My Fellow Devils

by L.P. Hartley

Margaret Pennefather is essentially a good person - too good, perhaps, for her own good. Her rash and hasty marriage to film star Colum McInnes, and his very different set of moral values, leads gradually and relentlessly to the utter destruction of their love and their marriage. Although she is only a nominal Protestant and he a very lax Roman Catholic, Margaret cannot escape the religious questionings implicit in their union. Her mental and spiritual struggles persist and gather momentum through all the disasters of her married life. Its outcome is the climax to a story that must surely rank as one of the most impressive L. P. Hartley has given us.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 20, 2013

About the author

Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, and educated at Harrow and Balliol College, Oxford. For more than thirty years from 1923 he was an indefatigable fiction reviewer for periodicals including the Spectator and Saturday Review. His first book, Night Fears (1924) was a collection of short stories; but it was not until the publication of Eustace and Hilda (1947), which won the James Tait Black prize, that Hartley gained widespread recognition as an author. His other novels include The Go-Between (1953), which was adapted into an internationally-successful film starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates, and The Hireling (1957), the film version of which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this although it's a bit bizarre. Thought-provoking read about evil. Really creepy at times, and a bit confusing, as we are in the mind of the main character throughout the book, and she is often confused herself. The more I think about it, the more I like it, but not everyone would feel the same. A good book to discuss, too.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This started so well and for the first 50 or so pages I was gripped by the characters and the plot and then it became unbelievable. I struggled on for another 100 pages and gave up. The personalities of the protagonists are so incompatible that their relationship is unrealistic. I could not envisage Margaret contemplating Colum, nor he, her and so the plot spiralled for me and I lost interest. The pages devoted to roman catholicism were tedious. A real shame because I loved The Go Between.

[Margaret Conmey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read L P Hartley’s The Go-Between and The Hireling when I was a teenager , and when I saw this book in the ‘classics’ section in my local library I decided to give it a try.
It is rather long and a great deal happens in the year that Margaret and Colum McInnes are together but it is very modern in its themes of how a superficially charming man is really a lying , manipulative criminal.
In terminology that would not have been used in 1951 when the book was published, red flags were flying around Margaret’s precipitate jilting of her fiancé virtually on the eve of their wedding and her headlong infatuation and marriage to Colum.
It is fascinating to see that the language and behaviour used to entrap Margaret in Colum’s lies and unscrupulous behaviour is exactly what today would be called gaslighting and emotional manipulation and abuse.

[Miki · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is tragic. From the beginning to end, a great tragic. I dislike the way it is written, first of all. Secondly, the main character is everything I despise. Her love for two men is all over the place and quite repetitive. I feel like the character does not have much of life in her at all. Honestly this whole book was a tragic mess.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Could not get past 120 pages. Utterly unconvincing on every level, a narrative and characters that just do not hang together, and that's without getting into the perpetual amateur theology ad nauseam. Such a shame as this is an author I respect.