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Ni una palabra
Un joven entrevista a la viuda de un reconocido pintor. Una mujer espera, en la asepsia de un hospital de quemados, un milagro para su hija. Una escuela llena de alumnos privilegiados y tutores apáticos se vuelve un lugar violento en el que hay que aprender cómo cuidarse. Llenos de sarcasmo y penumbras, inteligencia y humor, los relatos de Ni una palabra cabalgan entre la brutalidad y la ternura, entre la ficción y la no ficción, casi sin que nos demos cuenta. Sus protagonistas, en general mujeres desesperadas que esquivan cualquier lugar común, atraviesan tragedias mayores y menores con un temple desconcertante, a veces con giros excéntricos pero siempre guiadas por una lucidez extraña y crepuscular. Pertenezco a una estirpe de brujas, solía decir sobre sí misma Caroline Blackwood. Aristócrata, míticamente bella y con una vida tumultuosa que incluyó matrimonios con Lucian Freud y Robert Lowell, Blackwood llegó a la literatura con relativa tardanza pero de manera contundente. Esta selección de sus mejores cuentos revela un humor mordaz, una mirada implacable, incluso cruel, sobre la condición humana, pero también una ilimitada capacidad para conmover y enternecernos. Ni una palabra es un libro inolvidable.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
20 people are currently reading
921 people want to read
About the author
Caroline Blackwood
16 books195 followerswas a writer, and the eldest child of The 4th Marquess of Dufferin and Ava and the brewery heiress Maureen Guinness.
A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Lady Caroline Blackwood was equally well known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers". Her novels are known for their wit and intelligence, and one in particular is scathingly autobiographical in describing her unhappy childhood.
She was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family from Ulster at 4 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, her parents' London home. She was, she admitted, "scantily educated" at, among other schools, Rockport School (County Down) and Downham (Essex). After a finishing school in Oxford she was presented as a debutante in 1949 at a ball held at Londonderry House.
A well-known figure in the literary world through her journalism and her novels, Lady Caroline Blackwood was equally well known for her high-profile marriages, first to the artist Lucian Freud, then to the composer Israel Citkowitz and finally to the poet Robert Lowell, who described her as "a mermaid who dines upon the bones of her winded lovers". Her novels are known for their wit and intelligence, and one in particular is scathingly autobiographical in describing her unhappy childhood.
She was born into an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family from Ulster at 4 Hans Crescent in Knightsbridge, her parents' London home. She was, she admitted, "scantily educated" at, among other schools, Rockport School (County Down) and Downham (Essex). After a finishing school in Oxford she was presented as a debutante in 1949 at a ball held at Londonderry House.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
December 7, 2010
I bought this book after reading Carolyn Kellogg's review in the LA Times and I am not disappointed. Kellogg wrote that Blackwood's stories "are rare in their brutal exposure and are deeply troubling to read. Yet "Never Breathe a Word" is nothing less than a marvelous slide into an emotional abyss." This is exactly right. Most of the narratives are crafted in the third person, but we are close inside the minds of very disturbed women (with the exception of "The Baby Nurse" and "Please Baby Don't Cry") - suicidal, narcissistic, insecure, enraged, wrecked. I could not put the book down. It's interesting that three of the stories center on women who were once actresses - one of whom would not get out of bed after the birth of her baby, forcing the husband to hire a powerful, grim, and taunting nanny to take over the household. The men in these stories mostly abandon their women or die.
I especially loved "The Answering Machine," a story about a woman whose life focus becomes leaving messages to herself. You've got to be fascinated by the subtly creepy aspects of mundane life to appreciate this book.
This edition also includes seven non-fiction stories about Carolyn Blackwood's youth in Ulster. The first one left my heart hammering ("Never Breathe a Word"), reminding me of James Joyce's "An Encounter" in "Dubliners." The non-fiction vignettes, which are labeled "Fact" in the table of contents are every bit as good as the fiction. The whole collection is grown from a long ago world (England fifty years ago or so) but don't feel dated to me at all. No happy endings - but a joy to read.
I especially loved "The Answering Machine," a story about a woman whose life focus becomes leaving messages to herself. You've got to be fascinated by the subtly creepy aspects of mundane life to appreciate this book.
This edition also includes seven non-fiction stories about Carolyn Blackwood's youth in Ulster. The first one left my heart hammering ("Never Breathe a Word"), reminding me of James Joyce's "An Encounter" in "Dubliners." The non-fiction vignettes, which are labeled "Fact" in the table of contents are every bit as good as the fiction. The whole collection is grown from a long ago world (England fifty years ago or so) but don't feel dated to me at all. No happy endings - but a joy to read.
August 18, 2013
Compulsion, loneliness, miscommunication, and fear so sharp it paralyzes, these are Blackwood's themes, and her vision of humanity is terrifyingly free of sugar-coating. Her characters, middle-class, British, and psychologically tormented, live in a world so bleak it's just this side of hilarious - though still devastating. In a few of the stories she rambles and repeats (I'd give four and a half stars, if that was an option), but most of are pleasing taut. There's also a small collection of her nonfiction at the end that stands up with the best first-person journalism. I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoys cultivating a jaundiced view of humanity.
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May 6, 2025Es curioso cómo algunas escritoras que vivieron en el centro de las élites culturales del siglo XX —como Renata Adler, Elizabeth Hardwick o la propia Caroline Blackwood— construyeron su obra desde los márgenes de lo doméstico, no como lugar de ternura sino como teatro de la asfixia. En Ni una palabra, Blackwood escribe desde esa presión: no de los hechos, sino de las condiciones que los hacen inevitables.
Hay ira, celos, humillación, deseo, repulsión, y todo eso sin salir —casi nunca—de círculos sociales asfixiantes, domésticos y simbólicos. Si en autores como Artaud la crueldad es método para desvelar el teatro del cuerpo, aquí la crueldad es un clima emocional: denso, pegajoso, mental. No se manifiesta en acciones espectaculares, sino en el modo en que el lenguaje interior coloniza a la narradora, la obliga a rumiar cada gesto ajeno como una agresión latente.
Blackwood no ofrece psicologismo amable: busca sobrevivir al odio. Y lo interesante es que ese odio no está dirigido solo hacia los demás, sino hacia sí misma. La maternidad ajena (la hijastra), el fracaso amoroso (el marido ausente), la dependencia económica, son formas de alienación que la novela no narra desde el melodrama, sino desde una especie de cinismo helado. Todo podría haberse evitado, y sin embargo, nada se evita. Hay algo profundamente determinista en este encierro: como si la clase social, el género, la maternidad no deseada y las ruinas del matrimonio fueran jaulas más eficaces que cualquier prisión.
Pienso en Natalia Ginzburg, en su capacidad para registrar lo doméstico como una geografía hostil. Blackwood escribe desde la amargura sin estilo confesional. No hay catarsis. El cuerpo no se libera. La voz interna —una voz que a veces parece escrita contra la escritura— va deshaciendo al personaje al mismo tiempo que le impide desaparecer del todo.
Ni una palabra es breve, pero no ligera. Es como escuchar una conversación sin testigos en una habitación cerrada, donde la única salida es seguir escribiendo. Aunque duela. Aunque se odie a quien escribe. Aunque lo que se diga no cambie nada.
Hay ira, celos, humillación, deseo, repulsión, y todo eso sin salir —casi nunca—de círculos sociales asfixiantes, domésticos y simbólicos. Si en autores como Artaud la crueldad es método para desvelar el teatro del cuerpo, aquí la crueldad es un clima emocional: denso, pegajoso, mental. No se manifiesta en acciones espectaculares, sino en el modo en que el lenguaje interior coloniza a la narradora, la obliga a rumiar cada gesto ajeno como una agresión latente.
