Black Bethlehem

by Lettice Cooper

Three long short stories, two of which are backgrounded by the war and the now familiar bombing of London, and introduce a great deal of war motivated episode and debate.

The first concerns wounded, discharged and returning war hero, Alan Marriot, who can find no political certainty, no personal stability; the second, Lucy Meadows, who takes in a refugee woman who is always to remain an alien, who rewards her generosity by seducing Lucy's longstanding lover; and the third tells of a small boy's tension and hatred after the arrival of a new baby.

Genres: World War II, Fiction

324 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1947

About the author

Lettice Ulpha Cooper began to write stories when she was seven. She studied Classics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford graduating in 1918.

She returned home after Oxford to work for her family's engineering firm and wrote her first novel, 'The Lighted Room' in 1925. She spent a year as associate edtior at 'Time and Tide' and during the Second World War worked for the Ministry of Food's public relations division. Between 1947 and 1957 she was fiction reviewer for the Yorkshire Post. She was one of the founders of the Writers' Action Group along with Brigid Brophy, Maureen Duffy, Francis King and Michael Levy and received an OBE for her work in achieving Public Lending Rights. In 1987 at the age of ninety she was awarded the Freedom of the City of Leeds.

She never married and died in Coltishall, Norfolk at the age of 96.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Catherine Jeffrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is three shorts stories, two set during the Second World War and one in the 1930’s. The author is particularly good in these stories of describing the thoughts and emotions of a man, woman and child. We get the senseless, privations and horror of war, and the night terrors and daytime passions of a young boy and his pet cat.

[Janis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabulous.....I still love the Yorkshire novels best, but this was excellent reading...