Midsummer Night in the Workhouse

by Diana Athill

"I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958." So begins literary legend Diana Athill in the preface to Midsummer Night in the Workhouse, a long-overdue collection of her short fiction, originally published in the 1950s to the 1970s.

In unsentimental though often touching prose, Athill's young women anticipate, enjoy, or just miss out on brief sexual encounters with men met on trains, at parties -- just about anywhere they can. A cheating wife, back with her boring husband, is wracked with agonizing love for the unavailable partner of her brief fling; a writer seeks inspiration at a writers' retreat whilst avoiding the group seducer's invitation; a wife's party flirtations propel her possessive husband into another woman's bed; two fun-loving women face a sinister sexual assault during a Greek holiday; a teenager experiences enraptured detachment during her first kiss.

Beautifully written, perceptive, touching, and funny, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is Diana Athill at her best.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, British Literature, Ebooks, Audiobook, Literature, Contemporary

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Diana Athill was a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company André Deutsch Ltd.

She was born in Norfolk in 1917 and educated at home until she was fourteen. She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and graduated in 1939. She spent the war years working at the BBC Overseas Service in the News Information Department. After the war she met André Deutsch and fell into publishing. She worked as an editor, first at Allan Wingate and then at André Deutsch, until her retirement at the age of 75 in 1993.

Her books include An Unavoidable Delay, a collection of short stories published in 1962 and two 'documentary' books After A Funeral and Make Believe. Stet is a memoir of Diana Athill's fifty-year career in publishing. Granta has also reissued a memoir Instead of a Letter and her only novel Don't Look at Me Like That. She lived in Primrose Hill in London.

Reviews

[Fiona MacDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a delightful collection of short stories from Diana Athill. She has a wonderful way of writing, each of her stories touches upon infidelity, boredom and sexual excitement outside a relationship. Quite taboo and naughty for it's time, but you can still see the beautiful writing style flowing through. It boggles my mind how Athill can create such beautiful prose in such a short space of time and delicately finish them making you feel as though you have ended a full length novel!

[kymdotcom · Rating 3 out of 5]

So very, very middle class.

[Wendy Feltham · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gave me this collection of short stories by Diana Athill, a woman I'd never heard of, a British editor who received the OBE for her work editing some of the most famous writers of the 20th century and for writing her own series of memoirs. These short stories were previously published years ago, and the book I read (as an "advance reading copy") will be published in December 2011. I thoroughly enjoyed these stories, the very British characters and their struggles and growth, and the brilliant descriptions of landscapes and places. At times I stopped to reread passages that used language in ways that completely inspired me. I look forward to reading her memoirs next.

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Athill struck me as a something of a British Dorthy Parker, although her stories rely less on the sly humor they both share. Their subjects are the similar, as they both write about the petty difficulties of human relationships. But where Parker's stories crackle with the tension between the author's talent and insecurity, Athill's seem more empathetic and humane. I believed every action and every word.

[Ilse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great collection of cosy, quiet short stories. All stories show love in it's different forms and how love is experienced in different stages of life. Each story felt as if you were looking through a window and saw a tiny snipped of someone's life.
The simplicity, yet versatility, of this was what I loved most.

The writingstyle and way of storytelling were executed in a way I can only enjoy and appreciate. Definitely no regrets in randomly picking up this book in the bookstore!

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine selection of short stories, the first two-thirds being more enjoyable than the latter few. Perhaps I prefer stories set in the early to mid century period. My favourite eras for reading are varied but I am particularly interested in life leading up to and including both world wars. So there is plenty to interest here and at least three stand-out stories.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charming book of short stories about the love and sex lives of middle class British people, mostly women. My favorites were the titular "Midsummer Night in the Workhouse" about a writer at a writer's retreat with writer's block and "An Island" about a woman who gets pissed at her husband at a party and walks home alone drunk by way of a graveyard.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read and enjoyed Athill's other books, especially the memoirs. This book, her only collection of stories, is a dud. It isn't terrible; the stories are elegantly written. But they're not particularly memorable or interesting either. Try Stet instead.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had either read about or heard Athill talking about her experiences of old age and her decision to move to an old people's home. She was just so interesting and positive about things. This book of short stories was a delight. I really like her writing style and she deals with all sorts of ideas- exploring both female and male takes on the world and their position in it. It is interesting how the lives of privileged women (education/money) are so different than those of the women of her generation that I knew of. Athill's women often seem to know what they want and to make confident choices about what is on offer. Some of the male characters are floundering and she treats them with sympathy - the grown up sister's sudden understanding of her brother's suffering at boarding school in the final story is striking and poignant.

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly exceptional collection from Diana Athill. Sexy, smart, mature writing and characters that leap off the page. Highly recommended.

