Other People

by Celia Dale

June and her father stared for a moment into each other’s minds. He looked away first; and with a stab of joy June knew he was afraid of her and that she hated him.

It is summer in small town Havenport. Protected from the world by her devoted mother, fifteen-year-old June is content and completely self-absorbed. Her biggest concern is where she will be holidaying this year.

When June’s father reappears after twelve years in Australia, she is thrust abruptly into a different life: new house, town, school. She soon suspects that she does not know the full story about her father, and when she meets Tony Townsend, he and his London life suddenly promise a glamorous and alluring alternative . . .

Other People is a compelling coming-of-age novel, told with Dale’s trademark wit, observation and canny dissection of relationships.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Not very much is known about the author Celia Dale except for a few scant details. Celia Dale was born in 1912 and she was daughter of the actor, James Dale and was married to the journalist and critic, Guy Ramsey until his death in 1959. She worked in Fleet Street and as a publishers adviser and book reviewer. Some of her books were dramatised on radio and TV. Dales first book appeared in 1943 but it was her later novels where she branched out in to the realms of psychological crime. In all, Dale produced thirteen novels and a collection of short stories.

Celia Dale took everyday domestic situations and gave them a bitter twist. In Helping with Enquiries there are only three main protagonists, their story revolving around the murder of the mother. In A Helping Hand the vulnerability of the elderly is masterfully portrayed. Dale won the 1986 Crime Writers Association Veuve Cliquot Short Story Award for Lines of Communication which appears in her short story collection, A Personal Call and other stories which show that Dale had the short story down to a fine art. Her final book in 1988 was Sheeps Clothing.

Celia Dale died on the 31st December 2011, just short of her hundredth birthday. - Excerpted from FantasticFiction

Novels
The Least of These (1944)
To Hold the Mirror (1946)
The Dry Land (1952)
The Wooden O (1953)
Trial of Strength (1955)
A Spring of Love (1960)
Other People (1964)
A Helping Hand (1966)
Act of Love (1969)
A Dark Corner (1971)
The Innocent Party (1973)
Helping with Enquiries (1979)
aka The Deception
Sheep's Clothing (1988)

Reviews

[Gill Bennett · Rating 4 out of 5]

On a bit of a mission to read more of Celia Dale’s books I managed to find this little treasure on my Kindle and was delighted to see that the inimitable Daunt books have reprinted several of her quite limited oeuvre: their covers are much more atmospheric than the boring one reprinted above.
This novel is a Bildungsroman about a young girl, June, living with her mother first in a cleverly described 1960s South coast holiday town and then in the outskirts of Bristol where her father mysteriously reappears after a long sojourn in ‘Australia’: he left when June was a baby and she has no previous memory of him. As with all of Dale’s books nothing is as it seems and the plot is a dense psychological thriller. There are in addition glorious descriptions of several interludes in rundown post war London, which the author always captures so well. The reader is deftly taken to an appropriately dark finale.
Overall a good read for a gloomy time of year.

EDIT: I have just realised that this is a sequel to A Spring of Love. However as a psychological thriller, I think it’s best to view Other People in isolation and read A Spring of Love as a prequel afterwards.

[May Dinneen · Rating 4 out of 5]

it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out that this is actually a sequel to A Spring Of Love which i read less than a year ago! i was struggling to get into it and kind of wish i'd known going into it that it was a sequel and it's kind of weird to me that it's not been marketed as one but i guess it is a 60 year old book so how much marketing can you really do for it?

i hope Daunt put out even more of Celia Dale's books, it's a shame she's been forgotten because she's fucking brilliant.

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Celia Dale is the master of working class suburban English psychological noir and this coming of age novel with a twist does not disappoint in the slightest. Celia is both a magician in being able to tap into the universality of her characters's feelings, the difficult passage from childhood to being a young female teenager and stepping or plunging in the difficult unchartered territory of adulthood as well as the recreating of the very particular setting of the socio-economic world of the working classes in a post-war 1960s England, a country finding its own place in the world, with the arrival of the new immigrants into what would have been a very parochial pre-war world. A great master of suspense, you will never be disappointed with a Celia interlude. A strong 3.75.

[Annette Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a lovely, lovely book. Written in 1964 and republished with no changes to the use of language, Other People conjures up beautifully a strong sense of the time. It's a compelling slow burn with seemingly ordinary domestic situations vividly drawn with gentle wit, a dash of tension and a chilling twist as June gradually becomes aware of the truth.....

[Jen Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Celia Dale. It took an embarrassingly long time for me to realise that this is a sequel to Spring of Love, but I love her writing so much. She writes people brilliantly. Excellent book.

[Gemma Coleman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think this book is what the blurb promised it would be. "sun-soaked afternoons in Sloane Square and parties on the King's Road", matched with a glam 60s cover... and there was absolutely none of this in the book.

[Julia Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another intensely atmospheric, claustrophobic slice of 60's life courtesy of the incomparable Celia Dale. A coming of age story that really shocks.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to another reader’s review I now realise this is the sequel to A Spring of Love. Brilliantly written and the abrupt ending suited the narrative. I was left wanting to know more but also impressed with the lack of follow up on the characters.

[Ruby Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed!! Ending felt maybe a little rushed but I really liked it all