In the Dark

by Deborah Moggach

Historical, domestic and sexy like Moggach’s best-selling Tulip Fever, this is a tantalizing, page-turning story set in South London’s dark and dirty streets during WWI.

1916: Pretty young Eithne Clay runs a shabby-genteel South London boarding house while her husband is off at the War. There’s Ralph, her fourteen-year old son, and Winnie the young maid, a homely, goodhearted country girl, and the lodgers, of course, a curious but necessary burden. They include blind Alwyne Flyte, communist and cynic, victim of a gas attack in the trenches. When the dreaded telegram arrives at the house, things turn from difficult to desperate for the two young women.

Then along comes the butcher, Neville Turk, big handsome ladies’ man, irresistible for his meat, money and brutish confidence, who throws flighty Eithne into a turmoil but has sinister plans of his own. Winnie and the blind lodger, meanwhile, conduct a strange, erotic liaison of their own. And young Ralph, ignored by his mother, looks on, feeling the undercurrents of desire, seeing more than he should. All the strands come together in a shocking denouement that turns a coward into a hero and young Ralph into a man.

They’re all in the dark with their dreams, secrets and fantasies, and electric light, new to their world, may be a boon but it reveals both grime and secrets. Life is tough on the home front and they’re all working the system in different ways, sometimes comic sometimes tragic, always human.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Book Club, War, World War I, British Literature, Literary Fiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Deborah Moggach is a British writer, born Deborah Hough on 28 June 1948. She has written fifteen novels to date, including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, and, most recently, These Foolish Things. She has adapted many of her novels as TV dramas and has also written several film scripts, including the BAFTA-nominated screenplay for Pride & Prejudice. She has also written two collections of short stories and a stage play. In February 2005, Moggach was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by her Alma Mater, the University of Bristol . She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a former Chair of the Society of Authors, and is on the executive committee of PEN.

Reviews

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad read - in a sense a "coming of age" tale. Set in London during the first World War it focuses on a landlady whose husband has gone to war and who has a teenage son (with all that that entails!!). It also features a local butcher who is very interested in the landlady. The thing about Moggach is the she writes very vivid characters and this book is a good example of that. Can't say the story was riveting and it tended towards predictability but the characters were good.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as "Tulip Fever", but still an enjoyable read.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

’The truth was that nobody took a plain person seriously. The didn’t give them their full attention, there was always somebody else to catch their eye.’

The author captures time and place so effortlessly like all good story tellers, with her attention to detail, in her characterisation, vivid description and a well observed dialogue, appropriate to the age.
She challenges the reader’s passive acceptance that things will always be as they are and shows that war was a great facilitator of change. The most visible change is in Mrs Eithne Clay, the owner of the grubby guest house, that is home to a variety of odd ball characters. She, herself, is a flighty sort and her dramatic transformation from a morose but hard working widow into a sexually dynamic companion, albeit a very gullible second wife, for the incorrigible local butcher, Neville Turk, is a joy to behold.

It is the absolute random nature of war that brings the unexpected rushing to the fore, and ushers in the dynamics of change that threatens to unseat and unhinge and unsettle…and it does all three in this lively, well paced novel.

And into ordinary lives of ordinary people there comes the element of uncertainty and in flash everything is different. Fear of imminent death concentrates the mind and life is suddenly run at a fast and furious pace where everything is in fast forward mode…grab the moment...seize the opportunity as life is a fleeting moment....and it is a new and unavoidable reality that we must accept and make the best of…

‘Let’s just say that war strips a man down to his essentials.’

So war, in all its aspects, is a great opportunity for some while for others it is a brutal calamity.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this! Reads like a good PBS Masterpiece series from the UK. A story about a London family directly affected by the Great War and its aftermath. A nice easy story with moving ending -- good summer beach reading.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is the anecdote to the contrived plot and one-dimensional characters of Hanna's Nightingale. Like Nightingale, there is a war time setting with women managing while most able-bodied men are enlisted or have been killed in battle. But the story lacks Nightingale's plot inconsistencies and weirdly modern anachronisms. The characters are well defined and memorable. I was concerned for Winnie and Ralph in particular. Wonderful plot twists.

[Lady Drinkwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful read about a lodging house during the first world war. Lots of great period detail, rather steamy at times.. even shocking.. when what goes on "in the dark" is described.. with many vivid characters. Although it all takes place in England the effect of the War on the various characters movingly depicts the horror of that time.

[Patriciagoodwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read. The characters are truly alive & realistic. The feel of London life during WW1 was superb. And really this is the novel together with surprises that appear throughout. I will definitely look out for other fiction from this author.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked how it all came together at the end but I just didn’t enjoy reading about all of the awkward sexual encounters.

[Arieke Oolders · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik heb het boek gelezen met wat tegenzin. Het verhaal begon mij al snel te vervelen. De personages waren voor mij niet zo springlevend, beetje vlak. Ik had er meer van verwacht.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it seems a rather simple story as a whole, there was so much that I loved about this book.

1) The character studies
The Butcher (Neville) profits on the scarcity and desperation that the war has caused throughout London. He reaps the benefits of being among the only men left by seizing on others' misfortune and loneliness. He has affairs with the widows and women, buys up all the property he can, and runs a black market food supply operation.
I loved Winnie's story, her simple love of her horses, her obsession with being a good maid, the fling with Alwyne... She was the most likable female character in the novel.
We also see what PSTD would have looked like after WWI through one of the characters. It is something I always hear about nowadays in America after the recent wars. It is appalling really, how much the government relies on these men to fight for our way of life, and then abandons them when they return as very broken men. It hadn't really occurred to me that this has always been the case after any war and in any country. And 100 years ago before advancements in the study of psychology it would have been much more difficult to suffer from PTSD without being ridiculed by society. This becomes very vivid by the end of the story.

2) The role of animals
The stories of the horses as a mode of transportation, and as tools in war, were extremely heart breaking. When I think of WWI I would never think of horses, and yet they lived it too, and suffered, and died, and were mistreated. It was appalling some of the passages of fallen horses in the streets, and other ways they were used in this era. And it made me realize how large the cost of war truly is. Because we are not the only ones that suffer. We as humans create these wars for various reasons, bias, and political agendas, and yet we take the helpless and innocent along with us. We destroy not only ourselves, but animals too. What a sad and violent thing a human war machine is. It made my heart ache thinking of the lives of these horses.
Another animal we see from beginning to end is the family dog, who has a bit of a personality all his own, and offers a constant, and a comfort to those whose lives are so dramatically altered by the turn of events around them

3) Technology
How fascinating this was! I loved seeing the changes in the house, the installation of plumbing, a telephone and electricity. Of course, we all know that at some point these upgrades to daily life happened, but I have never really wondered what it must have felt like to actually live through such changes. I really loved this small aspect of the story.

So in summation, there is really nothing negative I have to say about this novel. I suppose I wanted a more definitive ending in regards to "what next", but it was an enjoyable read. I think I will have to pick up another one of her books.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moggach has written a wonderfully researched and compelling World War I novel that barely ventures outside the confines of South London. Eithne Clay runs a boarding house full of doomed and damaged people. While her husband is at the front, she is assisted by her son, Ralph, and their maid, Winnie. Through this misfit group of people, Moggach tells the story of the homefront - of deprivation, uncertainty, tragedy, and the human cost of war, even for those far from the action. Her characters are well-developed and the story moves along at a good pace. I became invested in the characters and loved the ending. A really good read.

[Lori Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Deborah Moggach's books, and was delighted to find this one is historical fiction. Set in World War I, the story revolves around one of Moggach's favorite themes -- how people living in a hotel relate to each other, the secrets they hide, and the surprises they reveal. I read it in one night and was a disaster of exhaustion the next day -- but it was well worth it.

Highly recommend.

[Sara G · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a weird book. It's full of twists (most of which I didn't see coming). It's full of sex. It's messy. I absolutely loved it. At no point did I know how this would end.

Moggach's use of language is, as always, wonderful, really bringing forth a clear image of the characters, time, and space. I especially liked Ralph and his entire character arc.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

What we do to survive, how we mould the world to be as we want it to be, how we judge people and put them into boxes then get upset when they show their individualness. A unique take on life at the end of the war and how different people cope with war inflicted stresses.

[Trish]

Currently reading this and find it a very touching story. Picked it up as had read "Tulip Fever" by Moggach and had enjoyed that.

[Marsha Klein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the story line compelling, but was disappointed in the (for me) unsatisfying ending.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Britain during the first World War. Eithne Clay's husband is in France, fighting, leaving her to run the boarding house with only the help of her son and the maid, Winnie. Times are tight and it's getting hard to feed everyone. There's the enigmatic man blinded in battle. There's the family whose father came home shell shocked and cannot leave their room. Several older women live there. Eithne knows some of them are getting behind on their rent but what can she do? There's nowhere else for them to go.

Things get worse when her husband is killed but help is around the corner. Mr. Turk is the neighborhood butcher but much more. His shop has expanded to triple the size during the war and he always has plenty of meat when other shops have only scraps. He sets his sights on Eithne and Mr. Turk always gets what he wants. Soon the two are married and everything is about to change.

Eithne's son and Winnie unite in a silent battle against Mr. Turk. They can see that there is something wrong about him even when no one else can. Then Winnie has a personal issue and leaves and Mr. Turk gives the other lodgers notice. What will happen to everyone?

Deborah Moggach is an English author whose best known book is Tulip Fever about the obsession with tulip bulbs that seized the world. She writes about family relationships and women finding their way in the world. Her work has been adapted for television series and movies. In this novel, Eithne's discovery of obsessional sex leading her to ignore all her other relationships is revelatory. The son is the silent hero who struggles on to keep things going and to fight the evil that has overtaken their lives. This book is recommended for readers of historical and family fiction.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars, rounded up to 4.

Starting in 1916, but mostly set in 1918, this is an entertaining story of life on the home front in London while war still rages on the continent.

Life was hard for folks back home, and rationing went on everywhere, making the availability of basics like meat a luxury.

We follow the story of a widowed mother, her teenage son and the boarding house they run, a house that has seen better days.

In this boarding house we meet the servant Winnie and the lodgers that reside there.
Some of the lodgers play an important part in the story and some are only minor characters.

To this setting we see the arrival of Neville, a butcher who shirks duty on the war front but makes himself popular with most at the boarding house, because he never seems to be short of money and can provide the owner of the boarding house with material comforts aplenty - like decent food.
He wins the heart of the widow, and becomes her second husband.

But he's not popular with her teenage son, and two other people, Winnie and a blind lodger with whom she has a brief affair, are not too crazy about him either.

The blind lodger, a big talking communist, has a secret or two about him that is revealed later in the book as well.

An entertaining fast moving tale that can be read quickly, this is worth adding to one's reading list.

[Teresa Bower · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this an interesting book full of interesting characters. Eithne and her teenage son Ralph, their housemaid Winnie and the strange assortment of lodgers in their boarding house, the most interesting of which is Mr. Flyte. There is also quite a lot of sex. As the story begins it is 1916 and the news has arrived that Eithne's husband has been killed in action. This leaves her struggling with the accounts and trying to keep the household running. She and her son are very close until the local butcher, Neville Turk, arrives on the scene and disrupts their lives. He is a lascivious man and although Eithne is swept away by his advances, her son is appalled. He begins to make changes in the house which unnerves the various residents and you wonder what his motives are in the long run. Meanwhile young Winnie is forming an attachment to Mr. Flyte. Poor Ralph sees and hears things which he should not and tries to break away from his once poor but happy homelife. Secrets abound and by the end of the book all is revealed.

[Pammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this story about a run-down boarding house in South London, circa 1916. Eithne struggles to keep things going after her husband is off to the WAR. She and her son (Ralph) attempt to give comfort to their pathetic boarders: a blind communist, an old woman with dementia, and a sad little family with the mother working two jobs to survive. A hire hand housekeeper does her best as the three...Eithne, Ralph and Winnie... form as a working unit to keep everyone fed and a roof over this heads.
And then the news that the husband/father has died in action. Followed not too long by the arrival of Turk the butcher who makes his move to woo the recent widow.
This is definitely classed as a historical novel, with the author using quotes and excerpts from war diaries, to begin each chapter, thus setting the stage upon which Moggach's characters must play.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book certainly has atmosphere. The crumbling South London boarding house with a curious mixture of lodgers. Set in the middle of WW1, the hardships at home are vividly portrayed. At the centre is Eithne Clay and her 16 year old son Ralph. His father is a casualty of the war and he misses him terribly. Less so his mother and her relationship with Mr Turk, the dreadful butcher, effects the household in different ways. I thought that Winnie, the ugly housekeeper, was a wonderful character, her beautiful mistress less so. An enjoyable, if not happy, story that pitches us headlong into wartime London.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

"1916. Pretty Eithne Clay runs a ramshackle South London boarding house with the help of her teenage son, Ralph, and their maid, Winnie. Struggling to keep herself, her lodgers, and her son going as every day life vanishes in the face of war, Eithne's world is transformed by the arrival of Mr Turk, the virile, carnal, carnivorous local butcher who falls passionately in love with her. As the house bursts to life with the electricity - metaphorical and real - he brings, dark secrets come to light."

This was an enjoyable read with some fascinating characters.

[Lorreine Kennedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first of Deborah’s books I’ve read- even though I’ve obviously seen the Exotic hotel a few times (and love it). First up, what a lovely quirky and easy read! I think I may have got this via kindle unlimited, which makes me feel even better. I didn’t really know much about the book, but I found the period of the book and the characters thoroughly engaging. At times I laughed and thought it was a comedy. Ralph (the heroines son) irritated me on a number of occasions. All in all, I loved the book and will read another of hers.... enjoy!

[Tansy Hepton · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5, rather meanly rounded down. This was a book club choice - I wouldn't have chosen it for myself and wouldn't have finished it if if I wasn't going to have to discuss it. In the end, I was glad I read to the end, which was more interesting than I had expected, but I think I've just read too many WW1 books. and this one didn't add enough that was new. Having said that, the writing is great and the characters are interesting, if not likeable. I can imagine other readers interested in the period, or who perhaps know less about it, would enjoy the book more.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting is in a town in England during World War 1. It takes place in a rundown boarding house managed by a young widow and her teenage son. There are an interesting cast of characters and some surprises along the way. I thoroughly enjoy this author's writing and I am looking forward to reading Tulip Fever, which I under was made into a movie with some of my very favorite actors.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as it was different to her other books. Her depiction of the era & the characters was very entertaining. My one criticism was I did think there wasn't enough of the Clarence & Emily story & interaction with Eithne for it to be so important to her to want to find Emily & return the photo & for it to end the book.

[Roo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has been a long while since I read a Deborah Moggach book and this was exceptional. She is very talented at really taking you inside the characters, and the story was well thought out. I really felt like I was there in the boarding house, a very absorbing tale.

[Linda Burnham · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface a sensual domestic drama, played out in a boarding house run by a Great War widow, Moggach skillfully blends in details of the trauma of the war for those on the home front and especially for the soldiers on the front line. A very satisfying read.

[Clare Edmonstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is mainly from the point of view of the 16 year old son. It's an interesting view of life during WW1 and it's effect on ordinary people. Overall not a lot really happened and the end was slightly unrealistic and disappointing but overall it was an easy, enjoyable read

[Debbie Hickman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant storytelling ,as always!

Read in almost one sitting. Vivid settings, believable characters you can't help but root for. evocative and absorbing, illustrates well the horrors, resolutions and triumphs of war.