The Girls

by John Bowen

A wry, macabre tale of simple living, brutal murder, and a reasonably happy couple.

In their lovely old Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to all the other villagers as “the girls”—a fixture. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop specializing in the work of local artisans and farmers, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life.

So it’s no catastrophe when Sue, the younger of the two, feels the need to take a month to travel on her own, leaving Jan alone to run their stall at the Inland Waterways Rally Craft Fair. Nor is it any real threat when a kindly gay man named Alan lends Jan a hand in Sue’s absence, or when the two wind up sharing some wine and even a bunk for the night.

If Jan turns out to be pregnant some weeks after Sue’s return to the nest, what’s that but cause for joy? And when Alan happens to come visiting, by and by, finding the delighted girls raising a beautiful baby boy, who can blame him for wanting to share in a small part of their bliss?

Yes, theirs is an enviable, enviably settled life. And the girls will defend it with every tool at their disposal.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, LGBT, Classics, Queer, Lesbian, British Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

John Griffith Bowen was a British playwright and novelist. He was born in Calcutta, India, and worked in publishing, drama and television.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gr...

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Taut. Enigmatic. & masterful.

A lost gem of Gothic wickedness.

A delight for fans of both Shirley Jackson & Iris Murdoch--Bowen reminds one of these brilliant girls!

[Maura Heaphy Dutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little gem. This dark comedy of manners and mores from 1988 scores for me on three important points: first, it is beautifully written. NOT flowery and poetic, heaven help us, no, but wonderful plain-spoken descriptions and observations that, in the tradition of the best writing, mean that the thing described or observed can never be seen in quite the same way again. Bowen's descriptions, and catalogues, of the content of an English country garden are so beautiful it made me want to get straight to a garden center. His description of a rather old, poorly constructed and over-taxed septic tank at the bottom of that idyllic garden was so detailed and rigorous that I shudder to think about the research he must have done. And as a former teacher of creative writing, I marvelled at the clever and apt use of the omniscient voice, and the story structure that lulls the readers into a sense of complacency, like dozing in a deck chair in that lovely garden on a warm summer's afternoon, only to shock you out of that complacency like being slapped by a cold, dead hand.

Because second, it is dark. Dark, dark, dark. And hilarious. I am doing my best to avoid spoilers here, but trust me, when I say that when the action starts, it is not for the faint-hearted. This is "Mapp and Lucia", directed by Alfred Hitchcock, in his "Psycho" years.

And yet ... third, it is incredibly touching and even life-affirming. "The Heart wants what it wants ..." but with all due respect to Emily Dickinson, John Bowen's little gem of a novel demonstrates that it cares very much indeed.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t know how a book about murder ended up as one of my coziest reads of the year???

[JacquiWine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The British playwright John Bowen is perhaps best known for his television plays, such as the folk-horror-inspired Robin Redbreast and creepy ghost stories like The Ice House. These dramas, plus the gently unsettling Edward Gorey illustration on the front cover of my copy of The Girls, will give you a feel for this novel’s off-kilter tone.

First published in 1986, The Girls is a savage gem in which the cosiness of life in an idyllic English village is destabilised by domestic horror. Think Barbara Pym crossed with Inside No. 9 and you’re pretty much there – maybe with a smidgen of Lolly Willowes or Barbara Comyns in the mix, just for good measure. I adored this surreal, dreamlike book and feel sure it will feature in my end-of-year highlights.

The story takes place in the mid-1970s, with much of the action unfolding over a sequence of heady summers, an atmosphere that greatly enhances the story’s unsettling combination of tones. Susan and Janet – the ‘girls’ of the novel’s title – share a cottage in a small village in the Cotswolds. They are partners in business and in life, devoting their time to producing a vast array of cheeses, jams and hand-embroidered smocks, which they sell in their local gift shop and at craft fairs across the country.

The girls were an old-fashioned couple, as they still are. They had come together in the days when the Women’s Movement was at its most militant, and many a wife and mother was led into lesbianism by having her consciousness raised, but Susan had never heard of the Women’s Movement and Janet was not sure that she approved of what she had heard. Instead they fell innocently in love… (p. 24)

Interestingly, if the girls were two young men living together, making yogurt and sewing smocks, tongues would be wagging. But as it is, the villagers are very accepting of Sue and Jan, who have lived together in the cottage for the past seven years.

Early in the novel, a pedigree boar escapes while en route to service a local sow, setting the tone for this peculiar story, which is flecked with touches of the absurd. Naturally, the incident causes chaos for the villagers, not least for Jan and Sue when the animal enters their shop…

Blinded by smocking, the boar broke from the rack and cannoned off the chest-freezer, knocking over the cold cabinet. Elderflower Cooler mingled with the blood on his back, and the lemon juice must have stung his wounds, for his squealed again and continued to do so. Martin and the breeder appeared with corrugated iron. ‘You keep that bloody iron out of this shop,’ Janet shouted. She imagined, as in some comedy routine, the two men knocking each other over with sheets of corrugated iron, while the boar ran to and fro between their feet and the contents of the shop were destroyed. (p. 17)

The episode with the escaped pig prompts Sue to reflect on what she is doing with her life. It’s true that she and Jan have been building a shared existence together, but was it all just a way of retreating from the world, consuming the days as the years slip by? It’s difficult to say. Sue knows that Jan has enriched her life, awakening her emotionally and providing the security in which their love has blossomed. But are those structures and routines now becoming constraints, restricting the girls’ scope to evolve as individuals?

Against this backdrop of restlessness, Sue books a package holiday to Crete, giving her the space to do some soul-searching on her own while Jan stays in the village. Naturally, Jan is nervous about this development, but she realises that Sue, who is ten years her junior, needs the space to find herself.

Left to her own devices, Jan is plagued by nightmares in which Sue is either perishing at the hands of foreign criminals or having the time of her life without a second thought for Jan. Jealousy has never been a problem for Jan before, but in the lonely depths of night, her imagination runs wild.

To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024...

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well this is absolutely splendid stuff. I stumbled upon it in a bookstore, saw the Gorey cover, read the blurb making reference to the strange mix of Barbara Pym and Stephen King, the rave from Gore Vidal and Armstad Maupin, and bought immediately.

Very very glad I did.

Highly recommended to one and all.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

It begins as cozy as all get-out: two goodhearted lesbians running a Midlands tea shoppe and selling craft items and artisanal cheeses. Drolleries ensue-- then a turn of events you wouldn't ever have expected (but still, nothing entirely out of possibility.)

Ah but THEN enter a wholly unexpected dark dark twist. It sneaks up on you, in the best possible way.

[Jane Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

these girls are living a dream — house chores galore and running a little village shop? i mean, they have a conservatory attached to their home! it’s too bad they also have to navigate jealousy and guilt and anxiety and nightmares.

[WndyJW · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quirky, well-paced story with great characters. A comfort read with a dark twist. As a Goodread’s friend said, “The Edward Gorey cover is a tip-off that all is not well…!”

Fans of Barbara Comyns and Hilary Mantel’s non-historical novels will enjoy this. I loved it and I highly recommend it.

[Troy Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read on the back of this book: “for those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others”, I wasn’t sure what I was in for. But it’s a terrifically enjoyable read. Gentle and unnerving but not for the squeamish.

[Joe M · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Cozy-Macabre" is a genre I could definitely stand to have a lot more of in my life! This dark, comic novel was a lot of fun and maybe perfect winter reading.

[Sydney E · Rating 4 out of 5]

let’s go lesbians
funny, dark, AND cozy?? what more could you want. couldn’t put it down, had to find out how it ended. almost wish it was longer

[Selin · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the weirdest and most twisted books ive ever read :)

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just grand, this one. Bowen writes with aplomb, but never bombast. Everything works flawlessly and so matter-of-factly. The descriptions of nature, the work of the Girls in their home and small shop, the quiet bucolic hamlet, the relationships, it is all so perfectly rendered. It is all feels so unremarkable even the killing, but there is a subtle beauty to it all that makes you realize you are in the hands of a master storyteller. Never has the regularity of life felt so magical and possible. I absolutely adored this book. And that last half page? Stunning, just stunning.

[Annie Tate Cockrum · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fun and a little kooky! Very readable and fast paced book. The humor feels very dark and also very British (affectionate). I loved it and frankly found it incredibly touching.

[Jackie Sabbagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Girls is an astoundingly cozy story of two partnered lesbians living provincially in a small village in mid-1975’s Britain. It is impossible to gesture even broadly to the plot without spoiling plotlines, so I will just say the book escalates scenes of descriptive farm life and rural gift-shoppery with startling turns to the macabre and the existential. It’s closer to literary fiction than mystery or thriller, though dark intrigue and a ruler-perfect plot help to narrow the human elements into comfort food. The eponymous girls, Janet and Susan, are thrillingly believable, both in their operation on two separate cerebral wavelengths, and in their seamless intermingling into one unit (romantic, familial, and vocational). They are endlessly fascinating and sometimes charmingly trivial, and I was relieved at the male author’s treatment of them with pathos and good humor. (He was gay, so that’s probably it.) The book could’ve been a touch longer with a deeper focus on the girls’ idiosyncratic psyches, notching it closer to literary fiction and away from the relentlessly marching pace of genre fiction. Still, this book was like a warm bath on a very dark night, & was endlessly surprising, relieving, and heartening. I cried at the end. Thank god for lesbians!

[🐴 🍖]

siiiiiiiick. the particulars (ocarinas & jam & elderflower cooler & whatnot) are so sarah records that the inexorable march of the plot from escaped pig to sue in crete to jan meets alan to... what happens after just sorta bubbles under the surface until the ol' septic tank comes into play. highest possible rec for anyone who digs russell greenan (and vice versa). lingering Q that continues to creep me out: when, chronologically, does the 1st chapter take place?

[Aubree Aguinaga · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top 2 funniest books I’ve ever read. I’m actually still processing the whiplash of the comedy of errors that ensued

[Sofya · Rating 3 out of 5]

why would you name your son Butch....

[Brendan Monroe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amusing but slightly too twee for my tastes. "The Girls" is a crime novel where the crime takes a sort of backseat to the characters. Think Patricia Highsmith if Patricia Highsmith wrote comedies populated by somewhat silly English country folk.

A pleasant diversion that's worth a trip if you happen to be in the area.

[Austin Hoeft · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the type of book I am always looking to read and I feel quite lucky to have found and read it.

[Ava · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fun and interesting! Shame it’s not more widely read. Good for McNally editions for reprinting this.

[Nora Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let’s goooooo lesbianssasss

[Alanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVEEEEEEEEEEE the girls >.< !!!!!!!!!!!!! S + P + B FOREVER <333

easy to read and so fun imo. i really loved this story!!!

[Dan Cassino · Rating 4 out of 5]

An under read, under appreciated gem. A lovely, happy couple in the Cotswolds, a sweet portrait of village life in the 70s, and even when the murders start, the sweetness remains.

[Emma Santucci · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book cracked me up. felt like i was escaping to the english countryside every time i picked it up. there is so much tongue in cheek humor and macabre absurdism, it was an absolute delight to read. old fashioned but highly recommend (it’s short and sweet and if i wasn’t on deadline i would have finished it much sooner).

[Bronwyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 but I’ll be generous. This was pretty good. Weirdly believable even though it’s a bit out there. I don’t feel like I ever got to know any of the characters, everything was at a bit of a remove. The writing is lovely though and I could picture the house and surroundings. And I appreciated the queerness shown in the 1970s, with all that entails.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a little gem. Very dark but equally hilarious, I flew through the pages of The Girls. The writing was fantastic, and I loved the plain-spoken descriptions throughout.

[annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slow and imaginative :) The writing reminds me of Tom Baker’s The Boy Who Kicked Pigs and Barbara Comyn's Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, both of which also feel so quintessentially English?? I saw another review describe this as taut and I think that is the most brilliant word for this book. The writing is very bare-bones but it really lends itself to the tone which is simply and wonderfully bizarre. For a book where one of the protagonists murders someone, both the characters and the story move at a snail's pace and I love that there is no urgency! It’s not forthcoming with its eerie temperament, it’s more like the slow accumulation of despair that makes it so unnerving!! Very fun all around!!!

[Bethany Everett · Rating 5 out of 5]

A weird delight!

[Rebeccapinto · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is there to say, except that British people are so freakin' cute, and gay British people are so cute you can't freakin' stand it.