[Ayreon · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

Adored the last couple stories but unfortunately took a while to really peak my interest.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have now read four of Diana Athill’s memoirs and thought it was about time I read her fiction which is mentioned in one or two of them. Midsummer Night in the Workhouse arrived from the US - a former library book from Boca Raton, Florida of all places. I can’t help thinking that Athill would have found that amusing.

I must be honest and say I was a little disappointed. Some of the stories appealed and others I just didn’t connect with and I’m trying to work out why. I think it has something to do with time.

In the memoirs time is on her side. Athill had a long life and it definitely brought her an invaluable sort of wisdom and the detachment, when she was much older, to analyse the tragedy that marked her young life. It is her unique sensibility that I love in her writing but somehow I think the sensibility of say the 1950s and 1960s in short story writing is not so suitable to today’s busy readers who often devour shorter stories and flash rather than longer stories, as in this collection of twelve stories.

For instance I got lost in An Afternoon Off and actually put the book aside. Not caring very much about the man who does take the afternoon off from his busy working life. In the story that won her the Observer short story prize in 1958, The Return, two English women hire two local men (Greek I think) to take them to a nearby bay so they can go for a swim. The men refuse to comply unless the women “do something” for them. In this corrupt and violent 21st century what happens to the women in this story could have been so much worse.

The Real Thing is a sweet story but dated, as is An Unavoidable Delay although the bittersweetness is touching. Also dated for this reader is An Island. Desdemona is more interesting and is possibly a later story. The story Buried flashes back to a time long gone for 21st century readers and I’m not sure I understood where it was going. In several of the stories the characters have an epiphany about their life – No Laughing Matter (Jane is in the bath when this happens), and A Weekend in the Country. My second favourite story is For Rain It Hath a Friendly Sound. It is the study of a marriage and missed opportunities and is excellent and heartwrenching. So too is A Hopeless Case.

My favourite though is the title story Midsummer Night in the Workhouse. I’m not sure exactly when it was set, probably in the 1960s. A kindly benefactor that owns a large country house has put it up as a writer’s retreat at no cost to the writer from what I can gather. How times have changed. Of course today we pay heavily for the privilege of peace and quiet. The writers in the house are an odd bunch and our narrator, Cecilia Mathers, is not doing any writing at all. She is bored and frustrated by the endless rules of the house. The latest is PLEASE DO NOT DETACH LUSTRES FROM THE CHANDELIER has got her thinking.

“For some months she believed that she did not feel like beginning a second novel, or even a story, because she was so poor and harassed. Given peace and lamb chops for lunch… but now she was given peace and not just lamb chops but roast chicken and asparagus, and summer pudding with cream, she could still find nothing to write.”

Here is Cecilia wondering about the note regarding the chandelier:
“Lustres from the chandelier. Who would wish to detach them and how could it be done? The chandelier hung high from the centre of the ceiling. The sofa table stood under it. If you lifted one of the ladder-back Chippendale chairs onto the table and then climbed on that, it would be possible. Someone must have done it or there would have been no notice. Mrs Borrowdale? She weighed over twelve stone. Laura Preston?...”

Cecilia goes on to consider everyone in the house, thinking just like I would think in the same circumstances, which is probably why it is my favourite story. You’ll have to read it to find out if Cecilia gets any writing done. 3 and a half stars for the collection.

[Tim Love · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were written in the 50s, and it shows. I don't think the first piece is any good. I wondered whether to give up. The second was better, and I liked the third story - cultural misunderstandings compounded by linguistic difficulties. The main characters discover that not all men/foreigners are the same. In several of the pieces an adventurous woman is in an alien setting - their first ball, an artists' retreat, etc. The issue of whether/how to have sex hovers, the liberated woman's reasoning overcoming physical urges - daring vs control; art vs life.

"A weekend in the country" is typical. A female artist living in London is going out with Richard, a landowner from the area where she grew up. He invites her to meet his family for a weekend. After a meal around a big table where she's the only one in favour of building an open prison nearby, the two of them go for a picnic on a deserted island. She's physically drawn to him while also being aware of his conservatism. His marriage proposal provokes an adverse reaction and they break up. The plot sounds like that of a Woman's magazine story, but there's sufficient pace and ambivalence to sustain interest - she's returning to childhood haunts while at the same time experiencing an alien culture. Civilisation and High Society contrasts with the dunes and winds, the open prison symbolising a compromise. And the dialogue sounds real enough.

Some passages sound awkward - e.g. "Roger, who for twenty years, since he was seventeen, had been ..." (p.104) or puzzling - "He had a lot to do, and he had not exactly forgotten it. He might, though, have wrapped the impending afternoon in a bulky parcel and dropped it into a pool of some opaque substance through which it was now sinking. A Thursday afternoon in March submerged" (p.104).

