What do you think?
Rate this book
You'll Enjoy It When You Get There: The Stories of Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor is finally beginning to gain the recognition due to her as one of the best English writers of the postwar period, prized and praised by Sarah Waters and Hilary Mantel, among others. Inheriting Ivy Compton-Burnett’s uncanny sensitivity to the terrifying undercurrents that swirl beneath the apparent calm of respectable family life while showing a deep sympathy of her own for human loneliness, Taylor depicted dislocation with the unflinching presence of mind of Graham Greene. But for Taylor, unlike Greene, dislocation began not in distant climes but right at home. It is in the living room, playroom, and bedroom that Taylor stages her unforgettable dramas of alienation and impossible desire. Taylor’s stories, many of which originally appeared in The New Yorker, are her central achievement. Here are self-improving spinsters and gossiping girls, war orphans and wallflowers, honeymooners and barmaids, mistresses and murderers. Margaret Drabble’s new selection reveals a writer whose wide sympathies and restless curiosity are matched by a steely penetration into the human heart and mind.
449 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
65 people are currently reading
1264 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Taylor
94 books511 followersElizabeth Taylor (née Coles) was a popular English novelist and short story writer. Elizabeth Coles was born in Reading, Berkshire in 1912. She was educated at The Abbey School, Reading, and worked as a governess, as a tutor and as a librarian.
In 1936, she married John William Kendall Taylor, a businessman. She lived in Penn, Buckinghamshire, for almost all her married life.
Her first novel, At Mrs. Lippincote's, was published in 1945 and was followed by eleven more. Her short stories were published in various magazines and collected in four volumes. She also wrote a children's book.
Taylor's work is mainly concerned with the nuances of "everyday" life and situations, which she writes about with dexterity. Her shrewd but affectionate portrayals of middle class and upper middle class English life won her an audience of discriminating readers, as well as loyal friends in the world of letters.
She was a friend of the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett and of the novelist and critic Robert Liddell.
Elizabeth Taylor died at age 63 of cancer.
Anne Tyler once compared Taylor to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Bowen -- "soul sisters all," in Tyler's words . In recent years new interest has been kindled by movie makers in her work. French director Francois Ozon, has made "The Real Life of Angel Deverell" which will be released in early 2005. American director Dan Ireland's screen adaptation of Taylor's "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" came out in this country first in 2006 and has made close to $1 million. A British distributor picked it up at Cannes, and the movie was released in England in 2009.
In 1936, she married John William Kendall Taylor, a businessman. She lived in Penn, Buckinghamshire, for almost all her married life.
Her first novel, At Mrs. Lippincote's, was published in 1945 and was followed by eleven more. Her short stories were published in various magazines and collected in four volumes. She also wrote a children's book.
Taylor's work is mainly concerned with the nuances of "everyday" life and situations, which she writes about with dexterity. Her shrewd but affectionate portrayals of middle class and upper middle class English life won her an audience of discriminating readers, as well as loyal friends in the world of letters.
She was a friend of the novelist Ivy Compton-Burnett and of the novelist and critic Robert Liddell.
Elizabeth Taylor died at age 63 of cancer.
Anne Tyler once compared Taylor to Jane Austen, Barbara Pym and Elizabeth Bowen -- "soul sisters all," in Tyler's words . In recent years new interest has been kindled by movie makers in her work. French director Francois Ozon, has made "The Real Life of Angel Deverell" which will be released in early 2005. American director Dan Ireland's screen adaptation of Taylor's "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont" came out in this country first in 2006 and has made close to $1 million. A British distributor picked it up at Cannes, and the movie was released in England in 2009.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
February 26, 2016
So, I Hopscotched, being a Cortázarian reader of short story collections. My enjoyment level bounced around too. Whether there will be milk for the tea is not something Americans fret about. Yet more often than not I smiled at the subtle understatement of the writing. We are not told, for example, that Sarah is a painter, just that she remembers her mother's hair, her back turned to her, after her mother's parents died: I saw the back of her. ... It would be a good thing to paint. How tired I am of the fronts of people!
This deserves a longer review, but you'd be bored with 29 plots. She's best when she inserts authors as characters (and they are never the protagonist). She's worst when girlfriends are envious about who gets the most dances.
This deserves a longer review, but you'd be bored with 29 plots. She's best when she inserts authors as characters (and they are never the protagonist). She's worst when girlfriends are envious about who gets the most dances.
November 4, 2020
"If people are liars, who makes them be?"
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Elizabeth Taylor is likely the best author you've never heard of. She is the master of the sadistically quiet poke at convention, the chronicler of back bedrooms, spinsters, and floaty-hearted (and headed) adolescents. Taylor's settings and characters in these terse little tales (most are no more than 10 pages) are caught in mid-throe, mid-flail, or post-desperation and she treats them with a deliciously evil compassion, like a non-committal witch stirring the cauldron, but not sure if she they are garnish or dessert: useless or worth savoring.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, Elizabeth Taylor is likely the best author you've never heard of. She is the master of the sadistically quiet poke at convention, the chronicler of back bedrooms, spinsters, and floaty-hearted (and headed) adolescents. Taylor's settings and characters in these terse little tales (most are no more than 10 pages) are caught in mid-throe, mid-flail, or post-desperation and she treats them with a deliciously evil compassion, like a non-committal witch stirring the cauldron, but not sure if she they are garnish or dessert: useless or worth savoring.
November 3, 2024
I'd recently read and enjoyed the author's 'Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont' but had not read any of the short stories for which she is primarily known. This volume remedied that. It contains 6-8 selections from each of her four short story collections, plus a coda tale. By comparison, it reveals 'Mrs. Palfrey...' as being rather accessible.
~which is not to say these stories are inaccessible but, overall, they may be an acquired taste; at least the ones from the first three collections. Earlier in her writing career, it seems Taylor gave new meaning to 'character study'. In her exploration of members (mostly but not always young women) of the middle- and upper-middle classes, her concentration was on what boils down to a certain nervous state of mind. For some reason, I kept thinking of Jane Austen mixed with the likes of Muriel Spark.
One of the strongest stories in the volume is the one that opens it: 'Hester Lilly'. Unlike all of the other stories we're given, it's rather long, leaning toward being a novella. We enter the life of a couple whose marriage is at something of an impasse (a common volume trait here). The wife finds herself stretched beyond endurance when a young female relative moves in to work for the husband... which leads to inadvertent and unintended rivalry. This is a prime example of Taylor's main concern in the early stories: insecurity that causes private emotional havoc.
As the stories continue on, Taylor begins to dabble more in plot mechanics. She becomes more savvy with the element of surprise, proving she is capable of being not only funny but also scary. In 'Perhaps a Family Failing', Taylor details a honeymoon that is so tentative in its operation that the groom (who, oddly, has been celebrating alone) finds himself anywhere but with his bride. In a polar-opposite tone, 'The Fly-paper' (aptly titled) becomes a chilling but subtle horror story of abduction.
Taylor's breadth of ground is impressive. In 'The Devastating Boys', the life of a well-off white couple alters when they host two 6-year-old black boys for a fortnight; 'In and Out the Houses' introduces us somewhat hilariously to a young and crafty town gossip; 'Flesh' is a bittersweet tale about an adulterous affair that never quite happens; in 'Sisters', a woman gets revenge on a dead sister who became a scandalous author; the understated 'Miss A. and Miss M.' may actually be a fine portrait of the influence of a mysterious lesbian couple.
More than anything else, these stories overflow with a love of language (drawing a specific kinship with Katherine Anne Porter). Some of the earlier tales (at least for my taste) may be a bit too internal or may exhibit a focus lacking in drive. But the language still carries the day.
~which is not to say these stories are inaccessible but, overall, they may be an acquired taste; at least the ones from the first three collections. Earlier in her writing career, it seems Taylor gave new meaning to 'character study'. In her exploration of members (mostly but not always young women) of the middle- and upper-middle classes, her concentration was on what boils down to a certain nervous state of mind. For some reason, I kept thinking of Jane Austen mixed with the likes of Muriel Spark.
One of the strongest stories in the volume is the one that opens it: 'Hester Lilly'. Unlike all of the other stories we're given, it's rather long, leaning toward being a novella. We enter the life of a couple whose marriage is at something of an impasse (a common volume trait here). The wife finds herself stretched beyond endurance when a young female relative moves in to work for the husband... which leads to inadvertent and unintended rivalry. This is a prime example of Taylor's main concern in the early stories: insecurity that causes private emotional havoc.
As the stories continue on, Taylor begins to dabble more in plot mechanics. She becomes more savvy with the element of surprise, proving she is capable of being not only funny but also scary. In 'Perhaps a Family Failing', Taylor details a honeymoon that is so tentative in its operation that the groom (who, oddly, has been celebrating alone) finds himself anywhere but with his bride. In a polar-opposite tone, 'The Fly-paper' (aptly titled) becomes a chilling but subtle horror story of abduction.
Taylor's breadth of ground is impressive. In 'The Devastating Boys', the life of a well-off white couple alters when they host two 6-year-old black boys for a fortnight; 'In and Out the Houses' introduces us somewhat hilariously to a young and crafty town gossip; 'Flesh' is a bittersweet tale about an adulterous affair that never quite happens; in 'Sisters', a woman gets revenge on a dead sister who became a scandalous author; the understated 'Miss A. and Miss M.' may actually be a fine portrait of the influence of a mysterious lesbian couple.
More than anything else, these stories overflow with a love of language (drawing a specific kinship with Katherine Anne Porter). Some of the earlier tales (at least for my taste) may be a bit too internal or may exhibit a focus lacking in drive. But the language still carries the day.
July 17, 2015
I'm glad I read this. I'm glad I joined GR 3 years ago because if I hadn't this would have been the kind of thing I probably would have overlooked. And granted I found some fairly off-the-beaten-path stuff on my own. I normally find most short-story collections to be somewhat disjointed, regardless of the quality of any individual story. But the connecting thread here is the at turns hilarious and uncomfortable exploration of interior spaces. In a way the exploration is unassumingly ahead of it's time: superficially ladylike but really a subtle assassination of conventional pieties. I took no small pleasure in reading this while myself doing superficially ladylike but mildly subversive things like going fake-shopping with no money and making a coffee last all afternoon for the purpose of reading in public. This collection is a great example of the idea that a good short story is all about what's hidden--and what's implied--beneath the surface.
November 13, 2015
Elizabeth Taylor had a mastery of creating characters and defining their environments. When I've finished reading one of her stories, I think, "I know these people and I know this place", even though I've never met anyone quite like them and have never been anywhere near the place Ms. Taylor has described.
I'm going to pick up a copy of the Virago Press Complete Short Stories to read the stories not included here. There aren't many writers that would make me do that. Elizabeth Taylor is one.
I'm going to pick up a copy of the Virago Press Complete Short Stories to read the stories not included here. There aren't many writers that would make me do that. Elizabeth Taylor is one.
Read
July 25, 2016Why, oh why, has Ms. Taylor's work been so comprehensively forgotten? Is it solely her unfortunate choice of nom de plume? Maybe. 450 pages of short story, and every one of them good to excellent. Admittedly, her range is rather limited, dealing all but exclusively with the social happenings of upper middle class Englishfolk in the years after the 2nd World War—but each one is excellent, her writing is taut, disciplined, mean and wry. Lots of good stuff in here, but The Flypaper, the lone horror story, deserves particular mention. As always, great to see New York Review of Book Classics bringing a deserving writer back to popular attention.
Read
May 12, 2024Got through about half the stories and need a break. Can't really do 400+ pages of Elizabeth Taylor's particular style--which for some reason, I find somewhat demanding--all at once. Some quite good stories in here so far, though.
June 20, 2018
Excellent, deft, closely-observed stories of post-war (and later) England. The stories are sad, funny, and occasionally chilling (as in the excellent story "The Fly-Paper"). Taylor is criminally overlooked in America and has been out of print for a long time, so if any of this interests you, pick up this collection.
May 29, 2018
The Letter-Writers was a delightful read.
December 26, 2019
Well crafted short stories about the English. Taylor deftly portrays ennui, jealousy and other human frailties.
December 20, 2024
This collection of short stories was endlessly enjoyable. Taylor tackles a wide breadth of subject matters and plots, but each takes place in 1950s-1960s upper-middle class England, involves female main characters, and prompts the reader to reconsider similar themes of respectability and reputation and how they intersect with, clash against, and mold relationships, passions, emotions, and people's impressions of one another. Subtlety is Taylor's strength -- she's never too on the nose; she doesn't hit you over the head with anything (in fact I'm sure some went over my head). But her humor is clever, her observations are astute, and her emotional intelligence is devastating. Highly recommend; I will most certainly reread.
June 25, 2017
Eleonore Rigby may not appear under her name in this collection, but having read Elizabeth Taylor’s short stories I feel as if I have met all the lonely people. Ms. Taylor is an excellent writer. I did enjoy it while getting there, so yes I recommend this e book.
This Elizabeth Taylor, was a 20th century English writer who was frequently published in American Magazines. She is not the one who was frequently the star of many American movies. She had been suggested to me as a woman writer who wrote comedic stories, if so they are not represented in You'll Enjoy It When You Get There. As much as I missed reading her ‘hilarious’ writing her stories are well crafted and I will look for more of her works in the hope that I will find her in better humor.
In Gravement Endomage we see from the husband’s point of view a woman clearly depressed and emotionally damaged by World War II. She has lived through the war as a civilian, not even a prisoner, but the cumulative effect of bombing and worry for her husband and family has left her with emotional scars. I had never thought of battle fatigue or PST as other than a problem for the front line. Ms Taylor proves the fallacy of this thinking.
Elsewhere we have stories of sisters in their last moments before becoming lonely old maids, remember Sisters was written before the self-help and self-affirming messages that women do not need a man. Again in the opening story, Hester Lily, a lonely young girl fails to find a home with her near relatives and joins up with an older man who is as lonely and disconnected as she. Elsewhere there are young girls attending a formal boy-girl party only to have our focus shift from the brash young male of the household to a fearful disappointed young visitor, certain she has failed in her first public appearance. And again a ‘kept woman’ comes to terms with the fact that her money man is not all that and she must move on before she has lost all of her ability to attract another.
And so it goes one lonely, shy, disappointed woman, girl, or young lady at a time. In the last story The Fly Paper there is a vacation love affair between two middle aged heavy drinking, unattractive people. One of the few stories with a nearly well-crafted male character. Their relationship is filled with the possible and failed by the realities. There is humor but as always the loneliness predominates.
Because of Ms Taylor’s abilities these stories are not as depressing as they sound. Taylor gives us enough to like about these characters. We feel for them, share their disappointment but I cannot say I was left depressed. Ms Taylor writes as a craftsman. Her work is more than just readable, she draws you and helps you to feel and sometimes to understand why her characters feel as they do. She has problems keeping focus on male figures and will abandon them as soon as possible (Tall Boy).
I came to: You'll Enjoy It When You Get There by accident. I am glad I stayed and hope to find more from Elizabeth Taylor.
This Elizabeth Taylor, was a 20th century English writer who was frequently published in American Magazines. She is not the one who was frequently the star of many American movies. She had been suggested to me as a woman writer who wrote comedic stories, if so they are not represented in You'll Enjoy It When You Get There. As much as I missed reading her ‘hilarious’ writing her stories are well crafted and I will look for more of her works in the hope that I will find her in better humor.
In Gravement Endomage we see from the husband’s point of view a woman clearly depressed and emotionally damaged by World War II. She has lived through the war as a civilian, not even a prisoner, but the cumulative effect of bombing and worry for her husband and family has left her with emotional scars. I had never thought of battle fatigue or PST as other than a problem for the front line. Ms Taylor proves the fallacy of this thinking.
Elsewhere we have stories of sisters in their last moments before becoming lonely old maids, remember Sisters was written before the self-help and self-affirming messages that women do not need a man. Again in the opening story, Hester Lily, a lonely young girl fails to find a home with her near relatives and joins up with an older man who is as lonely and disconnected as she. Elsewhere there are young girls attending a formal boy-girl party only to have our focus shift from the brash young male of the household to a fearful disappointed young visitor, certain she has failed in her first public appearance. And again a ‘kept woman’ comes to terms with the fact that her money man is not all that and she must move on before she has lost all of her ability to attract another.
And so it goes one lonely, shy, disappointed woman, girl, or young lady at a time. In the last story The Fly Paper there is a vacation love affair between two middle aged heavy drinking, unattractive people. One of the few stories with a nearly well-crafted male character. Their relationship is filled with the possible and failed by the realities. There is humor but as always the loneliness predominates.
Because of Ms Taylor’s abilities these stories are not as depressing as they sound. Taylor gives us enough to like about these characters. We feel for them, share their disappointment but I cannot say I was left depressed. Ms Taylor writes as a craftsman. Her work is more than just readable, she draws you and helps you to feel and sometimes to understand why her characters feel as they do. She has problems keeping focus on male figures and will abandon them as soon as possible (Tall Boy).
I came to: You'll Enjoy It When You Get There by accident. I am glad I stayed and hope to find more from Elizabeth Taylor.
January 9, 2019
It's a shame this author is not more widely-known because she is a fantastic mid-century British writer, a master of the short story format, and her novels are also outstanding. It could be because she shares her name with a far more famous Taylor. It could also be because short stories have declined in popularity since their heyday in the 1950s. Or it could be because her subjects are generally women involved in small domestic conflicts. Interestingly, Jane Austen wrote on the very same topic, and is considered one of the greatest of all British authors. Taylor's social commentary is no less biting, but really, her stories are just about those small moments in time that are memorable and character-defining. She describes British village life perfectly, as well as the angst of the old generation, untouched by war, continuing in their Edwardian ways, as compared the younger set, for whom the second world war is a deeply affecting, life-changing event. She also writes very well on travel, and several stories take place in European locations other than Britain. But it's mostly the home front with which she concerns herself, and the stories are cinematic in their descriptions of both the beauty and the gloom of the country. I can't imagine any literate person not enjoying these pithy little tales!
July 3, 2017
I enjoyed this book immensely. Taylor stories are smart and funny and telling -as is her writing. I read this book through like a novel, one story leading into another -Taylor's stories and characters seem to encompass the same world -but the characters navigate it differently. I noticed a few themes in this book:
Love. The love in Taylor's stories do not bring on a feeling of confidence or romance. The love always seems precarious -something you have to hold on to or fight for or fake. That is for the women anyway. The men seem to receive and give love easily. It is the women who have to look the realities of love in the face.
Another thing that came up in a few of the stories were windows! Several images of people leaning over their window sills looking out into the world -halfway in and halfway out.
Love. The love in Taylor's stories do not bring on a feeling of confidence or romance. The love always seems precarious -something you have to hold on to or fight for or fake. That is for the women anyway. The men seem to receive and give love easily. It is the women who have to look the realities of love in the face.
Another thing that came up in a few of the stories were windows! Several images of people leaning over their window sills looking out into the world -halfway in and halfway out.
January 13, 2022
Really quite an excellent selection of stories from a writer I’d not read before now. She’s definitely a master stylist. It’s true that some of the stories do bleed together when read consecutively, but there are a few stellar standouts, like the novella “Hester Lily” and the stories “The Thames Spread Out,” “Flesh,” and “Sisters.” Thoroughly impressed and now want to read some of Elizabeth Taylor’s many novels!
September 5, 2017
Understated, crisp, slice-of-life short stories. Reminded me of Alice Munro's books, but lighter in tone. There was a sameness that became wearing after a while. Taylor didn't intend for anyone to read 438 pages of her writing all at once, so maybe it was a mistake to "package" so many of them together.
January 10, 2017
Not ideal to read all together--completed in two e-book bursts. I like the meanness of her characters. Also I learned that I should pull red currants with a fork; that should encourage me to harvest more from my bush than I did last year.
July 12, 2015
Terrifying, well-done, quietly chilling. I can see this reflected in the lives of my mother's generation, that the 60's reacted against. "The Fly-Paper" might have been written yesterday.
September 6, 2015
It's years since I read Taylor and I had forgotten what a marvellous writer she was. This collection of short stories is a gem, spanning several decades. Recommended.
March 26, 2020
Stories about women written by a woman.
This old man enjoyed them. But I’m still baffled by women. 😂😂😂
This old man enjoyed them. But I’m still baffled by women. 😂😂😂
September 5, 2025
Elizabeth Taylor is a shocking and disturbing writer. The ladylike middle class image she projected...was profoundly misleading and encouraged her readers and some critics to regard her fiction as safe and domestic....Her work is full of treachery and passion, of horror and regret and foreboding, not all of it surpressed....We live on the edge of disaster....
from the Introduction by Margaret Drabble pvii
I did not enjoy the first and longest story at all, finding it tedious and suffocating, but obviously I wasn't there yet. I read another book or two before deciding to pick it up again.
boredom had made her carping, fidgety. Instead of being thankful for what she had, she complained at the slightest discomfort....the dull carapace of her own dissatisfaction. p75
from the story
Gravement Endommage
The habit of inertia is a hard one to shake off. p313
from The Voices
The stories get progressively better, by which I do not mean brighter for there is a gluey bleakness throughout. With her penetrating insight, ET is not exactly tender with her characters and she never softens the edges which she boldly explores, but she is never judgemental and even perhaps, forgiving. It's all about yearning and disappointment and the strength it takes to get up in the morning.
Two generations, ruined, lay side by side....After wars, when there is so little time to patch up before the next explosion, what hope is there? p75
He felt terribly sorry for humanity, as if he did not belong to it. p75
Yet this is somehow not a grim collection.There is even some gallows humour and the hilarious Perogative of Love. I read all the stories through to the end, and did enjoy them.
She had such a different picture of herself from the one that other other people seemed to see and she was frightened and astonished by glimpses of how she appeared to them, for they perceived traits she was most sure she never possessed....
p313 The Benefactress
from the Introduction by Margaret Drabble pvii
I did not enjoy the first and longest story at all, finding it tedious and suffocating, but obviously I wasn't there yet. I read another book or two before deciding to pick it up again.
boredom had made her carping, fidgety. Instead of being thankful for what she had, she complained at the slightest discomfort....the dull carapace of her own dissatisfaction. p75
from the story
Gravement Endommage
The habit of inertia is a hard one to shake off. p313
from The Voices
The stories get progressively better, by which I do not mean brighter for there is a gluey bleakness throughout. With her penetrating insight, ET is not exactly tender with her characters and she never softens the edges which she boldly explores, but she is never judgemental and even perhaps, forgiving. It's all about yearning and disappointment and the strength it takes to get up in the morning.
Two generations, ruined, lay side by side....After wars, when there is so little time to patch up before the next explosion, what hope is there? p75
He felt terribly sorry for humanity, as if he did not belong to it. p75
Yet this is somehow not a grim collection.There is even some gallows humour and the hilarious Perogative of Love. I read all the stories through to the end, and did enjoy them.
She had such a different picture of herself from the one that other other people seemed to see and she was frightened and astonished by glimpses of how she appeared to them, for they perceived traits she was most sure she never possessed....
p313 The Benefactress
July 27, 2023
Contains stories taken from four collections plus one novella (Hester Lilly). She was equally good at stories as she was at novels.
Read
May 29, 2023I can’t very well review all the stories in this collection as it’s a retrospective collective 4o years after the death of a not entirely well-known writer and covers 40 years itself. Oh and there’s 30 stories in it.
Of the 30 stories, most seem primed for publication in that they are roughly ten pages long each and have a solidly cohesive and straightforward narrative, if not straightforward characters. Taylor’s writing is trim and funny and hides in subtleties, but like the four novels of hers I have read, she’s not out to do anything experimental in form.
The best of these stories deal in writing, reading, and cats. My introduction to Taylor and her career is the story “The Letter Writers” about a woman who spent years writing to her favorite author and his responding back forming a kind of virtual connection finally getting a chance to meet when they’re in the same country and how everything seems wrong. Even though it was written in the 1950s, the distance between the two and their intimate, but not face to face, connection had a very familiar feel to me in the age of email and online dating.
Other stories I really enjoyed involved a girl who read to escape the annoyances around her, throwing off various titles as she went.
And of course any story that involves a cat is perfectly charming and perfectly rendered. Elizabeth Taylor knows cats, and it turns out that they haven’t changed much. And unlike other writers of her time, dealing with the different cultural landscape of the 20th century, she gives understanding race, racial tension, and failing liberalism a go in the later stories.
Here’s a selection: “Sitting outside on the sill, the cat watched Melanie through the window. The shallow arc between the tips of his ears, his baleful stare, and his hunched-up body blown feathery by the wind, gave him the look of a barn-owl. Sometimes, a strong gust nearly knocked him off balance and bent his whiskers crooked. Catching Melanie’s eyes, he opened his mouth wide in his furious, striped face, showed his fangs and let out a piteous mew instead of a roar.”
Of the 30 stories, most seem primed for publication in that they are roughly ten pages long each and have a solidly cohesive and straightforward narrative, if not straightforward characters. Taylor’s writing is trim and funny and hides in subtleties, but like the four novels of hers I have read, she’s not out to do anything experimental in form.
The best of these stories deal in writing, reading, and cats. My introduction to Taylor and her career is the story “The Letter Writers” about a woman who spent years writing to her favorite author and his responding back forming a kind of virtual connection finally getting a chance to meet when they’re in the same country and how everything seems wrong. Even though it was written in the 1950s, the distance between the two and their intimate, but not face to face, connection had a very familiar feel to me in the age of email and online dating.
Other stories I really enjoyed involved a girl who read to escape the annoyances around her, throwing off various titles as she went.
And of course any story that involves a cat is perfectly charming and perfectly rendered. Elizabeth Taylor knows cats, and it turns out that they haven’t changed much. And unlike other writers of her time, dealing with the different cultural landscape of the 20th century, she gives understanding race, racial tension, and failing liberalism a go in the later stories.
Here’s a selection: “Sitting outside on the sill, the cat watched Melanie through the window. The shallow arc between the tips of his ears, his baleful stare, and his hunched-up body blown feathery by the wind, gave him the look of a barn-owl. Sometimes, a strong gust nearly knocked him off balance and bent his whiskers crooked. Catching Melanie’s eyes, he opened his mouth wide in his furious, striped face, showed his fangs and let out a piteous mew instead of a roar.”
September 10, 2020
I dived (dove?) into this collection periodically over the course if several weeks, so can't recall the details of most stories. Basically, there were a couple of duds, a few that were outstanding, and the rest solid writing, if not exceptional. If you're into short stories, this collection is worth looking into.
August 2, 2017
These are short stories written in a literary style. They're very good for what they are, and they provide an interesting glimpse into British life during the time span they were written. They are not really my taste, but I can appreciate the author's talents.
January 1, 2015
Always deft, funny, insighftul.
April 10, 2015
I'm happy that these stories were reissued! My favorite was The Benefactress. Taylor's forte is showing how we constantly compare ourselves to others.
June 27, 2015
The New Yorker fiction podcast introduced Elizabeth Taylor to me. Every story in this collection is marvelous.
July 13, 2015
Great title.
Read
March 7, 2016Most of these stories are really excellent. The first one was a bit long/boring. But I'll read most of these again sometime.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews