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About Time Too: Autobiography 1940-1970
A group of journalists are in Canada for an expenses-paid cultural spree. Muriel Rowbridge is the only woman of the contingent and for her the trip has a different it is her first assignment since having a breast removed five months earlier and, amidst the male bravado, she feels vulnerable and exposed. As a fashion and beauty correspondent, Muriel knows women's indoctrination well - she feeds it to them and has swallowed it whole. What she doesn't know is how to come to terms with her changed body, the fears this unleashes about relationships, and her perception of herself as a woman.
Compassionate, unsettling and beautifully constructed, My Friend Says It's Bullet-Proof is a unique and memorable account of one woman's private reckoning - a journey through anger and grief to an affirmation of her new self and her own sexuality.
Compassionate, unsettling and beautifully constructed, My Friend Says It's Bullet-Proof is a unique and memorable account of one woman's private reckoning - a journey through anger and grief to an affirmation of her new self and her own sexuality.
- GenresFiction
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
259 people want to read
About the author
Penelope Mortimer
31 books72 followersEarly life
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
She was born in Rhyl, Flintshire, Wales, the younger child of an Anglican clergyman, who had lost his faith and used the parish magazine to celebrate the Soviet persecution of the Russian church. He also sexually abused her. Her father frequently changed his parish, so, consequently, she attended numerous schools. She left University College, London, after only one year.
Adulthood
She married Charles Dimont, a journalist, in 1937, and they had two daughters, including the actress Caroline Mortimer, and two daughters through extra-marital relationships with Kenneth Harrison and Randall Swingler.
She met barrister and writer John Mortimer while pregnant with the last child and married him in 1949. Together they had a daughter and a son.
She had one novel, Johanna, published under her name, Penelope Dimont, then as Penelope Mortimer, she authored A Villa in Summer (1954; Michael Joseph). It received critical acclaim. More novels followed.
She was also a freelance journalist, whose work appeared regularly in The New Yorker. As an agony aunt for the Daily Mail, she wrote under the nom de plume Ann Temple. In the late 1960s, she replaced Penelope Gilliatt as film critic for The Observer.
Her marriage to John Mortimer was difficult. They both had frequent extramarital affairs. Penelope had six children by four different men. They divorced in 1971. Her relationships with men were the inspiration for the novels, Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958; republished in 2008 by Persephone Books) and The Pumpkin Eater (1962; reissued in 2011 by New York Review Books), which was adapted for the screen by Harold Pinter. It starred Peter Finch, James Mason and Anne Bancroft, who won an Oscar nomination for her role.
Mortimer continued in journalism, mainly for The Sunday Times, and also wrote screenplays. Her biography of the Queen Mother was commissioned by Macmillan, but when completed, it was rejected so instead Viking published it in 1986. Her former agent Giles Gordon in his Guardian obituary called it "the most astute biography of a royal since Lytton Strachey was at work. Penelope had approached her subject as somebody in the public eye, whose career might as well be recorded as if she were a normal human being."
She wrote two volumes of autobiography, About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography, covering her life until 1939, appeared in 1979 and won the Whitbread Prize, and About Time Too: 1940–78 in 1993. A third volume, Closing Time, is unpublished.
She died from cancer, aged 81, in Kensington, London, England.
Novels
Johanna (1947) (as Penelope Dimont)
A Villa in Summer (1954)
The Bright Prison (1956)
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1958)
The Pumpkin Eater (1962)
My Friend Says It's Bulletproof (1968)
The Home (1971)
Long Distance (1974)
The Handyman (1983)
Short story collections
Saturday Lunch with the Brownings (1977)
Humphrey's Mother
Autobiographies
About Time: An Aspect of Autobiography (1979)
About Time Too: 1940–78 (1993)
Biography
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1986), revised edition published in 1995, subtitled An Alternative Portrait Of Her Life And Times
Travel writing
With Love and Lizards (co-authored with John Mortimer, 1957)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 5, 2018
4.5 stars
This is one of Mortimer’s less known novels and is out of print. Inevitably I have the virago edition. At one level the plot is straightforward. Muriel Rowbridge is a journalist/writer who works for a woman’s magazine. She has cancer which results in a mastectomy. The novels covers two weeks when Muriel is sent on a trip to Canada by her magazine with a group (all male) of journalists. There is a busy itinerary and lots to do. Muriel comes to terms with her life in a notebook, which she writes stream of consciousness style. Muriel is a bit of a cynic, but she is also coming to terms with the loss of a breast and how this affects her image of herself. She has just broken up with a married lover and becomes involved in different ways with three men. There is an exploration of sexual identity and a reaction to the male bravado of the other journalists. Mortimer experiments with seeing and being seen and with the nature of perception in relation to women.
