Attic Summer

by Jane Gaskell

Genres: Fiction

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Gaskell was born Jane Gaskell Denvil on 7 July 1941, in Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria, England (previously in the county of Lancashire). She is the great grandniece of the Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Her first novel, Strange Evil, was written when she was 14-years-old (published two years later, in 1957). In 1963 Gaskell married truck driver Gerald Lynch; and in 1965 their daughter, Lucy Emma, was born. (Their marriage ended in divorce in 1968.)

In 1970 she received the Somerset Maugham Award for her novel A Sweet, Sweet Summer.

China Miéville lists Strange Evil as one of the top 10 examples of weird fiction.

Wikipedia®

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Attic Summer’ is an obscure novella that seems to have been out of print for more than fifty years. Conveniently, however, the National Library of Scotland has a copy. The 1963 edition I read has a photo of a topless girl on the cover, which seems a little risque even now. The narrative follows a 16-year-old girl called Unity as she moves from her family home in Fulham to an attic in Chelsea shared with three flatmates. It is an extraordinarily intense portrait of teenage angst, by turns a striking illustration of early 1960s London and a timeless account of growing up. To say this is a book about teenage romance is both technically true and totally inaccurate. Unity’s life is dominated by constant sexual harassment. Sometimes this develops into a brief flirtation or almost-relationship, but usually it just takes the form of relentless threat. A suitable subtitle would be: ‘An anthropological study of fear and excitement in early 1960s female teenage sexuality’. That is far too dry a description, though. I found Gaskell’s writing electrifying. Her insight into the world of a teenage girl still seems shocking now, so was likely more so when it was first published. One scene, in which Unity is nearly raped during a cinema riot, is genuinely terrifying and difficult to read.

Such was the richness of Unity’s inner life compared to the pests, bores, and idiots who hit on her that I experienced ‘Attic Summer’ as the diametric opposite of reading Hemingway. Whilst good old Ernest clearly did not consider women to be people, from Unity’s perspective boys hardly seem more than monsters. Her fascination, repulsion, fear, and attraction are conveyed with wonderful subtlety. The boys and men she encounters are also very convincing in their self-absorption, heedless cruelty, and predatory behaviour. Feminism has not yet manifested in Unity’s world and even the less awful boys say things like, “You don’t have to let me. I could just do it - only I’d sooner you let me.” She has to be constantly on the defensive, aware of her vulnerability and inability to rely on anyone to save her. Revealingly, she instinctively distrusts the police even when they interrupt her near-rape.

In addition to the emotional power of the book, the historically specific details are very interesting. London still has plenty of bombed out buildings; gangs of Mods and Teds maraud about on motor scooters armed with knives; cinemas are the main form of entertainment. Unity mentions going on a march to Aldermaston and is taken to a ‘dope den’. I enjoyed the details of slang and fashion, such as, ‘Prissy went out with her supermarket smiff,’ and ‘Nearly every girl here was wearing an extremely tight short skirt and shoes not a foot but about 12 inches long.’ There is also a strong sense of class differences across London boroughs. Unity, from Fulham, is a ‘suburban girl’ to her sometime-boyfriend, an amateur criminal known as Shredder. The settings are vivid, especially Unity’s stuffy and overcrowded attic, in which her flatmates intend to throw parties but never do. The whole subdivided building shares a single bathroom and telephone, with no electric lighting on the stairs between floors. Nonetheless, she could afford to live in Chelsea! Can you imagine that now.

Overall, ‘Attic Summer’ is distinctive, sharp, and atmospheric. The quality of the writing deserves five stars; I am arbitrarily deducting one as the constant sexual harassment Unity suffers is so depressing. I wonder what the rest of Jane Gaskell’s work is like. Hopefully I can find out without needing to spend the whole afternoon in a legal deposit library’s reading room. Much as I enjoy that, I don’t have time for it when I’m not on strike.