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Starlight
Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highgate with Mr Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quiet lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over, a dreaded and unscrupulous 'rackman'. He installs his wife in part of the cottages in the hope that there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...
326 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
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About the author
Stella Gibbons
60 books412 followersStella Dorothea Gibbons was an English novelist, journalist, poet and short-story writer.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
Her first novel, Cold Comfort Farm, won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. A satire and parody of the pessimistic ruralism of Thomas Hardy, his followers and especially Precious Bain by Mary Webb -the "loam and lovechild" genre, as some called it, Cold Comfort Farm introduces a self-confident young woman, quite self-consciously modern, pragmatic and optimistic, into the grim, fate-bound and dark rural scene those novelists tended to portray.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
August 20, 2022
I am a big fan of Stella Gibbons. I was introduced to her oeuvre when reading Cold Comfort Farm (1932). But she has written a lot of books. I had to look up how many of them I have read and what ratings I gave them. Here they are, and after reading ‘Starlight’ and looking at the generally high ratings I gave her for the other books that I read, I am going to try and order as many of the remaining books I have not read of Gibbons’ as I can get my hands on. The books I have not read by Gibbons outnumber those I have read, so that’s good...a lot more pleasure no doubt is reserved for me as I continue on in my Stella Gibbons reading journey. 🙂 🙃
• Cold Comfort Farm (1932) – 4 stars
• The Swiss Summer (1951) — 2 stars
• The Snow-Woman (1969) — 4 stars
• A Pink Front Door (1959) — 4 stars
• The Weather at Tregulla (1962) — 3 stars
• The Woods in Winter (1970) — 3 stars
• The Yellow Houses (2016) — 1.5 stars, published posthumously; “written in the 1970s but only discovered years after her death” (died 1989)
• Westwood (1946) — 4 stars
‘Starlight’, originally published in 1967, was a 4.5 star read for me. Fantastic. Not sure I wanted it to end. I took 1 ½ pages of notes...usually a good sign that I like whatever I am reading.
Summary of book taken from back cover of the Vintage Classic (2011) re-issue:
• Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highgate with Mr. Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quite lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over; a dreaded and unscrupulous ‘rackman’. He installs his wife in part of the cottage in the hope there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...
What’s a rackman? Well, I’ll tell you.
• Rackman: The exploitation and intimidation of tenants by unscrupulous landlords. Named after Peter Rachman (1919–62), a London landlord whose practices became notorious in the early 1960s. Very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R... .
This Vintage Classic must have been a popular re-issue because I have a copy that is the 12th printing of it! 😮 Vintage re-issued 9 of her novels and the Dean Street Press published another 5.
I found all of the characters in ‘Starlight’ to be interesting. There were several story lines operating in this book, and all of them were interesting.
One line made me laugh out loud:
• ‘Gladys uttered a moo of terror.’ Never came across a human mooing until reading that line. 😅
In a number of the reviews below (all positive I might add), they remark how well Gibbons described the settings (e.g., houses, the weather). Here is a snippet from Heavenly Ali’s review below:
• One of the things which came across mostly strongly for me in this novel is the descriptions and sense of time and place. The run-down streets of London still scarred by the war twenty years earlier, the sad little rooms inhabited by Gladys and Annie, the empty church on a dark and windy evening are all beautifully evoked. Each character is well drawn – their voices distinct and strong. Although there is much in this novel that is dark, the narrative is shot through with poignant humour too. Stella Gibbons was obviously a wonderful observer of human beings, and the places they inhabit.
Reviews:
• Excellent review... https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• Another excellent review: https://readingbug2016.wordpress.com/...
• And yet another!... https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/...
• https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2...
• http://chrissalibabookreviews.blogspo...
• Cold Comfort Farm (1932) – 4 stars
• The Swiss Summer (1951) — 2 stars
• The Snow-Woman (1969) — 4 stars
• A Pink Front Door (1959) — 4 stars
• The Weather at Tregulla (1962) — 3 stars
• The Woods in Winter (1970) — 3 stars
• The Yellow Houses (2016) — 1.5 stars, published posthumously; “written in the 1970s but only discovered years after her death” (died 1989)
• Westwood (1946) — 4 stars
‘Starlight’, originally published in 1967, was a 4.5 star read for me. Fantastic. Not sure I wanted it to end. I took 1 ½ pages of notes...usually a good sign that I like whatever I am reading.
Summary of book taken from back cover of the Vintage Classic (2011) re-issue:
• Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highgate with Mr. Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quite lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over; a dreaded and unscrupulous ‘rackman’. He installs his wife in part of the cottage in the hope there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...
What’s a rackman? Well, I’ll tell you.
• Rackman: The exploitation and intimidation of tenants by unscrupulous landlords. Named after Peter Rachman (1919–62), a London landlord whose practices became notorious in the early 1960s. Very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_R... .
This Vintage Classic must have been a popular re-issue because I have a copy that is the 12th printing of it! 😮 Vintage re-issued 9 of her novels and the Dean Street Press published another 5.
I found all of the characters in ‘Starlight’ to be interesting. There were several story lines operating in this book, and all of them were interesting.
One line made me laugh out loud:
• ‘Gladys uttered a moo of terror.’ Never came across a human mooing until reading that line. 😅
In a number of the reviews below (all positive I might add), they remark how well Gibbons described the settings (e.g., houses, the weather). Here is a snippet from Heavenly Ali’s review below:
• One of the things which came across mostly strongly for me in this novel is the descriptions and sense of time and place. The run-down streets of London still scarred by the war twenty years earlier, the sad little rooms inhabited by Gladys and Annie, the empty church on a dark and windy evening are all beautifully evoked. Each character is well drawn – their voices distinct and strong. Although there is much in this novel that is dark, the narrative is shot through with poignant humour too. Stella Gibbons was obviously a wonderful observer of human beings, and the places they inhabit.
Reviews:
• Excellent review... https://girlwithherheadinabook.co.uk/...
• Another excellent review: https://readingbug2016.wordpress.com/...
• And yet another!... https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2012/...
• https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2...
• http://chrissalibabookreviews.blogspo...
October 27, 2020
Starlight, originally published in 1967 (but with a setting that feels more like the 1950s than the late 1960s), was only the second book I’ve read by Stella Gibbons.
Until last week, I had only read Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, which is a favourite comfort read of mine when suffering from the flu. Her other books were something I was faintly aware of but hadn’t looked into because – mainly – the descriptions and the covers (especially the one for Nightingale Wood) made them sound like chick-lit romance novels, and this is a genre that I just have no interest in. Other people may love the genre, and each to their own, I just rather pick something else.
Anyway, I picked Starlight because I was intrigued by the dark cover (not very romance-y at all) and the Highgate setting. (I once briefly lived in neighbouring Kentish Town.)
The story starts with two elderly sisters who share rooms in a cottage with eccentric old man. All of the tenants have limited means, and reading about their struggling to get by and relying on charity made for quite hard reading. Then we learn that the landlord, a feared “rackman”, is moving his wife into the cottage next door and it planning to make modernisations. This causes great concern for the tenants that are unable to afford the rent as it is.
Starlight is definitely not in the same style or in any other way comparable to Cold Comfort Farm. If anything, this was more like a Barbara Pym novel, except that Starlight was less subtle and more accute in defining the characters we are meeting, which was great.
But I still felt there was something brewing underneath. Something that is still undefinable at this point.
The social commentary in Starlight was pretty realistic, and also pretty grim, especially with respect to older characters, and the depiction of racial bias was pretty well done, too. Not as a trope, not as a cliche, but as pretty realistic depiction of 1950s/1960s suspicion toward the unknown.
It’s an interesting book on many levels, but it is a slow, slow reveal of the full story. I’m not usually a fan of glacial pacing, but I have to say that it was absolutely worth it in this story. There were unexpected turns in latter par of the book that had me laugh and cry and scratch my head and feel delighted that Gibbons lured me down a garden path and then totally surprised me. It was quite an exciting book by the end. Totally unpredictable. So weird, so dark, and yet so oddly happy.
I recommend it. It’s a bit dated in its outlook on romance/relationships but Gibbons was a very skilled writer that could pull off the oddest of stories. And this was an odd story.
I never felt I could pin down what was happening as the POV’s put forward were somewhat biased, but it was social realism playing with religion and magic and a general discussion of humanity. There were parts I definitely shook my fist at and other parts that were entirely moving.
