Music Upstairs

by Shena Mackay

Written by the author of "Redhill Rococco", which was awarded the Fawcett Prize in 1987, and "Dreams of Dead Women's Handbags", a collection of short stories, this is a novel about two women who move into a room in the Earl's Court area, London.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Shena Mackay was born in Edinburgh in 1944 and currently lives in London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and also Honorary Visiting Professor to the MA in Writing at Middlesex University.

Her novels include the black comedy Redhill Rococo (1986), winner of the Fawcett Society Book Prize; Dunedin (1992), which won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award; and the acclaimed The Orchard on Fire (1995) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. Her novel Heligoland (2003) was shortlisted for both the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Mackay’s first novel published in 1965 when she was nineteen and is set in 1960s London. I have read Orchard on Fire, which was excellent, but that was thirty years later. The novel revolves around Sidonie O’Neill, a young woman living in London bedsitland. Along with her friend Joyce she takes a room in a house with Lenny and Pam Beacon. Sidonie drifts around London during the novel, mostly without work, and has affairs with both Pam and Lenny.
There is a disjointedness to this and things tend to happen to Sidonie, she is reactive rather than proactive. There isn’t a lot of plot here and can appear incoherent, but Mackay does provoke thought and captures the rootlessness of bedsit society. There are oddities. The Beacon children are almost anonymous, but always around. It is difficult to work out how many there are, probably about four. There are few traditional notions of motherhood here.
Pam and Lenny are both needy but Lenny is an unpleasant character and clings on to Sidonie in a rather smothering way. Sidonie spends some time with a variety of men who just seem to latch on to her. She had a lack of agency which was disturbing, although when Lenny decides he is actually in love with her the atmosphere changes and the ending is quite bizarre.
It is an interesting slice of mid 60s London, but I didn’t find any of the characters particularly engaging.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one I really liked. I've tried several others by her, and some of them I just cannot get going. This however, has a lot of sexual tension; and an attractive drifting state which is very reminiscent of Jean Rhys and also of Edna O'Brien's The Country Girls - it's that strangely expanding world of the 60s: rebellious, and freeing for women, but at the same time restrictive - how women should dress, the work that is suitable etc. how they should behave didn't quite keep up with the so-called sexual liberation.
Plus a really gorgeous cover - thank you Virago.

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this mentioned on Goodreads, and immediately ordered a copy.
Mackay has a weirdly wonderful way of writing. She writes as though she is noting down her rambling thoughts, word for word. The writing does come across as a bit disjointed and sometimes not very coherent, but also really realistic - you can picture everything she is saying.
Sidonie and her friend Joyce rent a room in Earl's court from a couple named Lenny and Pam. As the story goes on, first Pam then Lenny becomes obsessed with Sidonie and tries to entice her into an affair behind their spouse's back. Sidonie goes along quite willingly with this arrangement, until Lenny decides he is actually in love with her, and is willing to leave Pam to be with her.
I must read another of Mackay's work.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 2 out of 5]

A young woman gets involved in a love triangle with the woman and man who own the house where she rents a room. Published in 1965, the novel has the rhythm and flow of that decade's pop culture, so if you're a 60s buff you might dig it. Another reviewer mentioned Jean Rhys, and I guess I can kinda see that but this lacks the haunting edginess of Rhys. At least it does in the first half. I abandoned it after that, although it only clocks in at about 150 pages. Mainly I was disappointed that it wasn't nearly as interesting, strange, or absurdly funny as either Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumburger, and Toddler on the Run or Old Crow. But I still probably would've finished it if I didn't need to prioritize my library reads before a hard deadline to return them in a few weeks.

[Roger Pettit · Rating 3 out of 5]

To describe this short novel as quirky and abstract would be an understatement. Published in 1965 when its author, Shena Mackay, was only twenty years old, it is shapeless in form - there are no chapters, for example - but it also has a kind of lyrical beauty. The plot is basically about a ménage à trois. Two young friends, Sidonie and Joyce, live in a room in Earl’s Court, London. Sidonie becomes the lover of a couple, Lennie and Pam, who live in the same house. The offbeat nature of the book and of its principal characters reminded me of some of the stories of Beryl Bainbridge (who, in fact, began writing after ‘Music Upstairs’ was published). Its claustrophobically emotional pull is reminiscent of the Parisian novels of Jean Rhys. This is a story which will not, I suspect, appeal to everyone. It’s much too idiosyncratic for that. Here is an example of its individuality. In one of the early pages, Sidonie and Pam are walking along West Cromwell Road in Earl’s Court one afternoon when a man passes them and says “You cannot imagine the intolerable agony when they stick the lighted matches between your toes”. There is no obvious purpose to this brief incident. The novel is replete with such seemingly inconsequential episodes. This staccato-like style makes it difficult to warm to. But though I can’t say that I enjoyed ‘Music Upstairs’, it’s not a bad novel. Having read it, I’d be happy to give one of Shena Mackay’s twenty or so other books a go. 6/10.

[Hilary G · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book was absolutely awful. It was disjointed to the point of incoherence. It was about ugly people doing ugly things in squalid places. Shena Mackay is reputed to be a good writer, and maybe she is. It could be unfair to judge her in this very old novel, maybe her first, but I can’t fathom how anyone saw any promise in this horrible mish mash. I didn’t enjoy it at all.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Told in an almost stream-of-consciousness style, Sidonie becomes involved with both the man and women from whom she is letting a flat.

[Andy Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a debut novel from a 19 year old, I thought this was impressive. It’s definitely a raw piece of work, lacking the polish of later novels, but if anything it’s the rawness that gives it the momentum. Organised into one big chapter and telling a story through a quick succession of events and incidents without any pause for reflection put me in mind of Beat fiction from the previous decade. The sense of restless aimlessness of the principal character, and the paranoid-obsessive relationship with both Larry & Pam, played out amidst Earls Court’s cafe’s, alleys and bars brought Kerouac’s The Subterraneans to mind, which may have been an influence.

Later Mackay books are more rounded with better character development, but this is still a great (and very quick) read.

[Marg]

not going to finish it - too abstract and moody for me

[Jane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quick read book, lacked punch to this story....