Blackwood no ofrece psicologismo amable: busca sobrevivir al odio. Y lo interesante es que ese odio no está dirigido solo hacia los demás, sino hacia sí misma. La maternidad ajena (la hijastra), el fracaso amoroso (el marido ausente), la dependencia económica, son formas de alienación que la novela no narra desde el melodrama, sino desde una especie de cinismo helado. Todo podría haberse evitado, y sin embargo, nada se evita. Hay algo profundamente determinista en este encierro: como si la clase social, el género, la maternidad no deseada y las ruinas del matrimonio fueran jaulas más eficaces que cualquier prisión.
Pienso en Natalia Ginzburg, en su capacidad para registrar lo doméstico como una geografía hostil. Blackwood escribe desde la amargura sin estilo confesional. No hay catarsis. El cuerpo no se libera. La voz interna —una voz que a veces parece escrita contra la escritura— va deshaciendo al personaje al mismo tiempo que le impide desaparecer del todo.
Ni una palabra es breve, pero no ligera. Es como escuchar una conversación sin testigos en una habitación cerrada, donde la única salida es seguir escribiendo. Aunque duela. Aunque se odie a quien escribe. Aunque lo que se diga no cambie nada.
September 7, 2025
La incomodidad que te queda en el cuerpo después de leer cada cuento es increíble. No hablamos de un terror relacionado a la sangre o a los fantasmas. Es la propia naturaleza humana, que te deja con el estómago retraído y una dolorosa tensión en los hombros y la mandíbula.
March 4, 2014
http://wineandabook.com/2014/03/04/re...
“‘Have you ever seen the way that an elm dies, Theresa? An elm doesn’t die like other trees, you know. An elm dies from the inside. An elm dies in secret. You should always remember to be careful when you walk underneath elms, for they can be dangerous. Elms are the only trees which give no warning signs of their own decay. They can just come toppling down with a fearful crash while all their branches still look glorious and intact and all their leaves are still in bud. Once they are on the ground it can be quite frightening to see what has happened inside their trunks. Once they are dead you can see how the rot has eaten into them so hideously that they are completely hollow. People who allow themselves to become trivial and humdrum are like blighted elms. Eventually they are destroyed by being so filled with their own hollowness…’ The more she would speak about dying elms, the more I would start to feel like one.” (How You Love Our Lady, page 30).
Before I talk about the book, I want to talk about the back cover copy and a general issue I find with the marketing of notable women writers: the contextualization of their accomplishments in relation to their famous husband(s)/lover(s)/sibling(s). This drives me NUTS. From the back cover:
“Though perhaps better known for her tumultuous marriages to the painter Lucien Freud and the poet Robert Lowell…”
This is her book. A collection of her short stories and essays. And the FIRST SENTENCE on the back cover insinuates that, even though Blackwood was an accomplished writer, the most IMPORTANT thing about her is who she was not-necessarily happily married to. The copy that goes on the back of a book is a very strategic marketing decision. The marketing team is banking on the fact that even if you’ve only vaguely heard of Blackwood, you’ve absolutely heard of Freud and Lowell, and their accomplishments will be the thing that compels you to pick up the book. That’s beyond insulting. She’s been nominated for the Booker Prize. She was the daughter of brewery heiress Maureen Guinness. Yet that’s a biographical footnote. I’m just really sick of accomplished women being defined by society by the men in their life. #patriarchy
Anyway, onto the collection itself. It’s solid. The first 3/4 of the book are short stories, while the last 1/4 is comprised on non-fiction, mostly biographical essays. But the through-line that links all the pieces all the pieces together are the disturbed characters at their core.
“The eyes of the dying can become cold as the lens of any camera. They take mechanical pictures of those who surround them. They focus on their doctors and their nurses. They shift their glassy stare to the grim and rigid faces of their distressed friends and relatives as if they have some need to photograph only their uselessness–to capture some last image of their inadequacy which they can blame, retain, and carry to eternity.” (The Eyes of Lenora, page 265)
Blackwood is a master of characterization, and the subjects of her stories are often dark and deeply troubled women. Her characters are morally-stunted by their self-absorption, and their preoccupation with their own needs and wants predominates the narrative. A few of the stories that stood out to me:
Marigold’s Christmas: (fiction) This story broke my heart. A young woman, facing the prospect of spending her first Christmas alone with her daughter, has what I consider to be the most depressing/pathetic Christmas eve/Christmas morning ever. Her choices are so desperate and so blatantly self-interested…this is the stuff that childhood trauma is made of. Poor Marigold and her glitter pinecones.
The Baby Nurse: (fiction) What happens when you take a new-born baby, a woman with a desperately sad case of postpartum depression, an arrogant, self-aggrandizing baby nurse, and a disinterested father with a vendetta? A brilliantly disturbing story.
Who Needs It?: (fiction) The uplifting story of a salon owner who fires her newly hired shampoo “girl” after a customer takes notice of the tattoo that marks her as a concentration camp survivor. Listening to the salon owner’s logic as she explains her decision to her sex-deprived husband is deeply unsettling.
The Answering Machine: (fiction) The sad tale of a woman who, after the death of her husband, makes daily trips to the local pub to drink one beer and leave herself messages on her own answering machine, so that upon her return home, some sound will fill her apartment. The story Blackwood crafts is a heartbreaking portrait of loneliness, examining what we do to fill the voids in our lives.
Never Breathe a Word: (nonfiction) Blackwood relays the beyond creepy childhood story of their family’s groom, a former jockey, who tried to lure her into the woods in the middle of the night with the promise of pills that would make her a better horsewoman.
Piggy: (nonfiction) Blackwood shares the story of Piggy McDougal, the Catholic-hating albino-esque redhead with a thyroid problem (got a clear visual yet) who ruled the halls of Stoneyport Preparatory School during her brief childhood tenure there during the war, giving the reader a much-needed break from the cruelty of adults to focus on the cruelty of children.
If you’re feeling awesome about humanity and want to be knocked down a peg, this is the book for you.
The honesty with which she approaches the work is astounding and worthy of merit in and of itself. Yes, her characters are dark, but the situations she crafts are so mundane or so universal (the birth of a child, the loss of a loved one, the first Christmas after a separation) that despite the darkness, you’ll walk away looking at the world in a whole new light.
Rubric rating: 7.5 I want to read Great Granny Webster STAT.
“‘Have you ever seen the way that an elm dies, Theresa? An elm doesn’t die like other trees, you know. An elm dies from the inside. An elm dies in secret. You should always remember to be careful when you walk underneath elms, for they can be dangerous. Elms are the only trees which give no warning signs of their own decay. They can just come toppling down with a fearful crash while all their branches still look glorious and intact and all their leaves are still in bud. Once they are on the ground it can be quite frightening to see what has happened inside their trunks. Once they are dead you can see how the rot has eaten into them so hideously that they are completely hollow. People who allow themselves to become trivial and humdrum are like blighted elms. Eventually they are destroyed by being so filled with their own hollowness…’ The more she would speak about dying elms, the more I would start to feel like one.” (How You Love Our Lady, page 30).
Before I talk about the book, I want to talk about the back cover copy and a general issue I find with the marketing of notable women writers: the contextualization of their accomplishments in relation to their famous husband(s)/lover(s)/sibling(s). This drives me NUTS. From the back cover:
“Though perhaps better known for her tumultuous marriages to the painter Lucien Freud and the poet Robert Lowell…”
This is her book. A collection of her short stories and essays. And the FIRST SENTENCE on the back cover insinuates that, even though Blackwood was an accomplished writer, the most IMPORTANT thing about her is who she was not-necessarily happily married to. The copy that goes on the back of a book is a very strategic marketing decision. The marketing team is banking on the fact that even if you’ve only vaguely heard of Blackwood, you’ve absolutely heard of Freud and Lowell, and their accomplishments will be the thing that compels you to pick up the book. That’s beyond insulting. She’s been nominated for the Booker Prize. She was the daughter of brewery heiress Maureen Guinness. Yet that’s a biographical footnote. I’m just really sick of accomplished women being defined by society by the men in their life. #patriarchy
Anyway, onto the collection itself. It’s solid. The first 3/4 of the book are short stories, while the last 1/4 is comprised on non-fiction, mostly biographical essays. But the through-line that links all the pieces all the pieces together are the disturbed characters at their core.
“The eyes of the dying can become cold as the lens of any camera. They take mechanical pictures of those who surround them. They focus on their doctors and their nurses. They shift their glassy stare to the grim and rigid faces of their distressed friends and relatives as if they have some need to photograph only their uselessness–to capture some last image of their inadequacy which they can blame, retain, and carry to eternity.” (The Eyes of Lenora, page 265)
Blackwood is a master of characterization, and the subjects of her stories are often dark and deeply troubled women. Her characters are morally-stunted by their self-absorption, and their preoccupation with their own needs and wants predominates the narrative. A few of the stories that stood out to me:
Marigold’s Christmas: (fiction) This story broke my heart. A young woman, facing the prospect of spending her first Christmas alone with her daughter, has what I consider to be the most depressing/pathetic Christmas eve/Christmas morning ever. Her choices are so desperate and so blatantly self-interested…this is the stuff that childhood trauma is made of. Poor Marigold and her glitter pinecones.
The Baby Nurse: (fiction) What happens when you take a new-born baby, a woman with a desperately sad case of postpartum depression, an arrogant, self-aggrandizing baby nurse, and a disinterested father with a vendetta? A brilliantly disturbing story.
Who Needs It?: (fiction) The uplifting story of a salon owner who fires her newly hired shampoo “girl” after a customer takes notice of the tattoo that marks her as a concentration camp survivor. Listening to the salon owner’s logic as she explains her decision to her sex-deprived husband is deeply unsettling.
The Answering Machine: (fiction) The sad tale of a woman who, after the death of her husband, makes daily trips to the local pub to drink one beer and leave herself messages on her own answering machine, so that upon her return home, some sound will fill her apartment. The story Blackwood crafts is a heartbreaking portrait of loneliness, examining what we do to fill the voids in our lives.
Never Breathe a Word: (nonfiction) Blackwood relays the beyond creepy childhood story of their family’s groom, a former jockey, who tried to lure her into the woods in the middle of the night with the promise of pills that would make her a better horsewoman.
Piggy: (nonfiction) Blackwood shares the story of Piggy McDougal, the Catholic-hating albino-esque redhead with a thyroid problem (got a clear visual yet) who ruled the halls of Stoneyport Preparatory School during her brief childhood tenure there during the war, giving the reader a much-needed break from the cruelty of adults to focus on the cruelty of children.
If you’re feeling awesome about humanity and want to be knocked down a peg, this is the book for you.
The honesty with which she approaches the work is astounding and worthy of merit in and of itself. Yes, her characters are dark, but the situations she crafts are so mundane or so universal (the birth of a child, the loss of a loved one, the first Christmas after a separation) that despite the darkness, you’ll walk away looking at the world in a whole new light.
Rubric rating: 7.5 I want to read Great Granny Webster STAT.
August 4, 2025
Esta señora es una genia!!!! Todos los relatos me han angustiado bastante y en ninguno de ellos he podido parar de leer compulsivamente, recomendadíiiiisimaaaaaaaa
December 23, 2025
Son cuentos breves que están ambientados en el Reino Unido, principalmente en Londres, la sociedad que representa es alta y media; los personajes tienen un poco de crueldad y cargos de consciencia, muchos de ellos viven momentos de decadencia.
Cuentos favoritos
Addy
La navidad de Marigold
El contestador automático
Cuentos favoritos
Addy
La navidad de Marigold
El contestador automático
July 18, 2025
Un libro de relatos entretenidos, sin más. Me podría haber ahorrado estos euros y el tiempo dedicado.
September 20, 2025
Relatos incómodos, desesperados. Mis favoritos: "Cochino", "Mi amor, por favor, no llores", "La esposa de Taft" y "La navidad de Marigold".
March 1, 2011
Wow, these are some of the best stories I've ever read. Blackwood captures the moments when her characters crack up with pain, humor and excitement.
September 13, 2025
📍Una breve colección de once cuentos.
📚Una niña que logra escapar de su profesor de equitación. Un colegio donde los alumnos se tienen que adaptar para sobrevivir. Una unidad de quemados a la espera de un milagro. Una entrevista a la viuda de un pintor. Una niñera particular. El "área de vanidad" en una clínica. Una madre vanidosa. Como afronta una madre la navidad. Una mujer que compra compulsivamente y una vida a través de un contestador.
✍🏼 Un libro de cuentos independientes. Ameno para una lectura breve en una tarde de verano.
📚Una niña que logra escapar de su profesor de equitación. Un colegio donde los alumnos se tienen que adaptar para sobrevivir. Una unidad de quemados a la espera de un milagro. Una entrevista a la viuda de un pintor. Una niñera particular. El "área de vanidad" en una clínica. Una madre vanidosa. Como afronta una madre la navidad. Una mujer que compra compulsivamente y una vida a través de un contestador.
✍🏼 Un libro de cuentos independientes. Ameno para una lectura breve en una tarde de verano.
August 20, 2025
Que hallazgo Blackwood, afiladísima. Tiene una inventiva muy particular, sus historias son asfixiantes, hay un clima tenso constante, todos los personajes están del marote.
Favoritos:
🎃 Unidad de quemados
🎃 La entrevista
🎃 La esposa del señor Taft
🎃 Por favor, mi amor, no llores
🎃 La navidad de Marigold
🎃 El contestador automático -este me rompió el corazón-
Favoritos:
🎃 Unidad de quemados
🎃 La entrevista
🎃 La esposa del señor Taft
🎃 Por favor, mi amor, no llores
🎃 La navidad de Marigold
🎃 El contestador automático -este me rompió el corazón-
January 24, 2017
A strange collection of fact & fiction. Caroline Blackwood's characters are often unlikeable but always very human. Each story left me pondering about what could have happened next. Clever & often funny.
August 22, 2025
Blackwood presenta un mundo donde la crueldad habita en la cotidianeidad y en los pequeños detalles. Es impresionante como presenta a sus personajes y como se expresa. El lenguaje que tiene ella y que rescata Tullio es precioso. Sus comparaciones e imágenes son fascinantes.
September 10, 2025
Tengo sentimientos encontrados con esta lectura. Creo que algunos cuentos logran muy bien transmitir la soledad, incomodidad y desagrado en ciertos personajes. Sin embargo en varios momentos me pareció muy denso.
February 15, 2020
Overall great with only the last half of the nonfiction pieces clunkily showing their age. Marigold’s Christmas and Angelica were the standouts for me but plenty others to enjoy as well.
October 21, 2025
4,5 ⭐️
No esperaba mucho de este libro, más que nada porque las colecciones de cuentos suelen ser distintas y disparejas; pero es Chai de la que estamos hablando.
Que cuentazos!
No esperaba mucho de este libro, más que nada porque las colecciones de cuentos suelen ser distintas y disparejas; pero es Chai de la que estamos hablando.
Que cuentazos!
December 7, 2025
De los mejores libros que leí en el año.
December 31, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
que manera de escribir esta mujer, tan voraz pero elegante al mismo tiempo. su humor esta tan bien hecho; su prosa tiene una picardía que la encontré genial, muy atrapante y fácil de seguir.
que manera de escribir esta mujer, tan voraz pero elegante al mismo tiempo. su humor esta tan bien hecho; su prosa tiene una picardía que la encontré genial, muy atrapante y fácil de seguir.
January 7, 2026
“The Answering Machine” gave me the chills.
August 4, 2016
What these short stories lack in structure, they make for with witty lyrical writing and spot-on psychological analysis. Is it annoying that some of these stories (e.g., "How You Love Our Lady") take their time setting up an intriguing cast of characters, only to let this promising set-up collapse abruptly on itself like a house of cards? Yes. Is it regrettable that Blackwood frequently flouts the dictum "Show, don't tell" and sometimes runs on a little too long, stumbling into verbosity and repetitiveness? Arguably. On the bright side, Blackwood's writing is strewn with delightfully fresh, on-the-mark metaphors: e.g., "her mind whirled like the propellers of a plane," "his whole face looked measled with shame and anguish," "his teeth looked dazzling as though they were painted with phosphorus," etc.
The story "The Answering Machine," which concerns a recently widowed woman, is a tour-de-force that caused my nose to start running uncontrollably as I read it on the subway. I was also rather taken with the story "Matron," a character study of a nurse who is torn between her impulse toward authoritarianism and her impulse toward compassion.
Many of the stories in Never Breathe a Word revolve around women who suffer from mental illness. Impressively, despite her natural bent toward satire and caricature, Blackwood never oversimplifies the difficult subject of mental illness, but instead treats it with sensitivity and realism.
The story "The Answering Machine," which concerns a recently widowed woman, is a tour-de-force that caused my nose to start running uncontrollably as I read it on the subway. I was also rather taken with the story "Matron," a character study of a nurse who is torn between her impulse toward authoritarianism and her impulse toward compassion.
Many of the stories in Never Breathe a Word revolve around women who suffer from mental illness. Impressively, despite her natural bent toward satire and caricature, Blackwood never oversimplifies the difficult subject of mental illness, but instead treats it with sensitivity and realism.
August 30, 2015
Fun, dark, menacing stories. People are mocked, there are few happy endings, and all relationships are suspect.
I started reading Blackwood because she was married to Lucian Freud, and I wanted more insight into that world. She doesn't really give me that, but stands up and is an interesting writer.
There are a few non fiction pieces in the book. They mock the beatnik movement, and radical feminism. They're fun. All the stories are fun. Blackwood is vicious and cruel, but entertaining as she does her cruel mischief. I love sharp and savage wit, and she has it. Odd she isn't better known, but maybe British people know her better?
I started reading Blackwood because she was married to Lucian Freud, and I wanted more insight into that world. She doesn't really give me that, but stands up and is an interesting writer.
There are a few non fiction pieces in the book. They mock the beatnik movement, and radical feminism. They're fun. All the stories are fun. Blackwood is vicious and cruel, but entertaining as she does her cruel mischief. I love sharp and savage wit, and she has it. Odd she isn't better known, but maybe British people know her better?
May 28, 2014
This collection of short stories (with some non-fiction pieces near the end) is unusual. Blackwood's stories are dark and unsentimental. She writes about women who who are angry and do strange things and have been betrayed by men (sometimes because they die, those insensitive louts!). There is a juvenile quality to Blackwood's writing, and at first I didn't care for this book, but it grew on me. It makes me wonder about Blackwood the person.
February 3, 2012
that 4th star is for 'the answering machine'.
April 8, 2025
muy buenos personajes por favor
October 17, 2017
Several years ago I read Nancy Schoenberger's excellent biography of Caroline Blackwood and didn't know, or remember, that Blackwood herself wrote fiction and short journalistic pieces. So I was happy to find this collection. Overall, I wasn't too moved by Blackwood's style but the pieces are generally good psychological portraits with a bit of keen insight into human nature. My favorite fiction piece was "Marigold's Christmas," and the best non-fiction pieces are the three stories about her childhood: the titular "Never Breathe a Word" (about the shady man who gave her riding lessons), "Betty" (about her nursemaid in the early 1940s), and "Piggy" (about a bully in her class).
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews