ON THE GUARDIAN'S 2001 READING LIST FOR WAR FICTION

It is a summer's day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall and their daughter Victoria are forced to manage without 'those anonymous caps and aprons who lived out of sight and pulled the strings'. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see what it would have meant if the war had been lost, and looks to the future with a new hope and optimism.

First published in 1947, this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, charting, too, a gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.

* Featured on the Virago website at www.virago.co.uk * Possible radio reading

About the Author
Mary Patricia (1906-1997) was a novelist and newspaper columnist for The New Yorker. Aged sixteen, she wrote The Shoreless Sea which became a bestseller; eight editions were published in 1923 and 1924, and the book was serialised in The Daily Mirror. Her second novel The Chase was published in 1925. Her selected works include My Husband Simon (1931), One Fine Day (1947) and Good Evening, Mrs Craven.

Reviews
Mollie Panter-Downes, a wartime voice to treasure . . . virtually forgotten these days, her work provides an unforgettably vivid impression of life in the second world war * Guardian *
Mollie Panter-Downes is as profound as Katherine Mansfield, restrained as Jane Austen, sharp as Dorothy Parker * Independent *
Mollie Panter-Downes is as profound as Katherine Mansfield, restrained as Jane Austen, sharp as Dorothy Parker * INDEPENDENT *



Book Information
ISBN 9780860685876
Author Mollie Panter-Downes
Format Paperback
Page Count 192
Imprint Virago Press Ltd
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 141g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 13mm