The Governor's Lady

by Norman Collins

Book by Collins, Norman

381 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Norman Collins born 3 October 1907, died 1982, was a British writer, and later a radio and television executive, who became one of the major figures behind the establishment of the Independent Television (ITV) network in the UK. This was the first organisation to break the BBC’s broadcasting monopoly when it began transmitting in 1955.

Reviews

[Ian B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sex and scandal in a British colony in the early 1930s: adultery, murder, a trial and its aftermath, and bookended by a scene set thirty years later, and containing a further revelation. This is the second Norman Collins novel I’ve read, and from the other end of his career (1968) than The Three Friends (1935). The locale is a fictional African country – Amimbo – which discouraged me a little, since I wasn’t sure how invested I could become in a non-existent place. I sometimes felt uneasy at the characterization of its black citizens, especially at the beginning where they are really only background figures: merry, childlike incompetents presented as comic types. This aspect does improve with the introduction of Mr Talefwa, the antagonistic newspaper editor eager for African rule, and Ngo Ngono, a cheerfully corrupt local chancer and businessman, who attempts to exploit both sides for his own ends. Interestingly, both were educated at English universities (LSE and Cambridge), so that, in a manner of speaking, the caller is coming from inside the house.

Anyone looking for a post- or anti-colonial novel will be disappointed; this is a firmly colonial novel, albeit with the end of that system in sight, and the shabbiness and political realities acknowledged. It is certainly very readable: efficient is the word I kept coming back to. It feels rather more generic than the Somerset Maugham Far Eastern stories I was initially reminded of: Maugham was infamous for taking his inspiration for those directly from life, with the result that his characters and their behaviour were often unusual and surprising. Here the majority of the cast tend towards the archetypal: the drunken colonial administrator, the naive new recruit, the beautiful yet unknowable woman, necessarily opaque for plot reasons. Aside from Mr Ngono, the other well-drawn figure is the Governor of Amimbo, Sir Gardnor Hackforth, whose style of leadership is founded on his practice of constantly wrong-footing people, as well as his disconnected charm, typified by the smile that comes and goes and rarely reaches his eyes.

The trouble with Collins having fallen out of favour is the lack of available information: Wikipedia notes that he joined the BBC in 1941 as an assistant in the Overseas Talks Department. I would love to know whether this was as a result of his having African experience, or whether he picked up enough knowledge from the experts he came into contact with to trust his imagination for the rest when it came to writing The Governor’s Lady.