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The Shelf
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published February 23, 1984
38 people want to read
About the author
Kay Dick
15 books43 followersDick was born Kathleen Elsie Dick at Queen Charlotte's Hospital, London, England, UK, but was but raised in Switzerland by her mother, Kate Frances Dick, being educated in Geneva, as well as at the Lycée Français in London. In early life, Kay Dick worked at Foyle's bookshop in London's Charing Cross Road and, at 26, became the first woman director in English publishing at P.S. King & Son. She later became a journalist, working at the New Statesman. For many years, she edited the literary magazine The Windmill, under the nom de plume Edward Lane.
Dick wrote five novels between 1949 and 1962, including the famous An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also wrote literary biography, researching the lives of Colette and Carlyle. In 1960 she published Pierrot, about the commedia dell'arte.
Dick was a regular reviewer for The Times, The Spectator and Punch. Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie (1971) and Friends and Friendship (1974). She was known for campaigning tirelessly and successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right, which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries.
In 1977, Dick published They, a series of dream sequences that won the South-East Arts literature prize, and was described in The Paris Review in 2020 as "a lost dystopian masterpiece". It had remained out of print due to poor sales and Kay experiencing harsh and sexist reviews in the press at the time of the award win. "They" was re-discovered by chance in a Oxfam charity bookshop in Bath, UK in the summer of 2020 by a literary agent. It was then acquired by Faber and Faber for re-release on February 3rd 2022 in the UK. In 1984 she followed the publication of "They" with an acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Shelf, in which she examined a lesbian affair.
Dick lived for some two decades with the novelist Kathleen Farrell, from 1940 to 1962.
Dick wrote five novels between 1949 and 1962, including the famous An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also wrote literary biography, researching the lives of Colette and Carlyle. In 1960 she published Pierrot, about the commedia dell'arte.
Dick was a regular reviewer for The Times, The Spectator and Punch. Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie (1971) and Friends and Friendship (1974). She was known for campaigning tirelessly and successfully for the introduction of the Public Lending Right, which pays royalties to authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries.
In 1977, Dick published They, a series of dream sequences that won the South-East Arts literature prize, and was described in The Paris Review in 2020 as "a lost dystopian masterpiece". It had remained out of print due to poor sales and Kay experiencing harsh and sexist reviews in the press at the time of the award win. "They" was re-discovered by chance in a Oxfam charity bookshop in Bath, UK in the summer of 2020 by a literary agent. It was then acquired by Faber and Faber for re-release on February 3rd 2022 in the UK. In 1984 she followed the publication of "They" with an acclaimed autobiographical novel, The Shelf, in which she examined a lesbian affair.
Dick lived for some two decades with the novelist Kathleen Farrell, from 1940 to 1962.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 12, 2021
“For many years the novelist Kay Dick…was at the centre of literary intrigue and gossip . She expended far more energy in pursuing personal vendettas and romantic lesbian relationships than in writing books…For crudity, vulgarity and foul language she had few equals, yet, at her best, she could switch on genuine charm…”
Author, editor and journalist Kay Dick’s obituary’s one of the most damming I’ve encountered. For many years Dick and partner Kathleen Farrell were prominent in circles that included Brigid Brophy, Olivia Manning and Sheena Mackay. Dick’s said to have influenced Orwell’s Animal Farm and was best known for her own, prize-winning, dystopian novel They, recently unearthed and due for republication. In her later years Dick was a notorious Brighton figure, frequently observed walking her dogs along the seafront, with her customary cigarette and eyeglass no doubt close at hand. I have no idea what kind of person Dick actually was but the glimpses I’ve had of her made her sound like a passionate eccentric, of the kind rarely seen in contemporary society, and her controversial persona reminded me of writers like Patricia Highsmith. What’s clear is that Dick was someone who struggled with personal relationships, and life in general - she’s known to have made at least one suicide attempt. So, when I finally came to read her semi-autobiographical novel The Shelf I was startled by how vastly different it is from the image of Dick I’ve pieced together from the few biographical details in circulation.
It’s the account of a relationship between novelist Cassandra (Cass) and a younger woman Anne, a fan of Cass’s work. Cass tells their story in flashback to an old friend Francis (likely a stand-in for novelist Francis King). There’s an element of mystery surrounding Anne’s apparent death but otherwise it’s an unexpectedly dry, stilted piece - apart from numerous unflattering digs at Olivia Manning, represented here by the character of Sophia. Its clipped, conventional tones are wildly at odds with its 1960s’ setting - even more so when you consider it was published in the early 1980s. What it does capture of that era is its casual homophobia, this is laced with it. The book jacket’s adorned with bizarre comparisons to Colette, Jean Rhys, Katherine Mansfield and even Ford Madox Ford, but their influence’s nowhere detectable in Dick’s narrative. However, there’s an almost Graham Greene-like quality both to the prose style and the subject matter - definite echoes here of his The End of the Affair. But unfortunately, there’s no sense of anything even approaching Greene’s skill or intensity. It’s also a very depressing portrait of a lesbian relationship: the exploitative power dynamic between older, world-weary Cass and younger, beautiful Anne is particularly off-putting, like a muted version of the appalling The Killing of Sister George. Anne’s character’s hazy, sketchily drawn, and Cass’s references paint her more as sensual creature than fully-realised individual. And despite Cass’s claim that she’s talking about a significant affair, her discussion of her time with Anne’s strangely dispassionate and unconvincing. Overall a very disappointing read, rounded off with a particularly improbable ending.
Author, editor and journalist Kay Dick’s obituary’s one of the most damming I’ve encountered. For many years Dick and partner Kathleen Farrell were prominent in circles that included Brigid Brophy, Olivia Manning and Sheena Mackay. Dick’s said to have influenced Orwell’s Animal Farm and was best known for her own, prize-winning, dystopian novel They, recently unearthed and due for republication. In her later years Dick was a notorious Brighton figure, frequently observed walking her dogs along the seafront, with her customary cigarette and eyeglass no doubt close at hand. I have no idea what kind of person Dick actually was but the glimpses I’ve had of her made her sound like a passionate eccentric, of the kind rarely seen in contemporary society, and her controversial persona reminded me of writers like Patricia Highsmith. What’s clear is that Dick was someone who struggled with personal relationships, and life in general - she’s known to have made at least one suicide attempt. So, when I finally came to read her semi-autobiographical novel The Shelf I was startled by how vastly different it is from the image of Dick I’ve pieced together from the few biographical details in circulation.
It’s the account of a relationship between novelist Cassandra (Cass) and a younger woman Anne, a fan of Cass’s work. Cass tells their story in flashback to an old friend Francis (likely a stand-in for novelist Francis King). There’s an element of mystery surrounding Anne’s apparent death but otherwise it’s an unexpectedly dry, stilted piece - apart from numerous unflattering digs at Olivia Manning, represented here by the character of Sophia. Its clipped, conventional tones are wildly at odds with its 1960s’ setting - even more so when you consider it was published in the early 1980s. What it does capture of that era is its casual homophobia, this is laced with it. The book jacket’s adorned with bizarre comparisons to Colette, Jean Rhys, Katherine Mansfield and even Ford Madox Ford, but their influence’s nowhere detectable in Dick’s narrative. However, there’s an almost Graham Greene-like quality both to the prose style and the subject matter - definite echoes here of his The End of the Affair. But unfortunately, there’s no sense of anything even approaching Greene’s skill or intensity. It’s also a very depressing portrait of a lesbian relationship: the exploitative power dynamic between older, world-weary Cass and younger, beautiful Anne is particularly off-putting, like a muted version of the appalling The Killing of Sister George. Anne’s character’s hazy, sketchily drawn, and Cass’s references paint her more as sensual creature than fully-realised individual. And despite Cass’s claim that she’s talking about a significant affair, her discussion of her time with Anne’s strangely dispassionate and unconvincing. Overall a very disappointing read, rounded off with a particularly improbable ending.
December 3, 2017
I really did not enjoy this, but it did read very quickly. I wouldn't NOT recommend it, I guess? but it was a very particular type of book and not a type I enjoy.
September 5, 2022
Rare enough to be too expensive to buy second hand. I had to resort to the London Library’s copy. This turned out to be rather fitting as this is a tale of highbrow literary London bisexual women and lesbians who speak in the sort of anachronistic, dusty, Drabble-like syntax that no one uses anymore. As with Drabble, I found it rather stiff and humourless, lacking the sparkle of archness one might find in Compton-Burnett, Brophy or Brookner. Dick’s class privilege has also not dated well: educated to the point of solipsistic incuriosity, but with none of the Waugh-style poignancy, wit and charm that usually mitigates. Still, the mystery of the suicidal character is nicely handled until the very end, and the novel has the added historical interest of pre-1967 attitudes to gay men and lesbians.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews