Odd Shoes

by Winifred Watson

430 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1936

About the author

Winifred Eileen Watson (20 October 1906 - 5 August 2002) was an English writer. She is best known for her novel, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which was adapted into a major motion picture of the same name (released in 2008).

Bibliography:

Fell Top (1935)
Odd Shoes (1936)
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (1938)
Upyonder (1938)
Hop, Step, Jump (1939)
Leave and Bequeath (1943)

Reviews

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ann MacDonald is born the bastard daughter of a Scottish woman of little means who is disowned by her family for having a child out of wedlock and refusing to name the father. Ann is a singular personality - independent, clear-sighted, practically unshakable - but afraid of falling into the sinful, carnal ways of her mother.

I became interested in this book because of the author's celebrated Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. I knew that Winifred Watson wrote five other books, but they're notoriously hard to track down. 'Miss Pettigrew' is considered the outlier as it's lighthearted and a bit experimental, and generally her other books are called dramatic bodice-rippers and sort of dismissed.

In one of her obituaries though, these books are described a little differently:

All her books were women's novels, showing women having second chances, moving on and changing creatively - much as she herself changed from genre to genre. She was interested in the development and resolution of sexual, family and class tensions in ways that might flout convention or the law, but allowed women to survive and flourish.

I think that's a much better way of talking about this book at least. Don't get me wrong - it's racy. Much racier than I thought books in the 1930s were, but I'm pretty under-read in this decade, so. The plot is bananas. It took me a good 200 pages to figure out what this was even about. If I hadn't spent a dumb amount of money shipping it over from the UK, I don't know if I would have been so intent on finishing it.

But then it totally grabbed me. Ann MacDonald becomes the companion of an older woman in Newcastle. Then she marries a meek man of similarly low means who at least loves her. Together the two of them build a business (with Ann very much taking the lead) and have two children, Ned and Elizabeth. Ned is jovial but sort of weak-willed, but Elizabeth is beautiful and headstrong. She doesn't quite have her mother's indomitable spirit, but she's interesting.

The plot really gets going when one night Ann goes to see a building burning and gets caught in a stampede. She meets a mysterious man and they have an instant attraction. He's so intrigued by her that he calls on her later...only to meet her beautiful daughter.

What I liked about this book, other than the clear characterization, is how honest it is. The attraction of an older man to youth and beauty, the way that kind of love can be possessive rather than wise, the kind of love that matters in the end (passionate or patient). Sure, there was plenty of drama, but so much of it rang true. There aren't really any easy outs. The ending left me emotional - and it was totally unexpected, at least to me.

I'd like to read the rest of Watson's books. The drama is zany but the sentiments are real, and while the style of this is totally different, I'd say that isn't so different from the takeaway of her one work that has really survived into today.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is out of print but my local library has a copy in their stack. Published in 1936 they have looked after their copy and rebound it in 2012 - I love libraries!!

[Danderdonk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading about life in nineteenth century Tyneside. A big emphasis on respectability and the contribution that it made to security for women.