Marriage seems restrictive to the women narrators in these stories - suppose you meet someone more suitable later? The married women relish their moments of freedom - a holiday alone, a drunk walk home alone. Many of the stories involve the first time a couple sleep together - or don't. Sometimes the point of a story seems to be that a woman can choose to sleep with a man. The men don't come out of it too badly, though there are exceptions - "It became apparent that he distrusted anything and anyone he didn't understand. Women he mistakenly didn't distrust because he thought he understood them, being able to please them in bed as he could; but any man whose experience covered different things from his own he bristled at and had to put them down" (p.157). Men tend to behave differently in a group (at a party, say) to the way they behave when just with a partner.

I liked "An Island" though I think the drunken stream-of-consciousness seems a mite over-controlled. The final story, "Buried", for a change, doesn't involve a rutting couple but a pair of middle aged siblings walking in the dark after a little accident.

[Heike Lettrari · Rating 3 out of 5]

What a sound set of short stories in this collection! The plain prose here brought several touching stories, full of humanity and wanting, and a bit of danger -- whether in the form of a drunk woman walking home alone or two girlfriends on vacation in a foreign country seeking an unexciting boat outing but getting more than they bargained with (unwanted kisses and the threat of more serious sexual assault), or, characters in disconnection -- in "An Unavoidable Delay" a wife impetuously and impulsively extends a trip to spend time with a man she connected with on the train oh her return trip or "A Weekend in the Country" where a woman explores a man she knows better than she cares to admit, but by the end of the story has to reveal her knowledge and the insight that their future together wouldn't work.

I connected with many of these characters, and, in the way that good writing brings to life some of my own memories with their complicated emotions, this was a very solid book.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill. It’s a collection of stories mostly from the early 1960s. They are elegantly written stories mostly about women and their experiences at different stages of their lives. I didn’t love every story, but I enjoyed most. They are notable for their sensitivity, realism, and a modern openness about private matters including sexuality, the conflict between one’s independence and marriage, unhappiness in marriage, and infidelity. There is also a story of two Englishwomen on holiday abroad that you won’t forget.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

These stories weren't what I was expecting but I ended up really liking them! I loved how they talked about the turmoil of the female experience without resorting to violence against women and without condemning "immoral" choices. She talks about straying from your partner and sex without trying to moralize the reader and make declarations about what is right and wrong. I think a couple of these stories at least will really stay with me and I would be happy to return to them at a different stage of my life too.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

These twelve stories first appeared in the late 1950s or early 1960s, ten of them published with four others under the title An Unavoidable Delay in 1962. This lovely Persephone collection was published in 2011 – with Athill able to write her own preface – she is one of only a few living authors to be published by Persephone. The endpapers taken from a fabric purchased by Diana Athill for her flat in the 1970s.

In this collection Athill writes about young women experiencing the world of love and sex for the first time. Smart, sexy, knowing stories, touched with gentle humour and some well-developed characterisation.

A young girl is enraptured by her first kiss at a dance, with an unexciting young man in The Real Thing which opens the collection. The girl is touchingly young, finds so many situations to be ‘utterly withering’ and unkindly calls her companion Thomas ‘Toofat’ in her head – his last name is Toogood. He is at least old enough to drive a car. In No Laughing Matter another young girl – a university student – who is absolutely smitten with her boyfriend Stephen – has to decide whether it is time to take their relationship to the next level.

“For twelve weeks these anxieties had buzzed like mosquitoes, teasing at the decision, giving her the circles under her eyes and spoiling her appetite. The more formidable they became, the more certain she was that she would do it in spite of them. The decision was harder than she had expected, involved more than the general principle of the thing which, though frightening, was simple. She was suffering for it, and the more she suffered the greater became her exaltation.”
(No Laughing Matter)

Full review: https://heavenali.wordpress.com/2018/...

[Emma Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous book was a 50th birthday gift from a friend and I’ve been savouring the stories like a box of luxury chocolates. Written in 1958, Athill’s prose is so perfect that I frequently stopped to reread a line several times. Her characters are women with backbone, passion and humour and each story is an absolute delight.
Now I’ve enjoyed them as a reader, I’m going to go back and learn what I can as a writer. Absolutely wonderful.

[Starre Vartan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These short stories are some of the best I've ever read, period. "The Return" is possibly my favorite short story of all time, about a #metoo moment 50+ years ago in another country, but Athill nails all the same themes that Rebecca Traister does in her essays. I am blown away.

[Neelybat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked her writing, very much. I know I would have enjoyed the book much more if not every single story wasn’t about a young lady obsessing in one way or another about a man. I didn’t find any of the men interesting or worthwhile, so I found myself getting annoyed.

[K115987 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Libro trovato per caso e letto ancora più per caso.
Purtroppo niente di memorabile.

[Michaela Mc dermott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Impeccable

[Helen Downton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were interesting. Some of the language used was of it's time and not acceptable now.

[Abi Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely short stories. Just chill and fun to read!

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I could recognise the high standard of writing, but the dated language and attitude to male/female relationships was somewhat flippant.

[Kathrin Passig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kompetente Kurzgeschichten, ich fühlte mich erzähltechnisch in guten Händen, aber mit diesen 50er-Jahre-Literaturthemen (semi-unglückliche Ehepaare, Affären, Fassaden, Konventionen) bin ich noch nie klargekommen. Sicher geht es irgendwie um zeitlose Konflikte und ich bin ungerecht, nur weil mir das Mobiliar muffig erscheint, aber ich werde bei Athills autobiografischen Büchern bleiben.

[Bianca Orazi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Della Athill avevo già letto Da qualche parte verso la fine, un memoir uscito nel 2010 che consiglio vivamente, e l’avevo trovato un po’ angosciante senza essere deprimente. Mi era piaciuto molto questo suo sguardo lucido sull’inevitabilità della fine e allo stesso tempo la sua filosofia che non è finita finché non è finita.

Questa è una raccolta di racconti brevi, ritratti introspettivi, istanti di una vita fa, quando la morale era più rigida ma la curiosità molto maggiore di ora, con queste giovani donne che tremano al solo pensiero di cosa le attende, donne le cui braccia scoperte erano immensamente più sexy delle nudità che si vedono ora.

Alcuni di questi racconti scavano in quei momenti quando un piccolo dubbio si insinua, minacciando sicurezze di una vita che sembrava scorrere su binari oliati, magari dura solo un attimo o magari conduce a scelte inaspettate. Penso che succeda a tutti, a qualche punto, di guardarsi dentro e intorno con occhi diversi, immaginando la persona che potremmo diventare, o invece quel che poteva essere e non è stato. E’ come quando si perde l’equilibrio per un istante e si annaspa alla ricerca di un punto d’appoggio, che a volte non si trova.

Quasi tutte le storie parlano di donne, lasciando intravedere probabili spunti autobiografici. Sono tutte notevoli, Un fine settimana in campagna, Il ritorno e Sepolto sono quelle che ho preferito.

Scrittura lineare che si lascia leggere facilmente, ma sempre intelligente e acuta.

[Carlo Turco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Questi dodici racconti narrano della vita, o di particolari vicende, dei sentimenti reciproci, dell'incontrarsi, ritrovarsi, lasciarsi, o rimanere insieme, di altrettante coppie di persone, uomo e donna, non sempre né necessariamente amanti; ma sullo sfondo, sempre, storie di amori. La scrittura è estremamente gradevole, mai scontata, spesso sorprendente: sempre aliena da stereotipi e luoghi comuni. Sa cogliere aspetti e sfumature particolari di persone e relazioni. Niente sentimentalismi, nonostante il tema dominante: al contrario, spesso molto umorismo ma senza sarcasmi. Immagini di esterni, o di interiorità, particolarmente efficaci, come questa: "piccole onde si arricciavano lente lungo la spiaggia, allargandosi con tale riluttanza che il loro lieve sciabordio faceva parte del silenzio"; o la descrizione di un calice, "trasparenza pura, il nulla raccolto nel vetro"; o l'effetto dei "rumori del bosco di notte, la sensazione di creature che si ritirano nell'ombra spiando gli intrusi"; o ancora, infine,la descrizione di ciò che tante volte segna l'inizio apparentemente imprevedibile di un rapporto: "Tra loro era sorta quella curiosa sospensione della consapevolezza, il che significa che se scegliessi di essere consapevole capiresti cosa sta per succedere." Una lettura decisamente per palati fini, non per chi cerca sensazioni forti o trame travolgenti.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

blurberoonies - The short stoires collected in Midsummer Night in the Workhouse represent the start of Diana Athill's writing career. In the preface to the selection she says: 'I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. Until that moment I had been hand-maiden, as editor, to other people's writing, without ever dreaming of myself as a writer.' Then she encountered someone who reminded her of an episode in her past and that evening she wrote her first short story. She went on to win the the "Observer" short story competition and writes, 'Bury me, dear friends, with a copy of the Observer folded under my head, for it was the Observer's prize that woke me up to the fact that I could write and had become happy.'

Diana Athill's stories draw on her own personal experiences and her keen observations of others, each is perceptive, poignant and funny.

Diana Athill was born in 1917. In 1946 she joined Andre Deutsch and went on to become one of the country's leading editors in a career spanning fifty years. She has published six volumes of memoirs and a novel.

Read by Zoe Tapper Abridged by Julian Wilkinson Produced by Elizabeth Allard.