites, gay people. It’s a reminder of how far we’ve come, thankfully.
I enjoyed the descriptions of the bedsit in Fulham. Having lived in a bedsit myself once (though not L-shaped), I thought it was spot-on. Banks really nailed the atmosphere of that kind of place.
The story itself felt a bit twee and predictable at times, and while the characters were colourful, they often came across as shallow. Overall, I’d say it’s just okay as a novel, but quite interesting as a piece of social commentary from the late '50s.

[Katarina · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slow start, but I ended up really enjoying this book! The writing is pretty engaging and the story was interesting. Overall a nice quick read.