Love in Idleness

by Charlotte Mendelson

‘I loved it. The evocation of ennui and loneliness rings very true . . . great unexpected observations . . . very funny’ Lesley Glaister

Anna Raine is desperate: to escape Somerset, to evade her mother, and above all to find a model of adulthood on whom to base her future self. When Stella, her mother's reckless younger sister, offers her London flat, Anna’s buried curiosity about Stella quickly becomes fascination: dark secrets, she is certain, lie within her reach. While by day Anna feigns efficient adulthood, by night she sinks into an increasingly heated world of discovery. As secrets rise to the surface she tries to focus on London – on anything other than her aunt. But the truth has its own momentum, and when Stella returns from Paris, something, or everything, is going to give . . .

‘With her gift for light humour, Mendelson seems to be skipping across the surface. Then she’ll suddenly dive into a world of obsession’ Independent on Sunday

‘A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book’ Ali Smith, Glasgow Herald

Genres: Fiction, Queer

305 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 23, 2001

About the author

Charlotte Mendelson (born 1972) is a British novelist and editor. Her maternal grandparents were, in her words, "Hungarian-speaking-Czech, Ruthenian for about 10 minutes, Carpathian mountain-y, impossible to describe", who left Prague in 1939.
When she was two, she moved with her parents and her baby sister to a house in a cobbled passage next to St John's College, Oxford, where her father taught public international law.

After the King's School, Canterbury,she studied Ancient and Modern History at the University of Oxford, even though she knows now, with great regret, that what would have suited her best was English literature at somewhere like Leeds.

She says she became a lesbian suddenly. "It was boyfriends up to 22 or 23. Not a whiff of lesbianism. Not even a thought. But I'm very all or nothing. It was all that, and now it's all this. There was about a 10-minute cross-over period of uncertainty, but it was really not that bad."

She has two children with the journalist and novelist Joanna Briscoe.

She won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2003 and the Somerset Maugham Award in 2004 for her second novel Daughters of Jerusalem. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times 'Young Writer of the Year Award in 2003.She contributes regularly to the TLS, the Guardian, the Independent on Sunday and the Observer. She is an editor at the publishers Headline Review. She was placed 60th on the Independent on Sunday Pink List 2007

Reviews

[Alena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I should maybe make a queer-adjacent or kind of queer shelf.

Huh. That pretty much sums it up for me.

I've enjoyed the two other novels I've read by her, this one, not so much. But it is her first one, so that maybe accounts for some of it. It seemed artsier than the others, more forced.

Already in this one she seems to have found her theme of closely exploring families shortly before the boiling point. Unfortunately, the way to the boiling point here was rather boring. On the other hand, without all of it, the last pages would have seemed way less powerful. But they don't outweigh the boredom to get there.

The main character, recent uni graduate Anna, severely annoyed me. I guess the only thing we would agree on is that her mother is quite the pain.

So, if you want to give Mendelson a shot (and you should), I'd suggest to skip this one and try one of the others. I see she had a new one out this year, I definitely want to read that.

[Caleb · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full disclosure: I picked this up thinking it was a novel of the same name by a different author. Shamefully it took me a while to realise this was in fact the case. So a great deal of the frustrations and disappointment I felt when I was reading early on is entirely on me. At a later date I owe this novel a reread unencumbered with expectations.

This novel bored and frustrated me. Its progress seemed something akin to molasses sliding down a hill. There were occasional moments of excitement but they were fleeting and lost to the murky despondentment cultivated by the narrator Anna. Anna irritated the hell out of me, I felt like she kept getting in the way of the story. That said, I kept reading because she seemed to be the key to the real story, the relationship between her mother and aunt which spread a tumultuous energy throughout the novel.

Mother sister relationship
Other more interesting figurees.
CLimax at end]

Family, young woman portrait of. Alien.

[Violetta Yudina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up by mistake thinking it was a different novel by the same author. Not sure if I shall be reading other novels of the author now. The first five chapters were basically about nothing. Starting from chapter 6 there were occasional moments of excitement but they were finally lost by the time I reached the last pages.

[Sandra Milligan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading this book was like wading through treacle, coupled with the most irritating female protagonist I've ever come across. I loved Mendelsons other books but this was just annoying!

[Francesca Morosini · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is probably a 3.5. I really enjoyed reading it - yes it was melodramatic and potentially overwritten but that seemed to fit with our very lost protagonist and I found the style enjoyable to read and good at making me feel that I was in the moment - understanding both the tumult of emotions and motions of calm. There were aspects of the plot that seemed underdeveloped and Magda seemed to steer too much into a caricature of a controlling mother to work as a rounded character - even though there was clearly so much else going on under the surface. On the whole, I found it quite real and darkly funny, and felt for Anna as she tried to carve a path for herself after graduating. I see people have commented that this is one of Mendelson's weaker novels so I'm excited to read more by her - but personally found it a good introduction.

[Charlie Beaumont · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was ultimately disappointed by this book. I decided to read it as I had heard the author speaking with great interest on Iris Murdoch so thought her writing would similarly impress me. As an older male I might not be one of her anticipated readers but I had considerable difficulties empathising with any of the three central characters. I found the internal dialogue and anxieties of the main character, Anna, hugely irritating as I thought this aspect was over written. The premise for the plot had much potential for me but the characterisation got in the way!

[Laura Spira · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having enjoyed all Charlotte Mendelsons' later books I was surprised to find that I hadn't read this first one. And that the later ones are *so* much better. (This is unusual for me: I often much prefer the earlier books of some authors, such as Anne Tyler and Louise Penny.) There are odd flashes of fine writing but I could not summon up any sympathy for Anna, the main character, and I became both bored and confused by the plot so I didn't finish it. If you are new to this author, do start with her later books - I recommend The Exhibitionist.

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her first novel. Very good, intelligent coming of age-ish tale. Anna, fresh from graduating university moves down to London to house-sit her exotic Aunt's flat. There is much finding of feet in the capital and navigating desires and the uncertainties of one's early 20s. Read two CM novels now, must continue with more.

[Ellen]

Loved her essay on the Powell's blog.