Muriel finds a new way of perceiving herself and the man who helps her to do this is one who has also been touched by tragedy. Muriel fins that no connection is straightforward, but eventually she has a sense of herself;
“She had found, after all this time of searching, an image: myself as I am. I prefer myself as I am. The implications came crowding in on her with the impact of light, air and sound after a long imprisonment. Boldness and freedom were both available. She could do anything she wanted to do”
The last chapter has a couple of interesting twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing until the last paragraph.
The whole is an interesting novel and Muriel is a compelling character.
This is one of Mortimer’s less known novels and is out of print. Inevitably I have the virago edition. At one level the plot is straightforward. Muriel Rowbridge is a journalist/writer who works for a woman’s magazine. She has cancer which results in a mastectomy. The novels covers two weeks when Muriel is sent on a trip to Canada by her magazine with a group (all male) of journalists. There is a busy itinerary and lots to do. Muriel comes to terms with her life in a notebook, which she writes stream of consciousness style. Muriel is a bit of a cynic, but she is also coming to terms with the loss of a breast and how this affects her image of herself. She has just broken up with a married lover and becomes involved in different ways with three men. There is an exploration of sexual identity and a reaction to the male bravado of the other journalists. Mortimer experiments with seeing and being seen and with the nature of perception in relation to women.
Muriel finds a new way of perceiving herself and the man who helps her to do this is one who has also been touched by tragedy. Muriel fins that no connection is straightforward, but eventually she has a sense of herself;
“She had found, after all this time of searching, an image: myself as I am. I prefer myself as I am. The implications came crowding in on her with the impact of light, air and sound after a long imprisonment. Boldness and freedom were both available. She could do anything she wanted to do”
The last chapter has a couple of interesting twists and turns that keeps the reader guessing until the last paragraph.
The whole is an interesting novel and Muriel is a compelling character.
August 7, 2016
mortimer's better than most people bye
February 11, 2024
3.5 stars
A sad and quite dated story about a sole woman amongst a male contingency of journalists who have travelled to Canada for a jaunt. The protagonist has had a mastectomy for breast cancer and is feeling the devastation of the psychological consequences of losing her breast.
Mortimer's writing is good, quirky at times and unusual in structure (some stream of consciousness, some repetitive and cyclical writing, some metaphoric).
The story arc was interesting, with Mortimer showing the disorientation of jet lag, long distance travel and being a "single woman" with threatened femininity.
I think the ending was sad and disappointing but clever in its unexpectedness.
Overall, good writing but melancholic and uninspiring to me.
I read this in one sitting overnight during a bout of insomnia 😫😩😩🥱🥱🥱🥱
A sad and quite dated story about a sole woman amongst a male contingency of journalists who have travelled to Canada for a jaunt. The protagonist has had a mastectomy for breast cancer and is feeling the devastation of the psychological consequences of losing her breast.
Mortimer's writing is good, quirky at times and unusual in structure (some stream of consciousness, some repetitive and cyclical writing, some metaphoric).
The story arc was interesting, with Mortimer showing the disorientation of jet lag, long distance travel and being a "single woman" with threatened femininity.
I think the ending was sad and disappointing but clever in its unexpectedness.
Overall, good writing but melancholic and uninspiring to me.
I read this in one sitting overnight during a bout of insomnia 😫😩😩🥱🥱🥱🥱
January 9, 2019
Not in the same league as "Daddy's Gone A-Hunting" or "The Pumpkin Eater", but interesting. The central character is Muriel Rowbridge, a young woman who, after an emergency mastectomy, decided to leave her married lover Ramsey. Thanks to her compassionate boss, Muriel finds herself the sole woman in a group of British journalists on a fact-finding trip to the US. While this soft assignment is supposed to take her mind off the consequences of the surgery, Muriel is not in a fit state to take advantage of her opportunities, but starts to come to terms with her new body through conversations with 3 very different men: fellow journalist and practicing Catholic Godfrey Wrench, who keeps an eye on her and engages her in serious debate; Alex MacNeish, a sleazy film director who is only interested in a quick fuck; and Robert, a Hungarian political refugee who accepts her body as it is and offers her marriage. This book having been written in the 1960s, Muriel spends most of her time in a drunken fog, martinis constituting the bulk of her diet. Off the cuff I can't think of any other novel of that period addressing breast cancer as directly as this one, and Mortimer deserves huge credit for that. I couldn't quite understand why Muriel decides to return to Britain rather than making a life with loving, sensitive and prosperous Robert in America. Perhaps Mortimer felt such a happy ending would demote the book into the romance category.
December 16, 2023
Chronological yet chaotic; elliptical but overstuffed with information. Often funny and touching, sometimes boring and formulaic.
October 8, 2019
I couldn’t get a grip on this at first, then page 53 had a moment of such ordinary decency and kindness that it brought a tear to my eye. MY FRIEND SAYS IT’S BULLET-PROOF is a sort-of autobiographical novel about a journalist who goes on a cultural tour to Canada while struggling to come to terms with her recent mastectomy. She is the only woman in her group, newly single, and the book is a partly a chronicle of her relationships with the men she meets. I say ‘sort-of’ autobiographical because for Penelope Mortimer the operation was not a mastectomy but a painful sterilisation procedure that featured in her previous novel THE PUMPKIN EATER and left her with a sizeable scar across her belly. The moments of kindness are moving but sadly scant.
Forming a good portion of the text is a diary which Muriel, the journalist, compulsively writes as she travels. These sections are steam-of-conscious and sometimes hard to follow. As a whole it is, I suppose, about self-perception, and about how men and women see each other. It’s not a widely-known book anymore, but it’s one which I suspect may still find an important place in the history of feminist literature.
Forming a good portion of the text is a diary which Muriel, the journalist, compulsively writes as she travels. These sections are steam-of-conscious and sometimes hard to follow. As a whole it is, I suppose, about self-perception, and about how men and women see each other. It’s not a widely-known book anymore, but it’s one which I suspect may still find an important place in the history of feminist literature.
August 2, 2021
This is my second Penelope Mortimer novel and, although I don't think it is as good as The Pumpkin Eater, it is certainly enjoyable and I'm looking forward to reading the rest of Mortimer's work.
June 25, 2025
Back in the 1950s and ‘60s, Penelope Mortimer carved out a niche for herself writing penetrating, razor-sharp fiction depicting the horrors of suburban domestic life, sometimes mining her own personal experiences for inspiration. (You can read my thoughts on her excellent novels, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting and The Home, plus the equally unflinching short-story collection Saturday Lunch With the Brownings, by clicking on the links.)
Mortimer’s 1967 novel, My Friend Says It’s Bullet-Proof, is a little different from those books, but I enjoyed it just as much. Tender, compassionate and piercingly insightful, Bullet-Proof is a novel about loss, self-perception and coming to terms with who you are after a life-changing event.
The story centres on Muriel Rowbridge, a young, unmarried writer with a regular column in a women’s magazine. Following her recovery from an emergency mastectomy some five months before, Muriel is sent by her editor on a cultural PR trip to Canada, ostensibly to generate material for future columns while also giving her a distraction – something to take her mind off the loss of a breast. It’s Muriel’s first major assignment since the op, and with all the other journalists on the trip being male, she feels somewhat fragile and exposed. In the five months since her diagnosis, Muriel has tried to cover herself in a self-protective armour, guarding against any undue displays of emotion. Seeking solace in self-sufficiency and independence, her overriding emotion is now one of fear.
My kind of fear is not organic; it creeps into exposed places and lodges there, it infects little by little, it colours the bone as it eats it. (p. 18)
Moreover, in the wake of her mastectomy, Muriel has ditched her married lover, Ramsey, partly in the belief that no one would ever be able to truly love her for what she is – a woman with only one breast. Before her cancer (which is now in remission), Muriel had envisaged marriage to Ramsey once his divorce came through, followed perhaps by children at some point. But now she sees this earlier plan as ‘a series of cliches without one positive feeling to bring it to life’. The need to feel loved is no longer important to her, or so she thinks – probably because she cannot imagine anyone loving her with only one breast. Surely, any romantic feelings towards her would now be tainted, largely by repulsion or pity? In essence, all this has severely impacted Muriel’s self-image, undermining her confidence, sexuality and sense of self.
At first she had been entirely concerned with the thought, the prospect of death. Then they told her she was not going to die and her concern changed to a sense of outrage; she became convinced that no one could ever feel anything for her, sexually, but pity and disgust. She sent Ramsey away, his mirror after him. They said she would get over this too, and suggested therapy. But she did not want to get over it, the cheat she was perpetuating on the world by pretending to be a normal woman gave her a kind of terrible liveliness; without that liveliness, that feeling of perpetual shock, she believed that she would drift into an apathy which would be worse than death. (p. 18)
With the smell of testosterone almost detectable in the air, Muriel finds herself the object of considerable male attention during the trip to Canada, some of which she records in her notebook – a constant companion – along with other pertinent reflections.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025...
Mortimer’s 1967 novel, My Friend Says It’s Bullet-Proof, is a little different from those books, but I enjoyed it just as much. Tender, compassionate and piercingly insightful, Bullet-Proof is a novel about loss, self-perception and coming to terms with who you are after a life-changing event.
The story centres on Muriel Rowbridge, a young, unmarried writer with a regular column in a women’s magazine. Following her recovery from an emergency mastectomy some five months before, Muriel is sent by her editor on a cultural PR trip to Canada, ostensibly to generate material for future columns while also giving her a distraction – something to take her mind off the loss of a breast. It’s Muriel’s first major assignment since the op, and with all the other journalists on the trip being male, she feels somewhat fragile and exposed. In the five months since her diagnosis, Muriel has tried to cover herself in a self-protective armour, guarding against any undue displays of emotion. Seeking solace in self-sufficiency and independence, her overriding emotion is now one of fear.
My kind of fear is not organic; it creeps into exposed places and lodges there, it infects little by little, it colours the bone as it eats it. (p. 18)
Moreover, in the wake of her mastectomy, Muriel has ditched her married lover, Ramsey, partly in the belief that no one would ever be able to truly love her for what she is – a woman with only one breast. Before her cancer (which is now in remission), Muriel had envisaged marriage to Ramsey once his divorce came through, followed perhaps by children at some point. But now she sees this earlier plan as ‘a series of cliches without one positive feeling to bring it to life’. The need to feel loved is no longer important to her, or so she thinks – probably because she cannot imagine anyone loving her with only one breast. Surely, any romantic feelings towards her would now be tainted, largely by repulsion or pity? In essence, all this has severely impacted Muriel’s self-image, undermining her confidence, sexuality and sense of self.
At first she had been entirely concerned with the thought, the prospect of death. Then they told her she was not going to die and her concern changed to a sense of outrage; she became convinced that no one could ever feel anything for her, sexually, but pity and disgust. She sent Ramsey away, his mirror after him. They said she would get over this too, and suggested therapy. But she did not want to get over it, the cheat she was perpetuating on the world by pretending to be a normal woman gave her a kind of terrible liveliness; without that liveliness, that feeling of perpetual shock, she believed that she would drift into an apathy which would be worse than death. (p. 18)
With the smell of testosterone almost detectable in the air, Muriel finds herself the object of considerable male attention during the trip to Canada, some of which she records in her notebook – a constant companion – along with other pertinent reflections.
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025...
July 13, 2024
A fashion columnist for a woman’s magazine is invited to Canada as part of a press cultural jolly. She is just about the only woman in the group, and is recovering from cancer treatment, has had a mastectomy and just broken up with her married lover. Sharp, insightful, wittily intelligent writing, all about the anxieties faced by Muriel, as she negotiates the attentions of several married men. Very much of its time, when women seemed almost duty-bound to sleep with any man who spoke to them, and go to strip clubs with them as though they were tea shops. The writing is interspersed with excerpts from Muriel’s diary/notebooks, there is a wonderful lightness of touch to the writing, places, characters and situations are evoked with a few lines, terrible dilemmas are likewise dealt with with great conciseness and economy. Only thing I didn’t like about the novel was the typical dialogue of the time, full of hesitation and vagueness, characters say 'I suppose so' rather than 'yes'. ‘Yes…no…I mean…I don’t know’, is a typical line. The title comes from words said by a boy who is admiring Muriel’s lover’s Bentley.
May 10, 2023
The most astounding book. It's about medical trauma, but just like Mortimer's heroine Muriel the book resists any sickness-as-metaphor bs. It captures perfectly the dissociation of going on a press trip with a bunch of random colleagues you'll never meet again, but it's also a surprisingly tender love story. Surprising, because Mortimer seems to have no time for sentimentality and melancholia, but then she wrestles so much emotion from one of the most tired of tropes (the independent yet damaged rich guy coming for the rescue of the damsel in distress). It's spellbinding how she writes about North America from a European perspective, and about the swinging sixties from the perspective of 1967.
The book has only 160 pages in my edition, but it is an epic, a generous, sprawling story. Really a marvel. Also, some very nice and effortless play with literary forms, like magazine articles, diary entries and court notes.
And, random fan note: the best title of any novel I can think of.
A big thank you to friend and fellow GR user Magdarine for leading me to Mortimer.
The book has only 160 pages in my edition, but it is an epic, a generous, sprawling story. Really a marvel. Also, some very nice and effortless play with literary forms, like magazine articles, diary entries and court notes.
And, random fan note: the best title of any novel I can think of.
A big thank you to friend and fellow GR user Magdarine for leading me to Mortimer.
December 7, 2025
I read this after discovering it serendipitously in a hole-in-the-wall bookshop. I had also recently undergone a cancer surgery and was also on a break from work. This is probably where all similarities ended. The titular character is confusing, fraught and plagued with a learned helplessness that often makes her an irritating protagonist, this isn't necessarily a bad thing but it is annoying. Mortimer's prose can be befuddling at times but, again, I don't dislike it, it can just be frustrating.
My favourite moments are the switches from first to third person, almost as if [Mortimer] herself is explaining to you whey she bothered to create the characters this way. There is an intensity to her writing that stirs up mixed feeling about whether I actually like what I am reading or just want to be punched in the chest with some memorable sentences, even if I can't recall the plot. I'm guessing its the latter.
Some genuine funny lines in here that have aged well considering.
My favourite moments are the switches from first to third person, almost as if [Mortimer] herself is explaining to you whey she bothered to create the characters this way. There is an intensity to her writing that stirs up mixed feeling about whether I actually like what I am reading or just want to be punched in the chest with some memorable sentences, even if I can't recall the plot. I'm guessing its the latter.
Some genuine funny lines in here that have aged well considering.
April 12, 2023
Well I found this Penguin 1969 paperback edition during numerous bookshop stops last summer - goodreads used to allow you to upload a book cover photo if it was missing. Don't see that function anymore. Shame.
This was similarily semi-autobiographical territory as The Pumpkin Eater. Female journalist flies to NYC following a mastectomy/relationship end with a married man. On her trip she engages in various dalliances with men, some more successfully sketched out than others. Loved the whole late 60s - three martini lunch, telephoning to reserve a plane ticket 30 mins before take off - period detail.
This was similarily semi-autobiographical territory as The Pumpkin Eater. Female journalist flies to NYC following a mastectomy/relationship end with a married man. On her trip she engages in various dalliances with men, some more successfully sketched out than others. Loved the whole late 60s - three martini lunch, telephoning to reserve a plane ticket 30 mins before take off - period detail.
July 19, 2023
Rallies quite well at the end. Mortimer is adept, but I really dislike this kind of indulgent, "sensory," well-nigh plotless novel of groovy mores in which it's continually difficult to get a grasp of the other human beings in the book. Cf. Adler's Speedboat and Marlowe's A Dandy in Aspic. This is a bit better than those other two, I think.
April 29, 2024
Some beautiful language. It’s not sparse, but it’s spare. It’s clean, gives space for the emotions and feelings
This is slight, but has substance and beauty. Sweet bitterness. Mortimer deals with heavy things lightly, delicately.
Her descriptions of love and loss hit home. The way she and Robert veer, how she isn’t beholden to him for her happiness, how she discovers hope of happiness beyond the year of her recovery, is something special
How they explore their feelings and how their pasts create distance; this is a rare book which doesn’t explore love as a linear thing, but as a coming together and moving apart:
“Would you have married Eleanor if…?
Yes. After a long silence he asked ‘Woukd you have married Ramsey?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so’
The mention of these two names put a distance between them. He felt this and held her closely, but they both dreamed of the past and, when they woke in the night, did not tell each other”
The description of their first live making p72 is a study in the awkward gentleness, the rituals of coming together. Strangely dispassionate, nervous, as he leaves her to undress and put on robes, before they come together. Is it because of her breast he is so discrete and delicate, or is it the time, the place, these two people?
How the title plays with her lost breast, and the light moment that the two young boys admiring the Bentley utter the words. It could have been a clumsy metaphor, but she always lands these things lightly
I love how Flora, the wife of her lover, treats her with care and tenderness 164- breaks the jealous wife and mistress cliche and centres on the selfishness of Ramsey
The brutal honesty of MacNeish and her response is affecting. How she describes not being seen and how she acts in this invisibility
165: “it’s a bad time Muriel. I told you, I can’t stand complications.
Which is why, she wanted to say, you have so many of them. She said nothing, waiting for him, leaving the rim of her glass between her lips, not drinking”
The added depth of Robert’s story and his loss, coming very late in the book, is nicely done.
The way she contrasts the banal three page monologue of the millionaire MacNeish - itself a contrast to the sharp, dialogue conversational style and crisp prose in the rest of the book- with her three page explanation of her cancer. Depth of her feeling versus the lack of feeling of the millionaire
This is slight, but has substance and beauty. Sweet bitterness. Mortimer deals with heavy things lightly, delicately.
Her descriptions of love and loss hit home. The way she and Robert veer, how she isn’t beholden to him for her happiness, how she discovers hope of happiness beyond the year of her recovery, is something special
How they explore their feelings and how their pasts create distance; this is a rare book which doesn’t explore love as a linear thing, but as a coming together and moving apart:
“Would you have married Eleanor if…?
Yes. After a long silence he asked ‘Woukd you have married Ramsey?’
‘Yes. Yes, I think so’
The mention of these two names put a distance between them. He felt this and held her closely, but they both dreamed of the past and, when they woke in the night, did not tell each other”
The description of their first live making p72 is a study in the awkward gentleness, the rituals of coming together. Strangely dispassionate, nervous, as he leaves her to undress and put on robes, before they come together. Is it because of her breast he is so discrete and delicate, or is it the time, the place, these two people?
How the title plays with her lost breast, and the light moment that the two young boys admiring the Bentley utter the words. It could have been a clumsy metaphor, but she always lands these things lightly
I love how Flora, the wife of her lover, treats her with care and tenderness 164- breaks the jealous wife and mistress cliche and centres on the selfishness of Ramsey
The brutal honesty of MacNeish and her response is affecting. How she describes not being seen and how she acts in this invisibility
165: “it’s a bad time Muriel. I told you, I can’t stand complications.
Which is why, she wanted to say, you have so many of them. She said nothing, waiting for him, leaving the rim of her glass between her lips, not drinking”
The added depth of Robert’s story and his loss, coming very late in the book, is nicely done.
The way she contrasts the banal three page monologue of the millionaire MacNeish - itself a contrast to the sharp, dialogue conversational style and crisp prose in the rest of the book- with her three page explanation of her cancer. Depth of her feeling versus the lack of feeling of the millionaire
May 14, 2021
’She looked as though she were smiling, but she was full of fear.’
Not as electrifying or developed as ‘The Pumpkin Eater’ but still an interesting story.
Not as electrifying or developed as ‘The Pumpkin Eater’ but still an interesting story.
Read
January 4, 2008An easy read. Written in the 60's, reminded me of Briget Jones, but with a more serious tone. It's about a woman who is a jounalist and travels from Britain to North America on a 2 week trip and meets two men of interest, but with opposing personalities. Muriel (main character), has also recently had a mastectomy and struggles to find herself as a whole woman again.
February 20, 2013
This is as good a novel as they come.
January 23, 2017
At this point, historical fiction (re-read)
Interesting
Interesting
March 4, 2018
Interesting and candid.It seems to show that you need a mixed up childhood and a carefree mixed up life to mine if you want to be a writer
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews