My Friend Muriel

My Friends #2

by Jane Duncan

Janet Sandison made her bow in My Friends the Miss Boyds , Jane Duncan's sparkling first novel. Here she is again, now a determined young woman of twenty with a University degree. Taking a job with a cranky Pen-Friend organization, she meets Muriel. Muriel is uncompromisingly plain, but clings like ivy. As the lively narrative unfolds, Muriel's story and Janet's diverge and interlace again, aided by a blushing curate, an eccentric she-dragon and her severely repressed husband, by a shady confidence trickster and a suit of armour!

Genres: Fiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1959

About the author

Jane Duncan was the pseudonym of Scottish writer Elizabeth Jane Cameron, best-known for her My Friends series of semi-autobiographical novels. She also wrote four novels under the name of her principal heroine Janet Sandison, and some children's books. She was born in Renton, West Dunbartonshire and brought up in the Scottish Lowlands where her father was a police officer, but much of her childhood was spent in the Highlands on the Black Isle in Easter Ross, on her grandparents' croft "The Colony", the "Reachfar" of her novels. She graduated in English from the University of Glasgow and did various secretarial jobs before serving as a Flight Officer (Intelligence), WAAF during World War II. Afterward, she lived in Jamaica for ten years, returning to Jemimaville, near "The Colony", in 1958 as a widow. In 1959 Duncan became something of a publishing sensation when Macmillan Publishers announced that it would be publishing seven of her manuscripts. The "Reachfar" (My Friends) series is narrated by Janet Sandison and follows her life (which in outline parallels that of the author) from the World War I period through to the 1960s, depicting the people she encounters and showing how her crofting upbringing influences her in whatever society and geographical location she finds herself.

Reviews

[Cera · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just reread this for the first time, and while it definitely suffers some first-novel [1] problems (especially towards the beginning) I still really enjoyed it. All of Duncan's 'My Friends' books are written in conversational first person by Janet Sandison [2], and they read as very funny fictionalised memoir [3]. I have no idea how much Duncan was like Sandison in real life, but Sandison is an immensely strong personality, highly opinionated about everything and delighted to share her opinions with the reader. The book is digressive, just as conversation is; Sandison keeps digressing to tell the reader about how strange it is that the titular My Friend Muriel had such a big impact on her life, or to recount an argument she had with My Friend Monica or this that and the other, and this digression is a weakness of the early part of the book, since it's hard to pick out the actual story from the various side journeys. But once the book really gets going there's a gentle plot, very character driven, and a lot of quite funny observations about people.

I think my favourite thing about these books is how honest they seem -- nothing else I've read from the period (written in late 50s, but much of the novel is set in the 30s and 40s) gives such a blunt view of human behaviour without any obvious attempt to make a message. Janet is sometimes harsh about others, as young people often are, but she's equally hard on herself, and watching her reminisce about her struggles to understand the variety of human behaviour -- that not everyone is like her, nor should they be -- feels real and refreshing. I'm looking forward to rereading my way through the series, which IIRC stays quite entertaining & blunt, but also develops some real literary technique on the way.




1: (yes, she wrote this one first, it just wasn't published first)

2: Duncan, being meta before her time, also wrote and published books _as_ Janet Sandison -- the very books that much later in the 'My Friends' series her fictionalised self writes.

3: I have no idea just how autobiographical these novels are; the surface suggests highly, and apparently towards the end of her life she wrote an actual memoir, but I haven't read it yet.

[Ika Willis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second volume of a 19-book series which I think of as a single, serial, work. I've written longer reviews of Book 13, My Friend My Father (here: no spoilers for the series), and Book 19, My Friends George and Tom (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... masses and masses of spoilers), as well as some brief reflections about Book 18, My Friends The Misses Kindness (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... again, massive spoilers for the series) and Book 16, My Friend the Swallow (a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show..., spoiler-free).

[Alexis Lloyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books although they were written a long time ago! Jane Duncan a Scot, who lived in the Caribbean,for many years, wrote her books in the linen cupboard because her husband didn't approve. These are funny gentle books that lift your spirit. Duncan also writes as Janet Sandison.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is generally considered the weakest book in the “My Friend” series. Likely due to its unusual style (tangential and a bit less taut than others by this author). However it is still far and away better than a lot of (most?) other books!

[Anne Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Friend books are my favourites. This ne has some classic moments where Janet meets her life partner. Just love it, and most of the other books in this series. Sorry the6 had to finish.

[Fiona Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the book Jane Duncan wanted her readers to read first - but her publishers felt that the Miss Boyds worked better as an introduction to a new author and, in that respect, I think they were right. Jane Duncan wanted her books to reflect real life where you meet someone as an adult and, over time, get to know their back story. In Muriel we meet the grown up Janet Sandison, now a student at Glasgow University in the 1930s. The book is less about Muriel (the author makes this point herself) but more about how circumstances can lead from one thing to another so that you find you reach a good moment (meeting her beloved partner post war) and look back and see how Muriel played her part...and before that, a sore tooth and a trip to the dentist. It is delightfully done and even now, after reading this book many many times, I am still affected by the moment that Janet first claps eyes on her future partner, Twice Alexander (his name is Alexander Alexander - hence, Twice). It is a magical moment beautifully, exquisitely described.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A friend of mine said she had been enjoying this series so I gave it a try as a change of pace from murder mysteries. I can see how someone might like the pace but it didn't work for me. It was easy to pick up and even easier to put aside. My Friend Muriel is less than 200 pages but I started it in October and didn't finish it until December.

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a strange book; it reads so much as true memoir, not just the first person narrator but the style of it, digressive and apologetic and smug and ashamed by turns. It creates a very strong illusion that one is in contact with a real person, rather than a book, and I admire the art of that. The story itself... interesting for the historical moment, I think, and because however much it is art, I cannot escape from the sense that I know a little of the inside of someone who was born in 1910, and that is a gift, to touch the past. As I recall, this is the first she wrote, although the second published, and I think the later ones are better, so I will keep reading them for the enjoyment of the art if nothing else, and see what I make of it all.

[Joy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newly graduated into the Great Depression job market, Janet drifts easily from employer to employer. She fetches up in an office with Muriel, who, for a non-entity, has an inordinately strong impact on Janet's life. What path, Janet muses in the first of many laugh-out-loud meditations, would her life have taken if she had not met Muriel? And all this time, Janet has been trying to help Muriel take control of her own life.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of this book can be a bit hard going with too many asides from the main story. But once the story gets going it is an engrossing tale of how Janet meets Twice. As usual, there are many interesting, charming, and/or irritating characters that she meets along the way.

[Mary Ronan Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The second of Jane Duncan's "My Friend ..." books. Quirky. Based on the life of Elizabeth Jane Cameron (aka Janet Sandison.) I'm on to the next book in the series.