Things definitely did not turn out to be what they first appear.
And seeing that the climax of the book is set on midsummer eve, I wonder whether there is a bit of authorial mischief going on here, with Gibbons taking up the role of Puck:
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
(WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE – A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM)
Review originally posted on my WP blog.
Until last week, I had only read Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm, which is a favourite comfort read of mine when suffering from the flu. Her other books were something I was faintly aware of but hadn’t looked into because – mainly – the descriptions and the covers (especially the one for Nightingale Wood) made them sound like chick-lit romance novels, and this is a genre that I just have no interest in. Other people may love the genre, and each to their own, I just rather pick something else.
Anyway, I picked Starlight because I was intrigued by the dark cover (not very romance-y at all) and the Highgate setting. (I once briefly lived in neighbouring Kentish Town.)
The story starts with two elderly sisters who share rooms in a cottage with eccentric old man. All of the tenants have limited means, and reading about their struggling to get by and relying on charity made for quite hard reading. Then we learn that the landlord, a feared “rackman”, is moving his wife into the cottage next door and it planning to make modernisations. This causes great concern for the tenants that are unable to afford the rent as it is.
Starlight is definitely not in the same style or in any other way comparable to Cold Comfort Farm. If anything, this was more like a Barbara Pym novel, except that Starlight was less subtle and more accute in defining the characters we are meeting, which was great.
But I still felt there was something brewing underneath. Something that is still undefinable at this point.
The social commentary in Starlight was pretty realistic, and also pretty grim, especially with respect to older characters, and the depiction of racial bias was pretty well done, too. Not as a trope, not as a cliche, but as pretty realistic depiction of 1950s/1960s suspicion toward the unknown.
It’s an interesting book on many levels, but it is a slow, slow reveal of the full story. I’m not usually a fan of glacial pacing, but I have to say that it was absolutely worth it in this story. There were unexpected turns in latter par of the book that had me laugh and cry and scratch my head and feel delighted that Gibbons lured me down a garden path and then totally surprised me. It was quite an exciting book by the end. Totally unpredictable. So weird, so dark, and yet so oddly happy.
I recommend it. It’s a bit dated in its outlook on romance/relationships but Gibbons was a very skilled writer that could pull off the oddest of stories. And this was an odd story.
I never felt I could pin down what was happening as the POV’s put forward were somewhat biased, but it was social realism playing with religion and magic and a general discussion of humanity. There were parts I definitely shook my fist at and other parts that were entirely moving.
Things definitely did not turn out to be what they first appear.
And seeing that the climax of the book is set on midsummer eve, I wonder whether there is a bit of authorial mischief going on here, with Gibbons taking up the role of Puck:
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
(WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE – A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM)
Review originally posted on my WP blog.
March 10, 2014
This is not the book to read if you are expecting a light hearted novel with perhaps some elements of the fantastic. This is a story woven with the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night a story that touches on themes of old age and illness, of loneliness and the fear of the harsh and pitiless world out there, themes of poverty, selfishness and occasionally even of racism. At its very heart lies evil: that of possession by an evil spirit that we don’t like to believe in but which the writer seems to take very seriously and that of senseless violence, that very real face of evil that has become a daily aspect of our urban environments. And yet for all that it is not a very dark novel. The darkness is lightened and relieved by threads enwrought with the golden and silver light of dignity and love and human kindness and when I closed this book the preponderant emotion was that of hope rather than despair.
I will admit that the demonic possession element of the story is likely to alienate many readers either because they will view it as ‘so much nonsense’ or because they will consider it to be too creepy. And it stands in contrast to the rest of the novel which is told with humour and with some sympathy for the characters even where they are not being particularly likeable.
All in all I’m glad I’ve read this book. I’m glad I’ve met Gladys who tries to hide her heart of gold behind ‘a no nonsense’ front, her sister Annie, eccentric old Mr Fisher, the vicar….. and I’m glad that through these pages I was able to breathe in the atmosphere of a time long gone in a rather special part of London (Hampstead Heath and its environs).
I will admit that the demonic possession element of the story is likely to alienate many readers either because they will view it as ‘so much nonsense’ or because they will consider it to be too creepy. And it stands in contrast to the rest of the novel which is told with humour and with some sympathy for the characters even where they are not being particularly likeable.
All in all I’m glad I’ve read this book. I’m glad I’ve met Gladys who tries to hide her heart of gold behind ‘a no nonsense’ front, her sister Annie, eccentric old Mr Fisher, the vicar….. and I’m glad that through these pages I was able to breathe in the atmosphere of a time long gone in a rather special part of London (Hampstead Heath and its environs).
November 4, 2025
It's always a special kind of joy when I experience an unexpected gem. ~ esp. when it's a novel that has either largely been undiscovered or very much needs to be re-discovered. I don't honestly know how this Stella Gibbons novel was received (either critically or by the public) when it was published in 1967. But it's most decidedly a gem.
It's one hell of a read, from start to finish; a rare work that had me in its clever clutches pretty much from its opening paragraph. It's a kind of unlikely masterpiece - mainly due to the surprising way it sneaks up on you. Repeatedly.
As far as I can surmise (from a premise-overview of the 20+ Gibbons novels I've not read), it's the author's only foray into the horror genre. I'm guessing that, with this work, Gibbons may have felt that she had only one 'statement' to make about the form - so it seems she made it and moved on. But, boy, did she make it.
Four years later, William Peter Blatty published 'The Exorcist'. It's a little hard to imagine that Blatty had not read 'Starlight' first, although his take on the subject is much more of a high-powered onslaught. By comparison, 'Starlight' is a subtler concoction. Blatty's possession focus is total but, with Gibbons, the demonic activity is only part of a much more varied (usually benignly rustic) fabric. It's there but, for a good while, it makes its presence known sparingly, its power simmering up to the point of an ultimate explosion (one that also shows Gibbons off as a master craftsman).
In both 'Starlight' (where she's elderly) and 'The Exorcist' (where she's young), the 'vessel' is a female who has unwittingly dabbled in 'the back arts'. Gibbons' Mrs. Pearson, however, has previously tried to keep the satanic at bay by renouncing what opened the portal. She discovers that, once opened, a gateway is never again completely closed.:
This is only my second go with Gibbons, the first being her most-famous work, 'Cold Comfort Farm' (her debut, at age 30). Like countless other readers, I loved it:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
'Starlight' appeared 35 years later (close to being the last published work in her lifetime).
Gibbons had always been vocal about the fact that her first novel was something of a 'curse' for her, since it seemed to eclipse everything that followed, leaving all of the other novels in a shadow that went largely unexplored. I'm not sure to what extent that may have been (or may still be) true... but, based on a reading of these two novels alone, Gibbons' work - while also being fiercely original - is certainly a unique distillation of British writers from Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf to Muriel Spark, Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter.
She's a writer quite worthy of attention. And, though I was quite enamored of 'Cold Comfort Farm', 'Starlight', ironically, lifted me to the celestial.
It's one hell of a read, from start to finish; a rare work that had me in its clever clutches pretty much from its opening paragraph. It's a kind of unlikely masterpiece - mainly due to the surprising way it sneaks up on you. Repeatedly.
As far as I can surmise (from a premise-overview of the 20+ Gibbons novels I've not read), it's the author's only foray into the horror genre. I'm guessing that, with this work, Gibbons may have felt that she had only one 'statement' to make about the form - so it seems she made it and moved on. But, boy, did she make it.
Four years later, William Peter Blatty published 'The Exorcist'. It's a little hard to imagine that Blatty had not read 'Starlight' first, although his take on the subject is much more of a high-powered onslaught. By comparison, 'Starlight' is a subtler concoction. Blatty's possession focus is total but, with Gibbons, the demonic activity is only part of a much more varied (usually benignly rustic) fabric. It's there but, for a good while, it makes its presence known sparingly, its power simmering up to the point of an ultimate explosion (one that also shows Gibbons off as a master craftsman).
In both 'Starlight' (where she's elderly) and 'The Exorcist' (where she's young), the 'vessel' is a female who has unwittingly dabbled in 'the back arts'. Gibbons' Mrs. Pearson, however, has previously tried to keep the satanic at bay by renouncing what opened the portal. She discovers that, once opened, a gateway is never again completely closed.:
It was in Mrs. Pearson's eyes. Something glanced out of them; drew back and vanished, then returned, as if with a pounce of satisfaction, and glared out avidly into the room. The eyes had the expression of a creature that feeds. ... as if what was looking out had been starved for a very long time.Although the demon is occasionally quiet, it is not done with her.
This is only my second go with Gibbons, the first being her most-famous work, 'Cold Comfort Farm' (her debut, at age 30). Like countless other readers, I loved it:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
'Starlight' appeared 35 years later (close to being the last published work in her lifetime).
Gibbons had always been vocal about the fact that her first novel was something of a 'curse' for her, since it seemed to eclipse everything that followed, leaving all of the other novels in a shadow that went largely unexplored. I'm not sure to what extent that may have been (or may still be) true... but, based on a reading of these two novels alone, Gibbons' work - while also being fiercely original - is certainly a unique distillation of British writers from Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf to Muriel Spark, Jeanette Winterson and Angela Carter.
She's a writer quite worthy of attention. And, though I was quite enamored of 'Cold Comfort Farm', 'Starlight', ironically, lifted me to the celestial.
August 5, 2015
I really enjoyed this book after nearly giving up after the first chapter. The characters came to life, reminded me of Dorothy Whipple's ability to take the front off a house and let you look inside. Interesting to see a slice of life in post war London. Had to google what a 'rackman' was ! This is my favourite Stella Gibbons yet, was so glad to find she has written many more.
April 3, 2012
I really thoroughly enjoyed this novel from Stella Gibbons, which was undeservedly out of print for many years before Vintage brought it back for us. It is fair to say that it is quite a strange, dark novel rather different to Cold Comfort Farm which is what most people associate Stella Gibbons with.
Gladys and Annie are elderly sisters living in two rooms in one half of a pair of dilapidated cottages in a quiet back street of London. Annie is bedridden while Gladys attends church and cleans at a local Cypriot café. Above them in the attic lives Mr Fisher – who changes his name once a month and is now nearing ninety. The Simms family who live downstairs leave when the cottages are sold to a local ‘rackman’ – the sale plunges the inhabitants of the house into fear. Gladys immediately turns to the vicar for advice, and it is in this way that the Curate Gerald Corliss and the Vicar Mr Geddes first become involved with the inhabitants of the cottages in Rose Walk. The dreaded rackman Mr Pearson moves his wife and her young German au pair into the vacant flat – Mrs Pearson is a fragile faded beauty suffering from an unspecified illness. Mrs Pearson has her part of the cottages done up a bit, and soon the residents of the cottages settle down nicely together. However Mrs Pearson describes herself as a medium, and appears to be possessed by some sort of evil spirit. The story of Mrs Pearson’s possession makes for a quite a chilling climax to the story, as the clergy gather to rid her of the spirit.
Mrs Pearson’s daughter, Peggy, meanwhile gets herself a job as a companion to an elderly wealthy woman, who has four little dogs, called A, Bee, Cee and Dee. Animal lover Peggy, is nursing her own sorrow, and quickly comes to the notice of her employer’s slightly oily middle aged son.
One of the things which came across mostly strongly for me in this novel is the descriptions and sense of time and place. The run down streets of London still scarred by the war twenty years earlier, the sad little rooms inhabited by Gladys and Annie, the empty church on a dark and windy evening are all beautifully evoked. Each character is well drawn – their voices distinct and strong. Although there is much in this novel that is dark, the narrative is shot through with poignant humour too. Stella Gibbons was obviously a wonderful observer of human beings, and the places they inhabit.
Gladys and Annie are elderly sisters living in two rooms in one half of a pair of dilapidated cottages in a quiet back street of London. Annie is bedridden while Gladys attends church and cleans at a local Cypriot café. Above them in the attic lives Mr Fisher – who changes his name once a month and is now nearing ninety. The Simms family who live downstairs leave when the cottages are sold to a local ‘rackman’ – the sale plunges the inhabitants of the house into fear. Gladys immediately turns to the vicar for advice, and it is in this way that the Curate Gerald Corliss and the Vicar Mr Geddes first become involved with the inhabitants of the cottages in Rose Walk. The dreaded rackman Mr Pearson moves his wife and her young German au pair into the vacant flat – Mrs Pearson is a fragile faded beauty suffering from an unspecified illness. Mrs Pearson has her part of the cottages done up a bit, and soon the residents of the cottages settle down nicely together. However Mrs Pearson describes herself as a medium, and appears to be possessed by some sort of evil spirit. The story of Mrs Pearson’s possession makes for a quite a chilling climax to the story, as the clergy gather to rid her of the spirit.
Mrs Pearson’s daughter, Peggy, meanwhile gets herself a job as a companion to an elderly wealthy woman, who has four little dogs, called A, Bee, Cee and Dee. Animal lover Peggy, is nursing her own sorrow, and quickly comes to the notice of her employer’s slightly oily middle aged son.
One of the things which came across mostly strongly for me in this novel is the descriptions and sense of time and place. The run down streets of London still scarred by the war twenty years earlier, the sad little rooms inhabited by Gladys and Annie, the empty church on a dark and windy evening are all beautifully evoked. Each character is well drawn – their voices distinct and strong. Although there is much in this novel that is dark, the narrative is shot through with poignant humour too. Stella Gibbons was obviously a wonderful observer of human beings, and the places they inhabit.
April 16, 2020
An odd little book but a classy bit of writing none the less. The observation, the sharpness in the writing is second to none. SG is a lesson in how to write characters in gesture and speech. And in each is a story, rich in the telling and funny or sad, its on a knife's edge. Social Realism is at its heart but also justice, humour and a 'good' ending. I love her stuff.
Toast
Toast
January 14, 2023
What a strange and wonderful journey this turned out to be!
October 20, 2014
Stella Gibbons has the reputation of being a one-hit wonder - Cold Comfort Farm both immortalised her name but also overshadowed everything else she ever wrote. A few years ago Vintage decided that this was terribly unfair and decided to re-issue her back catalogue. I had a go at Westwood given that Lynn Truss claimed that it was the Persuasion to Cold Comfort's Pride and Prejudice but alas I found it a bit grim - at the time I was still living with my parents and found a few too many parallels with the unfortunate Margaret. I might feel differently now. Still, I have been determined to try again and with Starlight I have finally succeeded. Ten years after I first fell in love with Cold Comfort Farm, I repeated the experience with this novel - the perfect autumnal read. Recently I read Barbara Comyns' The Vet's Daughter and while that one had similarly stunning moments of description, in Starlight Gibbons manages to far more effectively stage a Gothic novel within the domestic sphere. This is a spooky story rooted firmly in a world that is all too real - a world of soggy afternoons and muddy lanes leading to beaten-down houses. The Gothic meets the mundane, the flesh creeps but then we shudder and we go back to normal.
We the reader are bystanders to the action, we see more or less through the eyes of Gladys Barnes, an elderly lady living with her fellow-spinster sister Annie in a run-down cottage in Highgate. Gladys jammers fairly constantly, meaning that her fellow-characters battle on just as the reader does to catch the thread of what on earth she might be talking about. She reminded me of those Shakespearean characters who often opened second or third Acts and only ever spoke in prose - you really have to pay attention to understand what is being said. Gladys and Annie once knew better times, they were born in the countryside and now have to face the horror of a new landlord who is known to be a dreaded 'rackman'. They and their eccentric but gently-mannered upstairs neighbour are on tenter-hooks over what might become of them under the new regime, even seeking advice from the vicar Mr Geddes and his curate. In any event, the landlord's daughter drops round to inform them that all will be well but that the cottages will be done up for the landlord's invalid wife Mrs Pearson to move into, the hope being that living in this area will aid her recovery.
Mr Pearson never quite seems as dark as he has been painted - his origins are clouded, he comes from 'the sloms of Tashkent' and he is a coarse man but he is devoted to his wife to the point of obsession, creating a pink and gold sanctum for her in Lily Cottage. He is determined that she be well, she has no complaints against him as a husband, reminiscing to her daughter Peggy about their idyllic early married life in Tashkent when storks roosted on the roof. Aged only eighteen, Mrs Pearson had giggled that it must mean a baby would come and her husband had assured her that he would see to it. Peggy wants to know the source of her mother's malady but it is shrouded in a mystery; Mrs Pearson had been a medium and her ailment seems to stem from that. The Pearsons seem so very nearly normal - Peggy works as a companion-cum-dogsitter and appears to have a Dark Secret but it turns out to be utterly mundane. Yet when Mr Pearson gives his wife Erika as an au pair, Mrs Pearson exclaims in delight that she has always wanted a daughter.
It is strange to compare Starlight to Cold Comfort; the latter is a hilarious pastiche that borders on the surreal yet remains firmly planted in the natural world. Starlight appears to be a comedy of manners observing the different classes converging on each other - on the ground floor we have the well-off Mrs Pearson in her pink and gold rooms with her schatz Erika, then there is the working class Gladys and Annie and up in the attic the elderly and eccentric Mr Fisher who barely scratches a living. We also have the 'educated man' Mr Geddes, the 'rough diamond' Mr Pearson and the vapid new-money Mrs Lysaght - but Starlight is far, far away from Barbara Pym territory. It seems impossible that this is going to be a supernatural tale, there is far too much domestic detail ... but yet, we begin to recognise that something unsettling lurks within Mrs Pearson, something that got into her all those years ago and she has never been quite able to shake it off. Mrs Pearson hates the sound of the church bells, we are repeatedly reminded by Gibbons how strange the phrase is when Mrs Pearson remarks that she wishes to 'touch the pavements with my feet'. There is a sense of a darkness gathering and we begin to see more clearly the 'thing' behind Mrs Pearson's eyes.
While another writer might ramp up the horror, Stella Gibbons does just the opposite. As well as pondering what might be going on in Lily Cottage, the vicar Mr Geddes considers at length whether or not he can justify inviting his mother to come keep house for him and the curate. When she finally arrives, she sweeps around the house claiming the territory for her own, throwing the cat out of the kitchen to its own space at the bottom of the garden. The cat much prefers this arrangement and develops a passionate adoration for Mrs Geddes, spending much of its time gazing at her and demanding to be stroked, prompting her to repeatedly mutter how much she dislikes cats and occasionally condescend to 'manipulate' the fur round its ears - Gibbons assures it that nobody could it stroking. Gibbon's eye for observation is as razor sharp here as it ever was in Cold Comfort - we can tell we are in the same hands but the direction we are moving in is quite different.
It was always clear that Gibbons has very little truck with affectation. She has a real knack for creating characters for whom the reader can feel a real contempt. In Cold Comfort there was Mr Mybug who kept telling Flora that she was repressed while she politely sat there, bored rigid. Much of the humour in Westwood comes at the expense of Gerald Challis, a fabulously pompous writer who was in fact based on a real person. Here, the villain really is Mrs Lysaght, the foolish woman fixated on having a 'sitting', on passing on the gossip in as cruel a manner as possible. Gibbons does not suffer fools gladly and she always gives these characters the ultimate humiliation. Even before the grand finale though, Mr Geddes had unleashed the Polite Wrath of the Church of England when Mrs Lysaght vaguely pronounced that she was leaving the church as it was 'too narrow' and going to try her hand at meditating. It is so rare to read such a passionate defence of the church and it has become so easy to make the Anglican Church in particular the effortless punchline that Starlight was a double treat - here Mr Geddes and curate are all that can save the residents from the grasping evil.
On page 193, Gibbons notes that spring has arrived, 'There were blue sky and warm sun and silver catkins and golden daffodils to be thankful for, as well as the alleged return from the dead of a gifted teacher with a messiah complex'. Yet despite this flippant remark, there is a conviction behind Gibbons' words against Mrs Lysaght, we see the author's true derision for people who dismiss Christianity as 'narrow' and 'out-dated' when they have no clear idea how to replace it, we sense her contempt for those who do not see that the 'narrow path' was one set down by Jesus. More importantly though, Gibbons points out that only airheads like Mrs Lysaght with nothing better to do would ever come up with something so half-baked in the first place. The rest of us lead busy lives and are too occupied with our own affairs.
Gibbons never dwells on the horror that is happening in her novel. The characters seem to be unsurprised when the kindly Mr Fisher is suddenly wiped out in a senseless act of violence - it is never explained or even questioned. Mr Fisher, who changed his name every month, who was silently but passionately anti-war, who saw to the truth of things and tried to do the right thing - in an ordinary novel, he is not a character who dies. The very unexpectedness of it adds to the shock. Similarly, when events in the cottages reach their crescendo, we arrive late at the scene, having travelled with Mr Geddes. Gladys has to anxiously explain what has happened - Mrs Lysaght has already fled in hysterics, desperate to find a taxi and everybody else is keen to bail out too. Gibbons never ever names the evil being that has entered the house - the manner of its banishment is exhausting yet again so understated.
We only hear the aftermath via Gladys and Annie yet I never felt cheated as I did upon finishing The Vet's Daughter because Starlight has a stronger emphasis on the realism rather than the magic. Gibbons' characters have a far greater bite than those drawn by Barbara Comyns - Gladys and Annie pick themselves up and chat vaguely about what has just happened but we sense that it will fade as an anecdote as they move on. This felt like a truly three-dimensional tale - oddly enough, it felt very real, the lurking darkness within Mrs Pearson a true threat. Never written to shock, Starlight is a tale for the fireside and embodies all that is great about British fictional traditions. It was a true pleasure to discover another fantastic novel by Stella Gibbons.
For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...
We the reader are bystanders to the action, we see more or less through the eyes of Gladys Barnes, an elderly lady living with her fellow-spinster sister Annie in a run-down cottage in Highgate. Gladys jammers fairly constantly, meaning that her fellow-characters battle on just as the reader does to catch the thread of what on earth she might be talking about. She reminded me of those Shakespearean characters who often opened second or third Acts and only ever spoke in prose - you really have to pay attention to understand what is being said. Gladys and Annie once knew better times, they were born in the countryside and now have to face the horror of a new landlord who is known to be a dreaded 'rackman'. They and their eccentric but gently-mannered upstairs neighbour are on tenter-hooks over what might become of them under the new regime, even seeking advice from the vicar Mr Geddes and his curate. In any event, the landlord's daughter drops round to inform them that all will be well but that the cottages will be done up for the landlord's invalid wife Mrs Pearson to move into, the hope being that living in this area will aid her recovery.
Mr Pearson never quite seems as dark as he has been painted - his origins are clouded, he comes from 'the sloms of Tashkent' and he is a coarse man but he is devoted to his wife to the point of obsession, creating a pink and gold sanctum for her in Lily Cottage. He is determined that she be well, she has no complaints against him as a husband, reminiscing to her daughter Peggy about their idyllic early married life in Tashkent when storks roosted on the roof. Aged only eighteen, Mrs Pearson had giggled that it must mean a baby would come and her husband had assured her that he would see to it. Peggy wants to know the source of her mother's malady but it is shrouded in a mystery; Mrs Pearson had been a medium and her ailment seems to stem from that. The Pearsons seem so very nearly normal - Peggy works as a companion-cum-dogsitter and appears to have a Dark Secret but it turns out to be utterly mundane. Yet when Mr Pearson gives his wife Erika as an au pair, Mrs Pearson exclaims in delight that she has always wanted a daughter.
It is strange to compare Starlight to Cold Comfort; the latter is a hilarious pastiche that borders on the surreal yet remains firmly planted in the natural world. Starlight appears to be a comedy of manners observing the different classes converging on each other - on the ground floor we have the well-off Mrs Pearson in her pink and gold rooms with her schatz Erika, then there is the working class Gladys and Annie and up in the attic the elderly and eccentric Mr Fisher who barely scratches a living. We also have the 'educated man' Mr Geddes, the 'rough diamond' Mr Pearson and the vapid new-money Mrs Lysaght - but Starlight is far, far away from Barbara Pym territory. It seems impossible that this is going to be a supernatural tale, there is far too much domestic detail ... but yet, we begin to recognise that something unsettling lurks within Mrs Pearson, something that got into her all those years ago and she has never been quite able to shake it off. Mrs Pearson hates the sound of the church bells, we are repeatedly reminded by Gibbons how strange the phrase is when Mrs Pearson remarks that she wishes to 'touch the pavements with my feet'. There is a sense of a darkness gathering and we begin to see more clearly the 'thing' behind Mrs Pearson's eyes.
While another writer might ramp up the horror, Stella Gibbons does just the opposite. As well as pondering what might be going on in Lily Cottage, the vicar Mr Geddes considers at length whether or not he can justify inviting his mother to come keep house for him and the curate. When she finally arrives, she sweeps around the house claiming the territory for her own, throwing the cat out of the kitchen to its own space at the bottom of the garden. The cat much prefers this arrangement and develops a passionate adoration for Mrs Geddes, spending much of its time gazing at her and demanding to be stroked, prompting her to repeatedly mutter how much she dislikes cats and occasionally condescend to 'manipulate' the fur round its ears - Gibbons assures it that nobody could it stroking. Gibbon's eye for observation is as razor sharp here as it ever was in Cold Comfort - we can tell we are in the same hands but the direction we are moving in is quite different.
It was always clear that Gibbons has very little truck with affectation. She has a real knack for creating characters for whom the reader can feel a real contempt. In Cold Comfort there was Mr Mybug who kept telling Flora that she was repressed while she politely sat there, bored rigid. Much of the humour in Westwood comes at the expense of Gerald Challis, a fabulously pompous writer who was in fact based on a real person. Here, the villain really is Mrs Lysaght, the foolish woman fixated on having a 'sitting', on passing on the gossip in as cruel a manner as possible. Gibbons does not suffer fools gladly and she always gives these characters the ultimate humiliation. Even before the grand finale though, Mr Geddes had unleashed the Polite Wrath of the Church of England when Mrs Lysaght vaguely pronounced that she was leaving the church as it was 'too narrow' and going to try her hand at meditating. It is so rare to read such a passionate defence of the church and it has become so easy to make the Anglican Church in particular the effortless punchline that Starlight was a double treat - here Mr Geddes and curate are all that can save the residents from the grasping evil.
On page 193, Gibbons notes that spring has arrived, 'There were blue sky and warm sun and silver catkins and golden daffodils to be thankful for, as well as the alleged return from the dead of a gifted teacher with a messiah complex'. Yet despite this flippant remark, there is a conviction behind Gibbons' words against Mrs Lysaght, we see the author's true derision for people who dismiss Christianity as 'narrow' and 'out-dated' when they have no clear idea how to replace it, we sense her contempt for those who do not see that the 'narrow path' was one set down by Jesus. More importantly though, Gibbons points out that only airheads like Mrs Lysaght with nothing better to do would ever come up with something so half-baked in the first place. The rest of us lead busy lives and are too occupied with our own affairs.
Gibbons never dwells on the horror that is happening in her novel. The characters seem to be unsurprised when the kindly Mr Fisher is suddenly wiped out in a senseless act of violence - it is never explained or even questioned. Mr Fisher, who changed his name every month, who was silently but passionately anti-war, who saw to the truth of things and tried to do the right thing - in an ordinary novel, he is not a character who dies. The very unexpectedness of it adds to the shock. Similarly, when events in the cottages reach their crescendo, we arrive late at the scene, having travelled with Mr Geddes. Gladys has to anxiously explain what has happened - Mrs Lysaght has already fled in hysterics, desperate to find a taxi and everybody else is keen to bail out too. Gibbons never ever names the evil being that has entered the house - the manner of its banishment is exhausting yet again so understated.
We only hear the aftermath via Gladys and Annie yet I never felt cheated as I did upon finishing The Vet's Daughter because Starlight has a stronger emphasis on the realism rather than the magic. Gibbons' characters have a far greater bite than those drawn by Barbara Comyns - Gladys and Annie pick themselves up and chat vaguely about what has just happened but we sense that it will fade as an anecdote as they move on. This felt like a truly three-dimensional tale - oddly enough, it felt very real, the lurking darkness within Mrs Pearson a true threat. Never written to shock, Starlight is a tale for the fireside and embodies all that is great about British fictional traditions. It was a true pleasure to discover another fantastic novel by Stella Gibbons.
For my full review: http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...
September 18, 2011
I was thrilled to find out that Vintage Classics is reprinting some Gibbons and rushed to buy several from Amazon UK. I had only read Cold Comfort Farm, of course, hilarious and easily her best-known book, and Nightingale Wood, a charming, slightly satirical Cinderella story, which Virago reprinted a couple of years ago.
Starlight is very different from both of those in plot and setting, but shares the same keen eye for social class differences. Gladys and Annie Barnes are sisters living in near poverty in a cottage in Highgate. When they discover that a new landlord is about to take over and install his ill wife in the cottage next door, the sisters are in fear of being thrown out of their home. What does happen involves the sisters, their friends and neighbors, and the landlord and his wife and daughter in something much more frightening and bizarre.
The hint of horror Gibbons adds to the plot makes it effectively creepy and absolutely enthralling at the end; I couldn't take my eyes off the pages. It's not what I would have expected from the other books of hers I'd read, but very good.
Starlight is very different from both of those in plot and setting, but shares the same keen eye for social class differences. Gladys and Annie Barnes are sisters living in near poverty in a cottage in Highgate. When they discover that a new landlord is about to take over and install his ill wife in the cottage next door, the sisters are in fear of being thrown out of their home. What does happen involves the sisters, their friends and neighbors, and the landlord and his wife and daughter in something much more frightening and bizarre.
The hint of horror Gibbons adds to the plot makes it effectively creepy and absolutely enthralling at the end; I couldn't take my eyes off the pages. It's not what I would have expected from the other books of hers I'd read, but very good.
June 19, 2013
I just finished reading Starlight and am feeling a bit gobsmacked. I had only read Cold Comfort Farm and Westwoood, so was really not expecting what this book delivered. In fact, I might not have read it at all had I known more about the plot beforehand. Like a couple of the book's characters, I'm not into creepy (other than the CCF kind). Stella Gibbons was a more talented writer than I had realized, because I was not at all put off by the plot developments. Gibbons can certainly write characters. In this book she reminded me of Trollope in that her characters are often weak, irritating and selfish (in other words, all too human) but she nevertheless retains a distant kindness for most of them. I found her portraits of old age to ring especially true and touching, with no hint of the maudlin. I may revisit my three- star rating at some point. I feel I need to think about this one a bit longer. Meanwhile, I will look for more books by her. I'd also like to read a biography, if one exists.
March 23, 2024
I loved this odd book. I can understand why people have issues with it has it has some real tonal shifts, but it was right up my street. It also contains a section which unsettled me more than any other book I have read. It's been a while since I've read this and I can't stop thinking about it and will want to revisit it one day.
Update
Four years later, I've reread it. I think I've enjoyed it even more the second time around. Genuinely think this is a neglected classic. It got me thinking about any links with Cold Comfort Farm. I previously always thought the "Something Nasty in the Woodshed" in CCF was Aunt Ada Doom witnessing a sexual encounter, now with the matter of fact way Gibbons describes the supernatural elements in Starlight, maybe she saw a ghost in the woodshed?
Update
Four years later, I've reread it. I think I've enjoyed it even more the second time around. Genuinely think this is a neglected classic. It got me thinking about any links with Cold Comfort Farm. I previously always thought the "Something Nasty in the Woodshed" in CCF was Aunt Ada Doom witnessing a sexual encounter, now with the matter of fact way Gibbons describes the supernatural elements in Starlight, maybe she saw a ghost in the woodshed?
March 12, 2022
Having loved Cold Comfort Farm last year, for #QuietClassics2022 I picked Starlight, again by Stella Gibbons, but written thirty years later💫
Although there are flashes of humour and Gibbons’ sharply drawn characters are still apparent, I don’t know that she could have written a novel more diametrically opposed to Cold Comfort Farm if she’d tried. Cold Comfort Farm was her smash hit debut and it became a burden for Gibbons. She noted the novel was like ‘some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore’
There is nothing boring about Starlight. It’s set in London where elderly sisters Gladys and Annie are struggling to make ends meet in their little dilapidated house called, somewhat misleadingly, Rose Cottage. When the house is sold, their new landlady moves in and Starlight gradually reveals itself to be a tale of demonic possession set in the most humdrum of domestic environments. Although the tale of possession fell a little flat for me, the thing that kept me reading were the characters
💫Gladys who was essentially unintelligible most of the time
💫Bed-bound Annie and her balaclava
💫Mr Fisher (dependent on the month) and his tray of handmade dolls
💫The reluctant curate
💫Gerald Corliss the cycling vicar
💫The pug-loving Mrs. Corbett
An odd cast in an even odder story, but one that I find myself thinking about even now. Thank you to my fellow buddy readers for, quite literally in some cases, shining a light on this novel. Here’s looking forward to a spot of Willa Cather in March
Although there are flashes of humour and Gibbons’ sharply drawn characters are still apparent, I don’t know that she could have written a novel more diametrically opposed to Cold Comfort Farm if she’d tried. Cold Comfort Farm was her smash hit debut and it became a burden for Gibbons. She noted the novel was like ‘some unignorable old uncle, to whom you have to be grateful because he makes you a handsome allowance, but is often an embarrassment and a bore’
There is nothing boring about Starlight. It’s set in London where elderly sisters Gladys and Annie are struggling to make ends meet in their little dilapidated house called, somewhat misleadingly, Rose Cottage. When the house is sold, their new landlady moves in and Starlight gradually reveals itself to be a tale of demonic possession set in the most humdrum of domestic environments. Although the tale of possession fell a little flat for me, the thing that kept me reading were the characters
💫Gladys who was essentially unintelligible most of the time
💫Bed-bound Annie and her balaclava
💫Mr Fisher (dependent on the month) and his tray of handmade dolls
💫The reluctant curate
💫Gerald Corliss the cycling vicar
💫The pug-loving Mrs. Corbett
An odd cast in an even odder story, but one that I find myself thinking about even now. Thank you to my fellow buddy readers for, quite literally in some cases, shining a light on this novel. Here’s looking forward to a spot of Willa Cather in March
November 2, 2021
It was a double row of brown-brick houses, half of them bombed and boarded up, and not a whole window in one. At the end stood these two small stout cottages, painted white; thick little places, solid and secretive, with a bearded, coarsely-moulded face looking mockingly down the wall exactly where the two were joined. The Barnes sisters lived in the far one of the two. Surprisingly, it had a name; it was called Rose Cottage. The other, equally surprisingly, was Lily Cottage, and had been unoccupied for years; even in these times, it was in such bad repair as to be uninhabitable, and this street was not on the Camden Council's priority list for demolition.
Starlight was the third Gibbons book in a row I've read in as many weeks, and it's not entirely successful as a story - although it has some interesting elements to it. It takes place in an unspecified time after World War II - when London is shrouded in poisonous fog, and refugee German girls are household help. It's a ghost story, of sorts - but I don't know if the 'ghosts' are some of the elderly characters (who seem to belong to another time), or what is presented as a spectral possession. (A few of the characters seem to belong in another novel entirely.)
Gibbons is strong on characterisation but this book suffers from not having much of a central focus. The main character (it could be argued) is a garrulous cleaning lady by the name of Gladys Barnes, but she acts more as a witness to the story's events than anything else. Somehow it doesn't all hang together, although it's full of atmosphere and sense of place. Like the other two Gibbons books I've recently read - Enbury Heath and Westwood - it's set in the north London villages of Highgate and Hampstead. Stella Gibbons lived in this area nearly all of her life, and that aspect of the novel rings with authenticity. I'm just not sure what story she was trying to tell.
I would only recommend this one to the Gibbons enthusiast.
March 16, 2012
I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish off this book, which is the best compliment you can give a book. Full review later!
January 24, 2024
4.5*
Starlight is set in 1960’s Hampstead Heath where Gladys Barnes lives in a rundown two room flat with her sister Annie. Gladys works in a cafe, is an enterprising, bustling character who talks frequently and nonsensically, whilst Annie is timid, bedridden and scared of the outside world. Both sisters are in their seventies and spinsters. Above them in an attic room is the elderly and mild mannered, Mr Fisher whose mysterious comings and goings have an eccentric, but very passionate cause.
One day the terrifying news reaches Gladys that their cottage has been sold to the dreaded “rackman”. Afraid of rent rises and eviction, Gladys immediately appeals for help from the local vicar, Mr Geddes and his curate, whose comfortable middle class lives a mile down the road contrast that of the cottage residents.
To begin with the rackman appears in the form of Peggy, his young daughter who starts a programme of renovations and then goes to work as a companion for Mrs Corbett, a rich, dog-obsessed widow. Later on we meet his wife, Mrs Pearson who comes to live in the cottage next door, and she adds a spooky, supernatural aspect to the book. She has a companion called Erika, a young orphaned Jewish girl. And there is also Mrs Lysaght a strange unlikeable character battling with her feelings towards the church who serves a purpose in connecting the Corbett's with the Pearson's.
All of the characters lives are impacted by the the new ownership of the cottages and as things slowly resolve, there are a couple of shocking and dark aspects along the way.
What I loved most about this book is spending time with some elderly characters for a change. Gladys, Annie and Mr Fisher have their frailties and flaws, and they felt very real. I also enjoyed the setting, the way the cottages are difficult to find, isolated and on the fringes of society, just like the occupants. For me the supernatural elements are unnecessary but maybe if I’d read this as spooky read for Halloween I would have enjoyed this more. I definitely recommend and I think it will appeal to fans of Barbara Comyn’s and Elizabeth Taylor.
It was so nearly a five star read.
Starlight is set in 1960’s Hampstead Heath where Gladys Barnes lives in a rundown two room flat with her sister Annie. Gladys works in a cafe, is an enterprising, bustling character who talks frequently and nonsensically, whilst Annie is timid, bedridden and scared of the outside world. Both sisters are in their seventies and spinsters. Above them in an attic room is the elderly and mild mannered, Mr Fisher whose mysterious comings and goings have an eccentric, but very passionate cause.
One day the terrifying news reaches Gladys that their cottage has been sold to the dreaded “rackman”. Afraid of rent rises and eviction, Gladys immediately appeals for help from the local vicar, Mr Geddes and his curate, whose comfortable middle class lives a mile down the road contrast that of the cottage residents.
To begin with the rackman appears in the form of Peggy, his young daughter who starts a programme of renovations and then goes to work as a companion for Mrs Corbett, a rich, dog-obsessed widow. Later on we meet his wife, Mrs Pearson who comes to live in the cottage next door, and she adds a spooky, supernatural aspect to the book. She has a companion called Erika, a young orphaned Jewish girl. And there is also Mrs Lysaght a strange unlikeable character battling with her feelings towards the church who serves a purpose in connecting the Corbett's with the Pearson's.
All of the characters lives are impacted by the the new ownership of the cottages and as things slowly resolve, there are a couple of shocking and dark aspects along the way.
What I loved most about this book is spending time with some elderly characters for a change. Gladys, Annie and Mr Fisher have their frailties and flaws, and they felt very real. I also enjoyed the setting, the way the cottages are difficult to find, isolated and on the fringes of society, just like the occupants. For me the supernatural elements are unnecessary but maybe if I’d read this as spooky read for Halloween I would have enjoyed this more. I definitely recommend and I think it will appeal to fans of Barbara Comyn’s and Elizabeth Taylor.
It was so nearly a five star read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 15, 2014
I love Stella Gibbons novels and this one, despite taking one of the strangest turns, was no different. It started off by introducing us to two elderly sisters - Gladys and Annie - living in a boarding house with their quirky neighbours. Then their lives are turned upside down when new landlords - Mr and Mrs Pearson - take over and begin to make changes. This, I thought, would be what the plot of the novel revolves around. How very wrong I was. What starts off as a lovely little social comedy takes a very dark turn in ways that I would not have guessed. The sisters become convinced that their landlady is possessed by the devil, and so enlisting the help of the local curate, attempt to bring Mrs Pearson back.
The more I think about the plot of this novel, the more ridiculous is seems. That, however, is the beauty of a Stella Gibbons novel. It can have the most ridiculous plot in the world, but the brilliant way in which she writes it enraptures you so that it doesn't seem so ridiculous, in a very similar way to PG Wodehouse.
I already loved Stella Gibbons and this novel has not changed my mind. I shall continue to work my way through her lesser known novels, knowing full well, that what I will be getting is an excellently written set of ridiculous plot lines.
The more I think about the plot of this novel, the more ridiculous is seems. That, however, is the beauty of a Stella Gibbons novel. It can have the most ridiculous plot in the world, but the brilliant way in which she writes it enraptures you so that it doesn't seem so ridiculous, in a very similar way to PG Wodehouse.
I already loved Stella Gibbons and this novel has not changed my mind. I shall continue to work my way through her lesser known novels, knowing full well, that what I will be getting is an excellently written set of ridiculous plot lines.
April 22, 2012
Lynne Truss, in her introduction to these recently re-issued novels, said what I'd always thought, too - that Stella Gibbons had written one book and that was Cold Comfort Farm. I'd figured that if you'd written such a pearler, why write another? But Lynne did a bit of digging and found that Stella Gibbons was no Harper Lee, and had actually written twenty-five novels, three volumes of short-stories, and four volumes of poetry. Starlight is one of the twenty-five that have been resurrected, and the choice of that word is somewhat apt. I won't give away the story, but I will warn you that what starts out as a small domestic tale, a sort of Barbara Pym with jokes, becomes absolutely nothing like that at all. I enjoyed the writing, and was carried along by the story. But at the end, it is very strange indeed.
June 16, 2012
I read STARLIGHT many years ago. I remembered enjoying it, that it dealt, perhaps rather unexpectedly for the author, with demoniac possession (what would Flora Poste have said?) and one detail of that exorcism: the patient, endless repetition of the demand for the demon's name. But what I had not remembered is what a very good book this is. I am so glad I now have a copy that belongs to me and I can go back to when I wish. The description of London, the way the author catches the feeling of the place in a particular era, the detail, the food, and above all the characters - look for the joyful, unsentimental rescue of a little piece of human flotsam by interfering, nosy good hearted women who insist on treating her like a human being, and at the treatment of the "rackman" who might have been just a villain and is so much more...
Thank you, Vintage, for re-publishing it.
Thank you, Vintage, for re-publishing it.
December 22, 2013
I bought this book, something I rarely do anymore, because Stella Gibbons also wrote Cold Comfort Farm. CCF is one of those books that the reader hates to see end. So, I wanted to see how this sterling English writer from the 1930s through the 60s fared in later books. Starlight was not as funny as CCF but had the same affectionate skewering of her characters. There's nothing phony or patronizing about Ms Gibbons' relationship with her characters. She doesn't tar her villains nor sanctify her heroes. This particular book is, in some respects, a morality play. It treats of good and evil, on the small everyday cruelties as well as the actual evil of hell. It's not preachy, however, so atheists shouldn't be too put off by the good vs evil theme.
August 28, 2019
Brilliant tale that is gently menacing - and yes I know that's a contradiction in terms but the author is skilled enough to pull it off. She sets the scene wonderfully. You can really visualise the cottage(s) in a rough area and the bleakness of the heath in the middle of winter. The characters are well drawn varying from the genteel poverty of the cottage occupants, to the struggling vicar and curate with a tiny congregation, the sleazy rackman, his wife the medium and the trafficked maid. The medium's daughter and the rich woman she works for are easily pictured and the tension in the novel builds gradually until the underlying secrets are revealed.
January 10, 2016
A very unusual book which succeeded in keeping me intrigued, while also making me smile with its characters and conversations. The scenes with the sisters and their conversations with their neighbours are straight out of an Ealing comedy, but there is also a darker truth that lies behind the day to day, such as Mr Fisher's fate. The north London setting is very well portrayed, as is the austere simplicity of the time. Quite what it was all about is an open question, so a good candidate for a reading group.
February 24, 2012
I have to admit the cover drew me in with this and the fact that I had finished my first Stella Gibbons book a few weeks before, Nightingale Wood, which I loved.
This however was a lot darker and seemed a little all over the place. Parts of it were compelling and the last few pages had a twist I did not see coming.
Some of the characters were deplorable and some quite lovable.
Maybe I should try her masterpiece Cold Comfort Farm next.
This however was a lot darker and seemed a little all over the place. Parts of it were compelling and the last few pages had a twist I did not see coming.
Some of the characters were deplorable and some quite lovable.
Maybe I should try her masterpiece Cold Comfort Farm next.
October 27, 2021
An odd little book. I hadn't read any Stella Gibbons previously, and came at this book with no preconceptions. I admired the writing and the manner in which Gibbons tells this story and portrays the characters. There seems to be a constant undertone of conflict (or tension) - among the characters, among the time in which the book is set, and among the various values that the author subsumes the narrative with.
February 19, 2015
This was a re-read. This is a very strange book in its genre-blending, except that it doesn't treat what it's doing as genre but as all part of the same story. But Gibbons can do this.
August 27, 2016
Rather pessimistic and nihilistic. Not as good as any of Gibbons's other books I've read.
June 18, 2012
I wanted to reread Bassett after I finished it. Truly. I'm not sure that feeling has left me.
This is not Bassett. And, it is also kind of extraordinary. And weird. Stella Gibbons is responsible for making me read a book that is largely (but not entirely) about a woman possessed by an evil spirit. That is a surprising sentence. I'm not the type that goes for books that concern themselves with exorcising (is that how you spell that?) demons. I might have to revise this sentiment. I kept reading. And, really, I admit I could not stop. Sometimes I felt myself reeling in a book that deals with theological concerns (and also demonic ones) and ordinary affairs-- dogs and dog fights (an absurdly comic one reminiscent of a hilarious scene in Bassett involving an animal in the wild I will not give away), a bad landlord who it turns out gets knocked out by the vicar (well not knocked out just punched and sent to the ground--he boxed at Cambridge) and who is not really bad at all, a strange old man, Mr. Fisher, who goes about selling dolls and changing his name (and whose life work is nothing short of a miracle in the book, a complete surprise and rather beautiful), making tea and relationships gone wrong and sometimes right?, ordinary gossip, and then murder (and a quite shocking, unsettling scene--well this scene and another which is quite terrible) and the ever-present sense of the aftermath of war, of the intrusion of the city and what Frost called "the highway dust over all" or something like that, the way in which London and in particular Hampstead Heath, where much of the book takes place, is changing and has changed....
But, Starlight, which reads with laughs (even if the book is more tragic or "darker" than her other work I've read, very much so) and a "can't put downness," an almost ordinary story, actually integrates these seemingly disparate things. There is a way in which the book seems to want to deal with evil in all its forms--the kind that possesses a person literally and also figuratively, that does not allow one to see what Gibbons seems to suggest is "starlight," or the old cliche of the bright side of things--how these things can take a person over and do not allow one "simple ordinary enjoyment" (a Gibbons phrase). That starlight lives alongside suffering. And, it is real too. Here, in the "guise" of this medium who needs an exorcism, where we might find ourselves laughing at the whole thing, I for one felt Gibbons's compassion for her. And felt it myself. She is given a kind of importance. Or, we are asked to take her seriously. I felt that her exorcism might suggest a larger, cultural need for an "exorcism" after the war (while at once the mundane ones are needed too--and here I am not (strangely) referring to the medium but to the other ordinary pain treated in the book--relationship woes, friendship woes, rent and so on). After the war, she suggests, those things that possess us, body and soul, need the real good too. It is not enough to bear witness to only the horror, but important, too, to see and acknowledge the good (an event at the end of the book will certainly test your powers to do this--actually a few events). Mr. Fisher's life work will leave you astonished and moved. Or, it did me. Its utter romantic relevance and real-worldness, its strange or surprising practicality alongside the mystical felt like a key going into a lock which turned the book into a thing of wholeness. This is a book that wants the romantic alongside the real, wants to suggest there are not separate genres for that, just as there are not in a life lived.
The vicar, Mr. Fisher, the vicar's mother.... The old British who hold onto the good in this book with an almost stern (and perhaps stereotypical old British) quality, a kind of decisive squareness are both ! and often full of wit and humor. The new curate in his comic mistakes and prayers for help and in his transformation feels altogether true. There is enough starlight here (and in Gladys and Annie!) to make any reader revisit the old cliche and hope to make it new or see it real. I think so. But, as I said, you will be tested in this, in seeing real good alongside its opposite, at not giving way to despair, at carrying on.
This is not Bassett. And, it is also kind of extraordinary. And weird. Stella Gibbons is responsible for making me read a book that is largely (but not entirely) about a woman possessed by an evil spirit. That is a surprising sentence. I'm not the type that goes for books that concern themselves with exorcising (is that how you spell that?) demons. I might have to revise this sentiment. I kept reading. And, really, I admit I could not stop. Sometimes I felt myself reeling in a book that deals with theological concerns (and also demonic ones) and ordinary affairs-- dogs and dog fights (an absurdly comic one reminiscent of a hilarious scene in Bassett involving an animal in the wild I will not give away), a bad landlord who it turns out gets knocked out by the vicar (well not knocked out just punched and sent to the ground--he boxed at Cambridge) and who is not really bad at all, a strange old man, Mr. Fisher, who goes about selling dolls and changing his name (and whose life work is nothing short of a miracle in the book, a complete surprise and rather beautiful), making tea and relationships gone wrong and sometimes right?, ordinary gossip, and then murder (and a quite shocking, unsettling scene--well this scene and another which is quite terrible) and the ever-present sense of the aftermath of war, of the intrusion of the city and what Frost called "the highway dust over all" or something like that, the way in which London and in particular Hampstead Heath, where much of the book takes place, is changing and has changed....
But, Starlight, which reads with laughs (even if the book is more tragic or "darker" than her other work I've read, very much so) and a "can't put downness," an almost ordinary story, actually integrates these seemingly disparate things. There is a way in which the book seems to want to deal with evil in all its forms--the kind that possesses a person literally and also figuratively, that does not allow one to see what Gibbons seems to suggest is "starlight," or the old cliche of the bright side of things--how these things can take a person over and do not allow one "simple ordinary enjoyment" (a Gibbons phrase). That starlight lives alongside suffering. And, it is real too. Here, in the "guise" of this medium who needs an exorcism, where we might find ourselves laughing at the whole thing, I for one felt Gibbons's compassion for her. And felt it myself. She is given a kind of importance. Or, we are asked to take her seriously. I felt that her exorcism might suggest a larger, cultural need for an "exorcism" after the war (while at once the mundane ones are needed too--and here I am not (strangely) referring to the medium but to the other ordinary pain treated in the book--relationship woes, friendship woes, rent and so on). After the war, she suggests, those things that possess us, body and soul, need the real good too. It is not enough to bear witness to only the horror, but important, too, to see and acknowledge the good (an event at the end of the book will certainly test your powers to do this--actually a few events). Mr. Fisher's life work will leave you astonished and moved. Or, it did me. Its utter romantic relevance and real-worldness, its strange or surprising practicality alongside the mystical felt like a key going into a lock which turned the book into a thing of wholeness. This is a book that wants the romantic alongside the real, wants to suggest there are not separate genres for that, just as there are not in a life lived.
The vicar, Mr. Fisher, the vicar's mother.... The old British who hold onto the good in this book with an almost stern (and perhaps stereotypical old British) quality, a kind of decisive squareness are both ! and often full of wit and humor. The new curate in his comic mistakes and prayers for help and in his transformation feels altogether true. There is enough starlight here (and in Gladys and Annie!) to make any reader revisit the old cliche and hope to make it new or see it real. I think so. But, as I said, you will be tested in this, in seeing real good alongside its opposite, at not giving way to despair, at carrying on.
March 13, 2022
Gladys and Annie are elderly sisters living in the dilapidated Rose Cottage on the backstreets of post-war Highgate, sharing the building with ancient Mr Fisher who lives on the top floor. Barely scraping together a living, they are all thrown into panic when their home is sold to a terrifying 'rackman'. To the sister's relief he doesn't increase the rent and instead he installs his wife into the adjacent property to recover from an unnamed illness, but she doesn't seem to be recovering from the unknown malady and, to their horror, seems to be getting worse...
I went into Starlight with a completely open mind and never having read a word by Stella Gibbons previously (no, not even Cold Comfort Farm!). I'm so glad that I did because it was not what I was expecting at all!
I loved the writing: Gibbons' ability to focus right in on the nub of what makes people tick and their particular quirks was wonderful to read; the way she wrote about how Gladys's way of speaking is a baffling mix of stream of consciousness and stop/starts reminded me of someone I work with (!) and it filled out her character so clearly.
There is quite the cast of characters in Starlight and at times it felt the story was drifting off in different directions and as readers we never really got to know them too deeply (but then, again, maybe we're not meant to?). The story covers themes of poverty, social class, love, racism, xenophobia, old age, loneliness, religion and good and evil (seriously, wasn't expecting the turn it took! Let's just say it involves priests and lots of holy water). It could have been a heavy read, but honestly the writing is so good that you don't realise what's happening is so sad until you have the tears quietly gathering in your eyes (Oh, poor Mr Fisher)! I was so glad that there seems to be a peaceful resolution to Gladys and Annie's story.
I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago and still thinking about it, which must be a sign that it was a story that got under my skin! Thanks to Vicki (@antipodeanbookclub) for hosting the #QuietClassics2022 discussion at the end of February; it was a joy to read this book with the group who had such clever and interesting insights.
I went into Starlight with a completely open mind and never having read a word by Stella Gibbons previously (no, not even Cold Comfort Farm!). I'm so glad that I did because it was not what I was expecting at all!
I loved the writing: Gibbons' ability to focus right in on the nub of what makes people tick and their particular quirks was wonderful to read; the way she wrote about how Gladys's way of speaking is a baffling mix of stream of consciousness and stop/starts reminded me of someone I work with (!) and it filled out her character so clearly.
There is quite the cast of characters in Starlight and at times it felt the story was drifting off in different directions and as readers we never really got to know them too deeply (but then, again, maybe we're not meant to?). The story covers themes of poverty, social class, love, racism, xenophobia, old age, loneliness, religion and good and evil (seriously, wasn't expecting the turn it took! Let's just say it involves priests and lots of holy water). It could have been a heavy read, but honestly the writing is so good that you don't realise what's happening is so sad until you have the tears quietly gathering in your eyes (Oh, poor Mr Fisher)! I was so glad that there seems to be a peaceful resolution to Gladys and Annie's story.
I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago and still thinking about it, which must be a sign that it was a story that got under my skin! Thanks to Vicki (@antipodeanbookclub) for hosting the #QuietClassics2022 discussion at the end of February; it was a joy to read this book with the group who had such clever and interesting insights.
August 9, 2015
The main thing I really loved was the characters and the main characters I really loved were the elderly. The character of Gladys was hilarious and so well drawn. I could really hear her voice in my head and while I could see that she might be an irritating sort to know, she was a delight to read. Her sister Annie was great too, the dialogue between these too was so well written, it was so natural and accented. What I got more of with Annie was her appearance, I could see her perfectly and hear Gladys perfectly.
Another favourite character was Mr. Fisher. He was a perfect eccentric and the revelations about his towards the end are enormously beautiful.
The rest of the characters were very good too, I loved their little idiosyncrasies and how all the bits worked together to keep the story moving in an unexpected direction.
The ending for me was about the side notes. The big thing that happened was my side note, for me it was all about Gladys and Annie in the end.
A lovely, funny, creepy, comfy, well rounded section of a group of people.
Another favourite character was Mr. Fisher. He was a perfect eccentric and the revelations about his towards the end are enormously beautiful.
The rest of the characters were very good too, I loved their little idiosyncrasies and how all the bits worked together to keep the story moving in an unexpected direction.
The ending for me was about the side notes. The big thing that happened was my side note, for me it was all about Gladys and Annie in the end.
A lovely, funny, creepy, comfy, well rounded section of a group of people.
February 17, 2021
The novel I have chosen as my favourite today is Starlight (1967) by Stella Gibbons. Famous primarily for Cold Comfort Farm, Gibbons’s other novels are well worth exploring, with many located in London. Starlight is set in Highgate, primarily in the run-down cottages in which two elderly, impoverished sisters – Gladys and Annie – live alongside the mysterious Mr Fisher who makes straw dolls, and their unscrupulous landlord’s wife, Mrs Pearson, and her young maid. Mrs Pearson is a medium, and is suffering from an unnamed illness which keeps her bedridden. Her arrival in the cottages brings with it a sense of foreboding for the residents, as it appears that something unearthly has arrived with her. The book is partly a tale of the domestic supernatural, but also touches movingly on class, vulnerability and old age. The London it depicts is gloomy, spooky and teetering on the brink of poverty. It is a dark story, but one that also has a warmth and glow about it, much like the pink and gold furnishings of Mrs Pearson’s bedroom cocoon.
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