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Freya Wyley #1
Freya
London, May 1945. Freya Wyley, twenty, meets Nancy Holdaway, eighteen, amid the wild celebrations of VE Day, the prelude to a devoted and competitive friendship that will endure on and off for the next two decades. Freya, wilful, ambitious, outspoken, pursues a career in newspapers which the chauvinism of Fleet Street and her own impatience conspire to thwart, while Nancy, gentler, less self-confident, struggles to get her first novel published. Both friends become entangled at university with Robert Cosway, a charismatic young man whose own ambition will have a momentous bearing on their lives.
Flitting from war-haunted Oxford to the bright new shallows of the 1960s, Freya plots the unpredictable course of a woman’s life and loves against a backdrop of Soho pornographers, theatrical peacocks, willowy models, priapic painters, homophobic blackmailers, political careerists.
Beneath the relentless thrum of changing times and a city being reshaped, we glimpse the eternal: the battles fought by women in pursuit of independence, the intimate mysteries of the human heart, and the search for love. Stretching from the Nuremberg war trials to the advent of the TV celebrity, from innocence abroad to bitter experience at home, Freya presents the portrait of an extraordinary woman taking arms against a sea of political and personal tumult.
Flitting from war-haunted Oxford to the bright new shallows of the 1960s, Freya plots the unpredictable course of a woman’s life and loves against a backdrop of Soho pornographers, theatrical peacocks, willowy models, priapic painters, homophobic blackmailers, political careerists.
Beneath the relentless thrum of changing times and a city being reshaped, we glimpse the eternal: the battles fought by women in pursuit of independence, the intimate mysteries of the human heart, and the search for love. Stretching from the Nuremberg war trials to the advent of the TV celebrity, from innocence abroad to bitter experience at home, Freya presents the portrait of an extraordinary woman taking arms against a sea of political and personal tumult.
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First published March 3, 2016
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About the author
Anthony Quinn
16 books128 followersAnthony Quinn was born in Liverpool in 1964. Since 1998 he has been the film critic of the Independent. His debut novel The Rescue Man won the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award. His second novel Half of the Human Race was released in spring 2011.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 154 reviews
October 25, 2017
I loved Freya, both the book & the character. The novel is set in a time & place that are my favourites for a historical, England some 60 years back. The late 1940s & early 50s are within my lifetime but just over the horizon. I personally can verify the accuracy only of the last section, which is set in London in 1962, my summer living in the Kangaroo Valley near Earls Court. The book begins in 1945, two girls meet on VE Day & celebrate together & go on to become besties at Oxford. Freya, the daughter of a painter, is rusticated for missing Mods to cover the Nuremberg Trials and goes on to become a journalist in London. Her friend Nancy takes a First and aspires to become a successful novelist whilst working in a publisher’s office. The two young women share frigid digs in Great James Street in Bloomsbury. In the early ‘50s Freya is fed up with the frustrations of the male-dominated world of Fleet Street & our scene shifts to Italy where Freya & Nancy go for a much needed holiday. It ends with estrangement & Nancy returning to England to marry Robert, a man Freya detests & Freya spending the next 7 years in Rome as an international correspondent. In the final section, it is now 1962. Robert has become a rising politician & Freya returns to Fleet Street once more to renew her relationship with Nancy whilst investigating the mysterious death of the latest supermodel.
Contemporary readers will find attitudes towards homosexuality, abortion, & pay equity for women utterly antediluvian. Reading Freya so often reminded me of how I have seen in my lifetime popular beliefs shift 180 degrees - in the case of gays from jailing them to marrying them. I was fascinated by the details of how a GP went about arranging an abortion anonymously. But some things seemed a bit contrived. A government official’s in a sensitive position being blackmailed might have been handled quite differently. An experienced officer could have gone to the police, & may have ended up in criminal court as a witness under the name of “Mr X” rather than a defendant. Or he could have gone to his superior & confessed all, in which case he could either have been quietly retired from the service & found himself teaching in a minor public school or sent to the Russians as a double agent. Or he could just go straight to the Russians to spy for them, in which case in a few years he’d have run the British Secret Service, so deeply had it been penetrated by the Soviets. Most likely too, at least one of Freya’s editors would have defended pay inequity be asserting that male reporters - unlike a single woman - had to support a household.
Some of the characters are based on real life - Jessica Vaux clearly on Rebecca West & Nate Fane was an absolute dead-ringer for Kenneth Tynan, right down to Magdalen College & a penchant for spanking. (No, Freya’s lover Joss wouldn’t have been incensed when he found out the state of her bottom - he’d have wanted to join the naughty fun!) I was perplexed by the photo on the dust jacket, an appealing shot of the young chanteuse Françoise Hardy (who for me will always be the girlfriend of a racing driver in the film Grand Prix.) It fits none of the characters in either setting or appearance, tho’ it might represent the kind of informal street-shot the novel’s sleazy lowlife photog specialises in. That anomaly reveals the principal flaw in this novel, which prevents its reaching the high artistic level of Donna Tartt’s Secret History or Alice Adams’s Invincible Summer, the shallow draught of the characters. I loved that Freya was a wartime plotting-officer in the Wrens, but I never quite believed her as a character. She seemed more a collection of attitudes selected to make her sympathetic to readers today, rather than a real Englishwoman born in the mid-1920s. But Anthony Quinn’s samples of what is supposed to be her journalism were absolutely brilliant: a marvellous pastiche of the bright “switched-on” (OMG, my 1960s vocabulary is recurring!) style. I especially loved her undergraduate Cherwell article on Nate Fane. If you compare her pieces with what appears in the Feature section of contemporary “serious” British newspapers, you’ll see that prose was so much better written then. (Maybe because the authors had read real subjects @ university.) It was also hard to believe in Nancy as a novelist. (Chronologically she’d have been right for Iris Murdoch.) But that’s always a problem with writers as characters. We cannot read their novels, which makes a difference in this book because Freya takes offence @ Nancy’s depiction of a character she identified with herself. But how do we know if Freya’s just being paranoid? The business with Nancy’s diary also seemed contrived only for the convenience of the plot.
A few small details seemed a little off. A Morgan would not have been a very costly posh motor car in the earlier 1960s - tho’ it would have been a lot of fresh air fun @ the time: 0-60 just under 10 seconds & top speed of 105. I suspect Robert would have said “racialist” not “racist” in 1962 & that “mad” meaning “angry” would be then an Americanism. But tho’ not quite on the level of Proust or Powell, Freya is a stunning recreation of its time. I may, or may not, continue with the sequel Eureka (by 1968 Nat Fane’s original had over-stayed his fame too), but I cannot recommend Freya enough - both the persona & the novel - as an introduction to postwar English society.
Contemporary readers will find attitudes towards homosexuality, abortion, & pay equity for women utterly antediluvian. Reading Freya so often reminded me of how I have seen in my lifetime popular beliefs shift 180 degrees - in the case of gays from jailing them to marrying them. I was fascinated by the details of how a GP went about arranging an abortion anonymously. But some things seemed a bit contrived. A government official’s in a sensitive position being blackmailed might have been handled quite differently. An experienced officer could have gone to the police, & may have ended up in criminal court as a witness under the name of “Mr X” rather than a defendant. Or he could have gone to his superior & confessed all, in which case he could either have been quietly retired from the service & found himself teaching in a minor public school or sent to the Russians as a double agent. Or he could just go straight to the Russians to spy for them, in which case in a few years he’d have run the British Secret Service, so deeply had it been penetrated by the Soviets. Most likely too, at least one of Freya’s editors would have defended pay inequity be asserting that male reporters - unlike a single woman - had to support a household.
Some of the characters are based on real life - Jessica Vaux clearly on Rebecca West & Nate Fane was an absolute dead-ringer for Kenneth Tynan, right down to Magdalen College & a penchant for spanking. (No, Freya’s lover Joss wouldn’t have been incensed when he found out the state of her bottom - he’d have wanted to join the naughty fun!) I was perplexed by the photo on the dust jacket, an appealing shot of the young chanteuse Françoise Hardy (who for me will always be the girlfriend of a racing driver in the film Grand Prix.) It fits none of the characters in either setting or appearance, tho’ it might represent the kind of informal street-shot the novel’s sleazy lowlife photog specialises in. That anomaly reveals the principal flaw in this novel, which prevents its reaching the high artistic level of Donna Tartt’s Secret History or Alice Adams’s Invincible Summer, the shallow draught of the characters. I loved that Freya was a wartime plotting-officer in the Wrens, but I never quite believed her as a character. She seemed more a collection of attitudes selected to make her sympathetic to readers today, rather than a real Englishwoman born in the mid-1920s. But Anthony Quinn’s samples of what is supposed to be her journalism were absolutely brilliant: a marvellous pastiche of the bright “switched-on” (OMG, my 1960s vocabulary is recurring!) style. I especially loved her undergraduate Cherwell article on Nate Fane. If you compare her pieces with what appears in the Feature section of contemporary “serious” British newspapers, you’ll see that prose was so much better written then. (Maybe because the authors had read real subjects @ university.) It was also hard to believe in Nancy as a novelist. (Chronologically she’d have been right for Iris Murdoch.) But that’s always a problem with writers as characters. We cannot read their novels, which makes a difference in this book because Freya takes offence @ Nancy’s depiction of a character she identified with herself. But how do we know if Freya’s just being paranoid? The business with Nancy’s diary also seemed contrived only for the convenience of the plot.
A few small details seemed a little off. A Morgan would not have been a very costly posh motor car in the earlier 1960s - tho’ it would have been a lot of fresh air fun @ the time: 0-60 just under 10 seconds & top speed of 105. I suspect Robert would have said “racialist” not “racist” in 1962 & that “mad” meaning “angry” would be then an Americanism. But tho’ not quite on the level of Proust or Powell, Freya is a stunning recreation of its time. I may, or may not, continue with the sequel Eureka (by 1968 Nat Fane’s original had over-stayed his fame too), but I cannot recommend Freya enough - both the persona & the novel - as an introduction to postwar English society.
February 20, 2016
This novel begins on VE Day, when Freya Wyley goes to meet some old schoolfriends and ends up celebrating with Nancy Holdaway, who had just tagged along with the group. I have not read the author’s previous novel, “Curtain Call,” but this apparently has some characters from that book. However, it certainly read perfectly well as a stand-alone story; although I enjoyed it so much that I am now keen to go back and read the previous book.
Nancy is due to go to Oxford, while Freya had her place deferred by war. Indeed, after the war, the thought of studying seems absurd to Freya, but, upset at her parents disintegrating marriage and her father’s new relationship with another woman, she finds herself heading there, where she meets up again with Nancy. This book is very much a story of their friendship and relationship through the years; from the time after the war up until the Sixties.
The two women are very different. Freya is outspoken and loves to swear and shock. She is openly ambitious about becoming a journalist even while young – pursuing her heroine, the correspondent Jessica Vane, to the Nuremberg trials to try to get an interview. Nancy is quieter and keen to be a writer. However, although she is a much more gentle soul, she sometimes surprises Freya with her determination and makes Freya unsettled by showing her how her brash behaviour is sometimes viewed.
Much of the joy in this novel is in the changing society in which the two women live. In Oxford they meet two men whose storyline is also followed. Firstly, Robert Cosway, a fellow student whose life intersects with both women at different points of the book. The second is the flamboyant Nat Fane – a playwright, producer and dandy. Fane is an aspiring theatre actor and it is interesting to see, as the book progresses how, gradually, the fame of the stage becomes replaced with the glamour of television.
I very much enjoyed reading about the ambitious, driven Freya, the hopeful, forgiving Nancy and the characters surrounding them. This is a novel which embraces changing times – especially for women – and the author looks at really difficult issues with an ease which belies the skill of his writing. Essentially though, despite all the historical issues, this is a novel about friendship, trust and ambition. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
Nancy is due to go to Oxford, while Freya had her place deferred by war. Indeed, after the war, the thought of studying seems absurd to Freya, but, upset at her parents disintegrating marriage and her father’s new relationship with another woman, she finds herself heading there, where she meets up again with Nancy. This book is very much a story of their friendship and relationship through the years; from the time after the war up until the Sixties.
The two women are very different. Freya is outspoken and loves to swear and shock. She is openly ambitious about becoming a journalist even while young – pursuing her heroine, the correspondent Jessica Vane, to the Nuremberg trials to try to get an interview. Nancy is quieter and keen to be a writer. However, although she is a much more gentle soul, she sometimes surprises Freya with her determination and makes Freya unsettled by showing her how her brash behaviour is sometimes viewed.
Much of the joy in this novel is in the changing society in which the two women live. In Oxford they meet two men whose storyline is also followed. Firstly, Robert Cosway, a fellow student whose life intersects with both women at different points of the book. The second is the flamboyant Nat Fane – a playwright, producer and dandy. Fane is an aspiring theatre actor and it is interesting to see, as the book progresses how, gradually, the fame of the stage becomes replaced with the glamour of television.
I very much enjoyed reading about the ambitious, driven Freya, the hopeful, forgiving Nancy and the characters surrounding them. This is a novel which embraces changing times – especially for women – and the author looks at really difficult issues with an ease which belies the skill of his writing. Essentially though, despite all the historical issues, this is a novel about friendship, trust and ambition. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
February 19, 2017
Freya is a young woman in the post-war United Kingdom, who managed to get into Oxford University, a very traditional, male-dominated tertiary institution. The war has opened new avenues for women, not that it suddenly became easy.
Freya is beautiful, speaks her mind and goes for what she wants. Her best friend, Nancy, worships her, although Freya turns out not to be such a good friend.
There are some romantic entanglements. Also, males taking advantage of women, and women using their charms to get what they want. The double standards are everywhere. Women are expected to be married and have babies. The so-called career women are anomalies. The changing times, morals and expectations come into play. Life is complicated. So is Freya, who doesn’t seem to be too self-aware, but she’s bull-headed about what she wants.
This novel had a very British feel about it. I particularly liked the post-war era, the descriptions felt very real. I didn’t love Freya, but I got her, I’m pretty sure I’ve known people like her. The tone was a bit off at times, I can't quite explain it.
I generally enjoyed this novel, although, I do feel it was a tad too long (as in 50 – 100 pages too long).
I've received this novel via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publishers, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, for the opportunity to read and review this novel.
Freya is beautiful, speaks her mind and goes for what she wants. Her best friend, Nancy, worships her, although Freya turns out not to be such a good friend.
There are some romantic entanglements. Also, males taking advantage of women, and women using their charms to get what they want. The double standards are everywhere. Women are expected to be married and have babies. The so-called career women are anomalies. The changing times, morals and expectations come into play. Life is complicated. So is Freya, who doesn’t seem to be too self-aware, but she’s bull-headed about what she wants.
This novel had a very British feel about it. I particularly liked the post-war era, the descriptions felt very real. I didn’t love Freya, but I got her, I’m pretty sure I’ve known people like her. The tone was a bit off at times, I can't quite explain it.
I generally enjoyed this novel, although, I do feel it was a tad too long (as in 50 – 100 pages too long).
I've received this novel via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. Many thanks to the publishers, Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, for the opportunity to read and review this novel.
October 12, 2017
Anthony Quinn (sadly, not that Anthony Quinn) is also a journalist who shares my enthusiasm for the English writer Patrick Hamilton.
'Freya' is the middle book in a loose trilogy: 'Curtain Call', 'Freya' and 'Eureka'. I recently read, and thoroughly enjoyed, 'Curtain Call' and so was keen to continue through the trilogy.
'Curtain Call', set in the 1930s, introduces us to a society portrait painter named Stephen Wyley. It is his daughter, the eponymous Freya, who takes centre stage here, starting on VE Day and through to the mid-1960s.
One of the great pleasures of the book is in trying to work out who the book's characters are based on, in addition to Rebecca West (here Jessica Vaux), I'm confident we also meet characters who share a lot in common with Francis Bacon, John Deakin, Nina Hamnett and Kenneth Tynan. This is literary catnip as far as I'm concerned and I loved it.
As with 'Curtain Call', the evocation of the era feels spot on and both books are written in the style of the era.
The less you know about the plot the better, suffice to say it rattles along and is a real page turner by the book's conclusion.
Needless to say I am now impatient to get started on the trilogy's finale - 'Eureka'. I'm also looking forward to reading more of Anthony Quinn's bibliography.
5/5
'Freya' is the middle book in a loose trilogy: 'Curtain Call', 'Freya' and 'Eureka'. I recently read, and thoroughly enjoyed, 'Curtain Call' and so was keen to continue through the trilogy.
'Curtain Call', set in the 1930s, introduces us to a society portrait painter named Stephen Wyley. It is his daughter, the eponymous Freya, who takes centre stage here, starting on VE Day and through to the mid-1960s.
One of the great pleasures of the book is in trying to work out who the book's characters are based on, in addition to Rebecca West (here Jessica Vaux), I'm confident we also meet characters who share a lot in common with Francis Bacon, John Deakin, Nina Hamnett and Kenneth Tynan. This is literary catnip as far as I'm concerned and I loved it.
As with 'Curtain Call', the evocation of the era feels spot on and both books are written in the style of the era.
The less you know about the plot the better, suffice to say it rattles along and is a real page turner by the book's conclusion.
Needless to say I am now impatient to get started on the trilogy's finale - 'Eureka'. I'm also looking forward to reading more of Anthony Quinn's bibliography.
5/5
March 29, 2019
Anthony Quinn’s stunningly compelling writing really shines in this fictional recreation of postwar London between 1945 and 1962. Even some of the characters are drawn from life (Rebecca West, Ken Tynan, James Agate), peopling an extraordinary panorama which documents the changing political,social and cultural mores of the period.
Freya herself is a remarkable creation (although perhaps slightly more modern than her timeline suggests) and Quinn deftly provides a seamless balance of historical research, observation and acerbic wit throughout.
This really is another tour-de-force of a novel that covers hitherto well-explored territory so confidently and stylishly that it’s almost impossible not to keep turning the pages until its conclusion.
Freya herself is a remarkable creation (although perhaps slightly more modern than her timeline suggests) and Quinn deftly provides a seamless balance of historical research, observation and acerbic wit throughout.
This really is another tour-de-force of a novel that covers hitherto well-explored territory so confidently and stylishly that it’s almost impossible not to keep turning the pages until its conclusion.
March 11, 2016
The best thing about this, Anthony Quinn's fifth novel is its unsympathetic protagonist. Freya Wyley, (twenty at the commencement of the novel and the end of World War 2, forty or so at the end of the story), is bold, rude, devious, suspicious and smug. She lacks insight and never learns. After repeatedly wrecking lunches, parties and work meetings with outbursts of vituperative personal abuse and being called to account time and time again, "her habitual response to criticism was one of airy indifference, since it usually came from people not qualified to give it". The characters are the best part of the book - Freya's closest friend the gentle and sensitive Nancy, flamboyant Nat and bumptious, selfish Robert. The minor characters are less impressive - somewhat interchangeable 'types'.
That's the best thing. The mediocre thing is the story. The predictable coming-of-age of a woman in the 40s, 50s and 60s story. Sex, gazelle-like-models, 'homophobia', sexism, Nazism, alcohol (lots of it), drugs, nightclubs. We know what decision Freya will make at two important moral junctures, (and each is the 'good' moral choice which a person of her character would not make). The reader is also hard put to believe that Freya's friends endure decades of her abuse and neglect, coming back for more.
That's the mediocre thing. The bad thing is the wooden prose:-
"'Freya!' The voice cut through the air. It was Jean Markham, also in uniform, with girls whose faces she'd last seen at school two years ago, Sophia and Betty and Maud and Catherine P. and Catherine S. The sternest girl in her year, Jean wore her smile like an unfamiliar lipstick.
'Jean -'
'My, don't you look smart!' cried Jean in her parade-ground tone. Amid the flurry of kisses and hugs Freya glanced at the stranger among them, a russet-haired girl who held back rather awkwardly from the rest. She was tall, as tall as Freya, pale-skinned yet luminous, and somewhat ill at ease. Freya's impression was of an ungainly swan. Jean, all briskness, introduced her as Nancy Holdaway.
'Not seen her in ages and she telephoned me out of the blue this morning!" There was the faintest touch of annoyance in her tone to suggest that surprise telephone calls were gauche and unwelcome. Freya stared at the girl for a moment before extending her hand.
'Hullo.' she said, feeling the girl's slim palm.
'How d'you do?' Nancy replied, blushing. Freya, who never blushed, always felt a little superior to people who did."
Early on Freya says to Nancy, when critiquing the draft of Nancy's first novel ("as an editor, an advisor, someone who wants to help you") -
"'You must also learn to stop explaining every little thing. The reader needs some space to inhabit - you can't just keep telling and telling in this breathless, impetuous way. Allow your reader to wonder, to question, instead of hectoring them with information. I think it comes down to trusting one's characters; once you've got them on the stage, so to speak, you should let them tell and act the story for themselves. The writer should peform a kind of disappearing act. D'you see?'"
That seems to be Freya's way of saying "show, don't tell". The next paragraph tells -
"Nancy only nodded, without catching her eyes. Freya sensed that her strictures were more baldly spoken than they needed to be, that she was perhaps to zealous in showing the path of artistic righteousness. But this would be important in toughening up a first time writer. She continued a little in this vein, riffling the pages of the manuscript as if they were the examination papers of a bright but wayward pupil. "
No chance of us losing sight of the author there. And so it goes.
In a New York Times essay on writing, Elmore Leonard set out his ten rules for writing. Number 6 is, "never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
Freya must have known this. She continues;
"'Oh, one other thing. You keep using the word 'suddenly'. I counted it at least a dozen times in the first fifty pages..'"
Would that Athony Quinn had extended this admonition to the use of the word "shrug" and its variants. Freya and her associates shrug at least 55 times in 464 pages (counting helps control irritation). Apparently a shrug can be not unamiable, little, half, insouciant, in apology, in assent, irked (withholding agreement), languid, brave, heavy, lordly or philosophical. When their shoulders are not going up and down like piston pumps, Freya et al. are staring, sighing, raising their eyebrows, wrinkling their noses and doing various other things with their faces.
The reader can only shrug with disappointment.
That's the best thing. The mediocre thing is the story. The predictable coming-of-age of a woman in the 40s, 50s and 60s story. Sex, gazelle-like-models, 'homophobia', sexism, Nazism, alcohol (lots of it), drugs, nightclubs. We know what decision Freya will make at two important moral junctures, (and each is the 'good' moral choice which a person of her character would not make). The reader is also hard put to believe that Freya's friends endure decades of her abuse and neglect, coming back for more.
That's the mediocre thing. The bad thing is the wooden prose:-
"'Freya!' The voice cut through the air. It was Jean Markham, also in uniform, with girls whose faces she'd last seen at school two years ago, Sophia and Betty and Maud and Catherine P. and Catherine S. The sternest girl in her year, Jean wore her smile like an unfamiliar lipstick.
'Jean -'
'My, don't you look smart!' cried Jean in her parade-ground tone. Amid the flurry of kisses and hugs Freya glanced at the stranger among them, a russet-haired girl who held back rather awkwardly from the rest. She was tall, as tall as Freya, pale-skinned yet luminous, and somewhat ill at ease. Freya's impression was of an ungainly swan. Jean, all briskness, introduced her as Nancy Holdaway.
'Not seen her in ages and she telephoned me out of the blue this morning!" There was the faintest touch of annoyance in her tone to suggest that surprise telephone calls were gauche and unwelcome. Freya stared at the girl for a moment before extending her hand.
'Hullo.' she said, feeling the girl's slim palm.
'How d'you do?' Nancy replied, blushing. Freya, who never blushed, always felt a little superior to people who did."
Early on Freya says to Nancy, when critiquing the draft of Nancy's first novel ("as an editor, an advisor, someone who wants to help you") -
"'You must also learn to stop explaining every little thing. The reader needs some space to inhabit - you can't just keep telling and telling in this breathless, impetuous way. Allow your reader to wonder, to question, instead of hectoring them with information. I think it comes down to trusting one's characters; once you've got them on the stage, so to speak, you should let them tell and act the story for themselves. The writer should peform a kind of disappearing act. D'you see?'"
That seems to be Freya's way of saying "show, don't tell". The next paragraph tells -
"Nancy only nodded, without catching her eyes. Freya sensed that her strictures were more baldly spoken than they needed to be, that she was perhaps to zealous in showing the path of artistic righteousness. But this would be important in toughening up a first time writer. She continued a little in this vein, riffling the pages of the manuscript as if they were the examination papers of a bright but wayward pupil. "
No chance of us losing sight of the author there. And so it goes.
In a New York Times essay on writing, Elmore Leonard set out his ten rules for writing. Number 6 is, "never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
Freya must have known this. She continues;
"'Oh, one other thing. You keep using the word 'suddenly'. I counted it at least a dozen times in the first fifty pages..'"
Would that Athony Quinn had extended this admonition to the use of the word "shrug" and its variants. Freya and her associates shrug at least 55 times in 464 pages (counting helps control irritation). Apparently a shrug can be not unamiable, little, half, insouciant, in apology, in assent, irked (withholding agreement), languid, brave, heavy, lordly or philosophical. When their shoulders are not going up and down like piston pumps, Freya et al. are staring, sighing, raising their eyebrows, wrinkling their noses and doing various other things with their faces.
The reader can only shrug with disappointment.
March 26, 2016
When I finished reading ‘Freya’ I wanted to shout out to everyone around me to read it. Why? It is a story of friendship and love, truth and honesty, loyalty and betrayal. Anthony Quinn captures Freya immaculately – he seems to intuit so much women’s stuff so well – so much better than other male novelists recently writing from a female point of view. It is such a refreshing read, I hope it sells loads and wins loads. It deserves it. If you can, read it next.
‘Freya’ is the story of Freya Wyley from VE Day to the 1960s via Oxford, Nuremberg, Italy and mostly London. Recently demobbed from the Wrens, at which she achieved a senior position as bomb plotter in a world with few men, she goes up to Oxford unsure if she is too ‘old’ at the age of 21 to return to study. There she finds that pre-war expectations of women re-apply again and with her customary cussedness she fights against it. With the glimmer of an opportunity, she sets out to get a break as a journalist by interviewing a reclusive war reporter who will be attending the Nuremberg war trials. She calls in a favour from her father, lies, manipulates and bravely goes forth, setting foot into the ruins of the bombed city where she is later told she should not have ventured. But that is Freya: undaunted. She is strong, true, speaks without thinking and gets into trouble because of it. Of course it is the few times in which she is not honest, either with herself or with her best friend Nancy – who she met on the night of VE day when they got ‘stinko’ together – that make the most fascinating reading.
It is a joy to read a female character who is not nice all the time, who feels real, and who I can identify with more than some sugar-sweet modern protagonists. This book fairly fizzes along, read in two days on holiday, I found myself irritated when my Kindle’s battery died because I ignored the ‘battery low’ warning.
Quinn’s sense of time is perfect, he moves seamlessly from wartime to the Sixties. All his characters have depth, flaws and are believable, and his balance of action, contemplation and setting is exact. He covers a wide variety of subjects of the time - morality and art, homosexuality offences, celebrity, political rigour - by simply allowing Freya to investigate and report. The technique of covering Freya’s investigation of an article, followed by the published article, acts as a semi-colon before the next segment of her life.
'Freya' is Quinn’s fifth novel. Next, I will read ‘Curtain Call’, his fourth; and I won’t wait long.
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‘Freya’ is the story of Freya Wyley from VE Day to the 1960s via Oxford, Nuremberg, Italy and mostly London. Recently demobbed from the Wrens, at which she achieved a senior position as bomb plotter in a world with few men, she goes up to Oxford unsure if she is too ‘old’ at the age of 21 to return to study. There she finds that pre-war expectations of women re-apply again and with her customary cussedness she fights against it. With the glimmer of an opportunity, she sets out to get a break as a journalist by interviewing a reclusive war reporter who will be attending the Nuremberg war trials. She calls in a favour from her father, lies, manipulates and bravely goes forth, setting foot into the ruins of the bombed city where she is later told she should not have ventured. But that is Freya: undaunted. She is strong, true, speaks without thinking and gets into trouble because of it. Of course it is the few times in which she is not honest, either with herself or with her best friend Nancy – who she met on the night of VE day when they got ‘stinko’ together – that make the most fascinating reading.
It is a joy to read a female character who is not nice all the time, who feels real, and who I can identify with more than some sugar-sweet modern protagonists. This book fairly fizzes along, read in two days on holiday, I found myself irritated when my Kindle’s battery died because I ignored the ‘battery low’ warning.
Quinn’s sense of time is perfect, he moves seamlessly from wartime to the Sixties. All his characters have depth, flaws and are believable, and his balance of action, contemplation and setting is exact. He covers a wide variety of subjects of the time - morality and art, homosexuality offences, celebrity, political rigour - by simply allowing Freya to investigate and report. The technique of covering Freya’s investigation of an article, followed by the published article, acts as a semi-colon before the next segment of her life.
'Freya' is Quinn’s fifth novel. Next, I will read ‘Curtain Call’, his fourth; and I won’t wait long.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-revie...
May 8, 2016
I liked this book without loving it. Found it far too long and the long descriptions tedious at times. But Freya is a gem of a character! I loved her wit and how awful she could be. She's a complex and beautifully drawn character, as is Nancy. I've never read a female friendship as well written by a male author. The dialogue was divine. Lots of historical context and markers but a few times where I felt Quinn was desperate to include all his research.
September 12, 2017
Freya is Anthony Quinn's fifth novel and shares but two things with the previous four; it's period fiction and it's brilliant.
I must confess that I was beginning to find the opening Oxford based Evelyn Waugh type stuff a little tedious but I quickly realised that it was essential to fully understanding the core of the novel as well as serving as an introduction to the characters.
Freya was set, mostly in London, when I was growing up and Quinn captures the post-war austerity and the coming of the sixties superbly. He writes such easy to read prose and paints some fascinating characters, each of whom has individual characteristics which makes following the plot so gripping. A really good read.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
I must confess that I was beginning to find the opening Oxford based Evelyn Waugh type stuff a little tedious but I quickly realised that it was essential to fully understanding the core of the novel as well as serving as an introduction to the characters.
Freya was set, mostly in London, when I was growing up and Quinn captures the post-war austerity and the coming of the sixties superbly. He writes such easy to read prose and paints some fascinating characters, each of whom has individual characteristics which makes following the plot so gripping. A really good read.
David Lowther. Author of The Blue Pencil, Liberating Belsen and Two Families at War, all published by Sacristy Press.
September 10, 2023
I enjoyed this. Read it on holiday which it was perfect for. I think the ending in particular was well written; I also think it’s crucial that the readers opinion of the main characters changes over time, as the characters go through more and less likeable phases and personality traits. To me Robert is the perfect contrast to Freya throughout the book (playing games when she is bored, polite when she is frank, successful in the industry she struggled in at times, dishonest where she is honest etc). As a final point, I’m not really into novels set in the past but thoroughly enjoyed the 1940s - 1960s setting.
April 17, 2016
***Copy from NetGalley in return for an honest review****
I'm quite confused about this book. I liked Quinn's last book Curtain Call - and was interested in the idea of this - particularly as it's tangentially connected to the characters in Curtain Call. That last book was a murder mystery (if quite a literary fiction-y one) and this definitely is literary fiction, or wants to be.
It is a coming of age story that starts at the end of the war and goes through until the 1960s and covers a lot of the ground that you would expect a book about an ambitious woman who has tasted freedom and the world of work during the war to cover. But Freya is deeply dislikable - and doesn't ever seem to learn or grow from her mistakes. As I've said before, you don't have to like characters to want to read about them, but Freya is too far over that line - she's arrogant, mean, judgmental, happy to walk all over people and use them (except in a couple of notable and out of character seeming moments). There is a core cast around her, of whom Nancy is the only one I cared about - and she makes some dumb decisions of her own.
I really struggled with why I disliked Freya so much, when I was able to get past some similar decisions/traits in other books (the younger generation in the Cazalets make some bad decisions in the war and post war period but I didn't have as strong a reaction to them as I did to Freya) and I think it's probably because of her lack of self awareness and utter conviction in her own superiority. Freya is very quick to see faults in other people - but incapable of seeing that she often does similar things. It takes a lot for me to not get outraged on behalf of workplace sexism, but when Freya's not getting the breaks she thinks she deserves, I was thinking back to her harsh critique of Nancy's novel back in university days and wondering if it was payback for someone who isn't as good or important as she thinks she is!
Now you can probably tell from this that I think it would make a great book club book - I've written loads about this despite the fact that I didn't really like it much. There are a few clunky bits of writing, but most of my gripes are with the characters and the story not the writing. Thought provoking, but I'm not sure I'll be reading the next book from Quinn.
I'm quite confused about this book. I liked Quinn's last book Curtain Call - and was interested in the idea of this - particularly as it's tangentially connected to the characters in Curtain Call. That last book was a murder mystery (if quite a literary fiction-y one) and this definitely is literary fiction, or wants to be.
It is a coming of age story that starts at the end of the war and goes through until the 1960s and covers a lot of the ground that you would expect a book about an ambitious woman who has tasted freedom and the world of work during the war to cover. But Freya is deeply dislikable - and doesn't ever seem to learn or grow from her mistakes. As I've said before, you don't have to like characters to want to read about them, but Freya is too far over that line - she's arrogant, mean, judgmental, happy to walk all over people and use them (except in a couple of notable and out of character seeming moments). There is a core cast around her, of whom Nancy is the only one I cared about - and she makes some dumb decisions of her own.
I really struggled with why I disliked Freya so much, when I was able to get past some similar decisions/traits in other books (the younger generation in the Cazalets make some bad decisions in the war and post war period but I didn't have as strong a reaction to them as I did to Freya) and I think it's probably because of her lack of self awareness and utter conviction in her own superiority. Freya is very quick to see faults in other people - but incapable of seeing that she often does similar things. It takes a lot for me to not get outraged on behalf of workplace sexism, but when Freya's not getting the breaks she thinks she deserves, I was thinking back to her harsh critique of Nancy's novel back in university days and wondering if it was payback for someone who isn't as good or important as she thinks she is!
Now you can probably tell from this that I think it would make a great book club book - I've written loads about this despite the fact that I didn't really like it much. There are a few clunky bits of writing, but most of my gripes are with the characters and the story not the writing. Thought provoking, but I'm not sure I'll be reading the next book from Quinn.
February 16, 2024
I really wanted to love this book, but it never quite captivated me the way I hoped. I feel like Anthony Quinn wanted to tell a story of the modern woman, but lost his way. The book is split into 3 parts, and, honestly, two parts could have been more than sufficient. The whole second part was a bit of a snooze fest and it was only when I reached Book 3 that I felt the story picking up a little. Quinn teases multiple story lines and themes - Oxford, Nuremberg trials, Florence, debauchery, pregnancy, bisexuality, death - but to me none of these storylines ever resolve themselves, and the "villains" never get their "comeuppance." Maybe that's the point. Regardless, I like it when endings feel a bit more resolved.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 20, 2018
Freya is a wonderful and dynamic character (even if not always entirely likeable) and I'm a sucker for a book that follows decades of female friendship. Nancy, although less feisty, is certainly a character with depth. In many ways, this book succeeded in conveying the depth of Freya and Nancy's friendship, but in other ways the nuances didn't ring quite true.
January 25, 2021
I fell under Freya’s spell almost from the beginning of this engaging novel and continued thus until the last page. What a wonderful, complex, frustrating, wilful, beguiling character Anthony Quinn has created in Freya Wyley. Furthermore, there are so many unforgettable characters in this novel that I am loathe to omit any by making a list. But Freya’s best friend Nancy, her apparently gentle and pliable exterior belying a steely and determined interior, is also brilliant. The novel is set in postwar Britain, a period of enormous social, political and cultural upheaval and Quinn handles the issues with ease and grace. He is a writer who understands and writes about women with an easy authority that, in my opinion, not many men possess. This is a novel about love, loyalty, betrayal but above all about enduring friendship and I thoroughly enjoyed almost every page. It’s not five stars because I thought it was a tad too long.
June 22, 2016
This is an interesting retrospective of the years between 1945-1965 seen through the eyes of two young women. Quinn is clearly empathic to the struggle for female agency and independence but there are times where this feels a little self-conscious, especially in the contrasts between the women at its heart.
That said, this paints an energetic picture of social change and captures the cultural leap from a post-war world to something recognizably 'modern'.
For me, Quinn has never quite recaptured the brilliance of 'Half of the Human Race': this is absorbing and intelligent, though, with interesting things to say.
That said, this paints an energetic picture of social change and captures the cultural leap from a post-war world to something recognizably 'modern'.
For me, Quinn has never quite recaptured the brilliance of 'Half of the Human Race': this is absorbing and intelligent, though, with interesting things to say.
November 18, 2016
A bit of a rambling love story mixed with revenge.
August 12, 2020
“Freya” is a life story but its structure isn’t the one usually associated with coming-of-age novels or other character studies. It's not strictly chronological and consists of three parts, each of these focusing on an important stage for Freya: the beginning, her return from war an education, during which she encounters most of the people that would define her later life; the development section, which puts her personal features and interpersonal relationships within the context of the time period; the final section, which deals with the return and vengeance. Each of the parts is centered around several key characters — she meets her Oxford friends in the first one, she spends most of the second one defending Alex McAndrew, and she witnesses the death of Chrissie Effingham, a person much younger than her, in the third one. Each of the parts introduces a new genre — the first one a university novel, the second one a friendship drama and a story of betrayal, the third one a detective story of a sort. This, though chronological, jigsaw structure significantly speeds up the story but due to its fragmentary nature some significant parts of Freya’s life seem as if they had been fast-forwarded on purpose. The novel covers a period of twenty years — too long — and crosses the boundaries of the genres that may not seem particularly compatible. We don’t know much about Freya between her dropping out and the start of her career; her life in Rome — a substantial period of 8 years — remains largely obscure and is only delivered in the form of sporadic flashbacks. Freya’s profile doesn’t feel deep enough; and for this reason the focus of the work shifts slightly from Freya herself to the times she exists within. The character fades away but the times that she takes us through, like a vessel, are interesting and varied — we can almost witness how the reluctance of the post-war England to accept change is followed by the clandestine existence of a new, younger bulk of a European society, which eventually grows powerful enough to go out in the open and claim itself to be the future of the country.
Despite the book being named after her, Freya isn’t the only strong character that helps create the portrait of the era. While I was reading the novel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Anthony Quinn feels more at ease with his male characters than the female ones. Robert Cosway must have been conceived initially as a tool to bring to the surface the frailties of the friendship between Nancy and Freya, but it was the interaction of Robert and Alex McAndrew that I found most revelatory — the one, a typical opportunist whose personal standards are low enough to be sacrificed for the sake of wealth, job prospects and material benefits, versus the other, who is, like Freya, bound to be condemned by the narrow-minded society which is too immature and too bigoted to accept change. Robert might seem prejudiced but he isn’t as categorical as his public. While questioning the behavior of those who ‘deviate,’ he still realizes in the back of his mind that it is wrong to persecute people for their private life — even more so, once got hold of political power, he unleashes his own ‘deviations’ which are not only unacceptable but downright detrimental, dangerous and fatal for the object of his desire. Still, in his pursuit for prosperity and troubled by their university bygones, he decides to play by the rules and deliver Alex’s private life story into the hands of salivating readers. He must have realized his mistake, but Alex vanishes and in comes Freya, who pays him back in his own coin to make him fully comprehend and feel for himself what a terrible act of betrayal he had committed.
Freya has an easily identifiable strong male side to her. She gets involved with more men than women and plays a crucial role in male relationships, often as an arbiter of justice. Shaped by her war experiences, she finds it hard to squeeze herself into the severely limited area of the ‘traditional’ female role, especially those aspects of it connected with family, relationship, as well as her professional career as a journalist. Her child, the closest link that ties her up to family life, is conceived accidentally, unwanted, stillborn, and ends up being a sort of ‘homage’ to a late friend. Her editors rob her of her best creative ideas, giving them to the male members of the staff instead. By the ‘commonly accepted’ standards, she might be proclaimed erratic, eccentric, impulsive — she gives rein to her feelings and emotions, and never hesitates to give the people surrounding her a piece of her mind, no matter what the consequences. Nancy, though immature and far less experienced than her friend, a more fragile character overall, isn’t ‘male’ per se but she also manages to challenge the dogmas of the male-dominated world by becoming a successful writer. Interestingly, the friendship between the two is based on the fundamental principles of old-school gentlemanry — such things as faith and devotion, trust and commitment. They aren’t just accidental acquaintances, even though their friendship ensures certain periods of idleness, but their relationship is of a higher-level, noble stature. Both of them treat betrayals — first on Freya’s part, then on Nancy’s — and the reconciliations that follow in a particularly virtuous way, not light-heartedly as one would expect from people of young age. This friendship may also be seen as the consequence of the war times, which facilitated rapid change on the one hand but made people feel a stronger need for bonding with others, companionship, and keener understanding.
There are people who have been born in the wrong time, and they are doomed to spend the most part of their struggling for understanding. Freya is one of those; a person whose views on the meaning of life and its values are too radically liberal to be accepted by the people who surround her.
We see Freya expressing herself within various stages and spheres of her everyday life: Freya as a student; Freya as a lover; Freya as a friend; Freya as a professional. A person whose perspective has been shaped and influenced by the times of war, she belongs to a special kind of young people who have appeared to show the world the direction in which it will have to evolve — gradual liberation, sexual freedom, the end of race and gender prejudice.
Despite the book being named after her, Freya isn’t the only strong character that helps create the portrait of the era. While I was reading the novel, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Anthony Quinn feels more at ease with his male characters than the female ones. Robert Cosway must have been conceived initially as a tool to bring to the surface the frailties of the friendship between Nancy and Freya, but it was the interaction of Robert and Alex McAndrew that I found most revelatory — the one, a typical opportunist whose personal standards are low enough to be sacrificed for the sake of wealth, job prospects and material benefits, versus the other, who is, like Freya, bound to be condemned by the narrow-minded society which is too immature and too bigoted to accept change. Robert might seem prejudiced but he isn’t as categorical as his public. While questioning the behavior of those who ‘deviate,’ he still realizes in the back of his mind that it is wrong to persecute people for their private life — even more so, once got hold of political power, he unleashes his own ‘deviations’ which are not only unacceptable but downright detrimental, dangerous and fatal for the object of his desire. Still, in his pursuit for prosperity and troubled by their university bygones, he decides to play by the rules and deliver Alex’s private life story into the hands of salivating readers. He must have realized his mistake, but Alex vanishes and in comes Freya, who pays him back in his own coin to make him fully comprehend and feel for himself what a terrible act of betrayal he had committed.
Freya has an easily identifiable strong male side to her. She gets involved with more men than women and plays a crucial role in male relationships, often as an arbiter of justice. Shaped by her war experiences, she finds it hard to squeeze herself into the severely limited area of the ‘traditional’ female role, especially those aspects of it connected with family, relationship, as well as her professional career as a journalist. Her child, the closest link that ties her up to family life, is conceived accidentally, unwanted, stillborn, and ends up being a sort of ‘homage’ to a late friend. Her editors rob her of her best creative ideas, giving them to the male members of the staff instead. By the ‘commonly accepted’ standards, she might be proclaimed erratic, eccentric, impulsive — she gives rein to her feelings and emotions, and never hesitates to give the people surrounding her a piece of her mind, no matter what the consequences. Nancy, though immature and far less experienced than her friend, a more fragile character overall, isn’t ‘male’ per se but she also manages to challenge the dogmas of the male-dominated world by becoming a successful writer. Interestingly, the friendship between the two is based on the fundamental principles of old-school gentlemanry — such things as faith and devotion, trust and commitment. They aren’t just accidental acquaintances, even though their friendship ensures certain periods of idleness, but their relationship is of a higher-level, noble stature. Both of them treat betrayals — first on Freya’s part, then on Nancy’s — and the reconciliations that follow in a particularly virtuous way, not light-heartedly as one would expect from people of young age. This friendship may also be seen as the consequence of the war times, which facilitated rapid change on the one hand but made people feel a stronger need for bonding with others, companionship, and keener understanding.
There are people who have been born in the wrong time, and they are doomed to spend the most part of their struggling for understanding. Freya is one of those; a person whose views on the meaning of life and its values are too radically liberal to be accepted by the people who surround her.
We see Freya expressing herself within various stages and spheres of her everyday life: Freya as a student; Freya as a lover; Freya as a friend; Freya as a professional. A person whose perspective has been shaped and influenced by the times of war, she belongs to a special kind of young people who have appeared to show the world the direction in which it will have to evolve — gradual liberation, sexual freedom, the end of race and gender prejudice.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 13, 2020
*3.5* This book really took me by surprise. It follows two best friends Freya and Nancy from the point when they meet as WWII is coming to an end in London through their late forties. In between you see them at Oxford, and watch as their careers and love lives ebb and flow both together and separately. I really loved the first section and the last section of the book with the middle dragging on a bit for me. Mostly I loved this book because it set these two characters against a historical backdrop that I love, post-war London and as our characters grow older you see the world changing from a war-ridden place to one obsessed with youth and fashion and music as the 60s begin. I found the last section really heartbreaking because you’ve been with these characters since they were young twenty somethings and now as adults they are having those kind of life realizations that can only come with growing older. Apparently this is part of a loose trilogy so I will definitely be picking up the other books. I’d say the writing style is not the most creative but the author and protagonist are both journalists so I think he approached it from that kind of lens. Definitely swept me up in another world!
April 30, 2024
I think this one is maybe closer to a 3.5 for me. Overall, I found it highly readable; I was engrossed in the story and the character development was so well done. Hated Robert, but probably because of how well he was written. Some people found the beginning slow, but I personally didn’t think so. I loved the historical context - being after the war, going to Oxford, being a woman at Oxford and in journalism during that time period.
What I didn’t care for was the ambiguous ending. It left me feeling like… “wait that’s it?”. After all that? I found City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert to be in the same vein as this book, but to this day the message of the book is still imprinted on me. I had that “wow that just happened” feeling, whereas I didn’t with this book. I really feel like it could be improved with a stronger, harder hitting ending.
I also have this niggling feeling of Freya and feminism being written from a male perspective and it feeling like a male perspective. And I mean like a slightly “negative” perspective. It makes me wonder if that is why Freya is maybe not as “likeable” as other feminist heroines. Did any one else feel this way or is it just me?
What I didn’t care for was the ambiguous ending. It left me feeling like… “wait that’s it?”. After all that? I found City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert to be in the same vein as this book, but to this day the message of the book is still imprinted on me. I had that “wow that just happened” feeling, whereas I didn’t with this book. I really feel like it could be improved with a stronger, harder hitting ending.
I also have this niggling feeling of Freya and feminism being written from a male perspective and it feeling like a male perspective. And I mean like a slightly “negative” perspective. It makes me wonder if that is why Freya is maybe not as “likeable” as other feminist heroines. Did any one else feel this way or is it just me?
December 5, 2025
“In the end, what you had was the present. It was all the any living person had. The stories which accumulated about yourself and about others were the past, they were smooth and refined in the telling, over and over. They became a thinner, fainter, a shadow at your back as you pushed on They would signify no more than the painted faces of saints. The present was where you had to live. The future called her on; it was free, but it was empty. She knew she could only bear it by doing something.”
4 (rounded up) charming stars
I really loved following Freya as she grew up; her highs and lows and everything in between. This novel looks intimidating as it’s quite long but you will fly through it. Will certainly be picking up the second book!
4 (rounded up) charming stars
I really loved following Freya as she grew up; her highs and lows and everything in between. This novel looks intimidating as it’s quite long but you will fly through it. Will certainly be picking up the second book!
April 12, 2018
Solid 4. Loved the era in which the novel is set; begins with VE Day when Freya meets Nancy and they become lifelong friends. The writing propelled me forward. I did not like Freya at all nor did I care for the ending. The events of the era fascinated me. Also, this book dealt with news reporting and its power to propel journalists forward or not; AND the power to destroy the subjects of these journalistic articles or NOT!
Timely, no?
Timely, no?
April 16, 2018
Three stars are for the book with exception of the entire final section. It seemed tacked on, unnecessary, introduced new characters and issues too late in the novel. Of course, the story needed to have an ending, but I would prefer a summarizing epilogue rather than the drawn-out last section.
From the first page (until final section) I was entertained by the characters, dialog, and surprising yet authentic plot twists. Although entertained, I kept wondering what the story is really about: a young woman's career ambitions after serving in WWII, relationships among the characters sexual and otherwise, or an intrigue based on England's treatment of homosexuals after the war. After finishing the book, I still wonder if the author had a clear idea what this book is about. Perhaps that explains why it is too long. More editing was needed. The author appears to love dialog between his characters. Often, there are pages of dialog and dinner-table conversations that don't add to any of the possible plots. I will say there is a line of dialog that is vitally important at the end.
I admire the author's writing style, character portrayals and descriptions, striking metaphors, and expansive language at his fingertips. Freya is an unforgettable character, funny, headstrong, and vulnerable. Her friend Nancy's sensitive, non-judgmental personality is a counterpoint to Freya's. The male author's ability to write so well about women's experiences is amazing.
From the first page (until final section) I was entertained by the characters, dialog, and surprising yet authentic plot twists. Although entertained, I kept wondering what the story is really about: a young woman's career ambitions after serving in WWII, relationships among the characters sexual and otherwise, or an intrigue based on England's treatment of homosexuals after the war. After finishing the book, I still wonder if the author had a clear idea what this book is about. Perhaps that explains why it is too long. More editing was needed. The author appears to love dialog between his characters. Often, there are pages of dialog and dinner-table conversations that don't add to any of the possible plots. I will say there is a line of dialog that is vitally important at the end.
I admire the author's writing style, character portrayals and descriptions, striking metaphors, and expansive language at his fingertips. Freya is an unforgettable character, funny, headstrong, and vulnerable. Her friend Nancy's sensitive, non-judgmental personality is a counterpoint to Freya's. The male author's ability to write so well about women's experiences is amazing.
May 13, 2021
A 'strong independent woman' story written by a man. What did I expect?
I'll give Quinn credit for drawing me into the story, into SOME of the characters (the male ones only), and into BITS of political drama.
But I noticed very early on that the reason this book was giving me fanfiction vibes was that the dialogue from the female characters (selfish shit-friend Freya and wet wipe Nancy) was so.... SHIT! The male characters, the three dimensional, interesting, well-written men such as Nat, Jimmy, Robert, Stephan.... they got all the best lines, the most thought-out monologues, beautiful little musings... the women all sounded as though they were written by a 12 year old. I'm not sure Anthony Quinn has ever met a woman he's actually liked.
I'll give Quinn credit for drawing me into the story, into SOME of the characters (the male ones only), and into BITS of political drama.
But I noticed very early on that the reason this book was giving me fanfiction vibes was that the dialogue from the female characters (selfish shit-friend Freya and wet wipe Nancy) was so.... SHIT! The male characters, the three dimensional, interesting, well-written men such as Nat, Jimmy, Robert, Stephan.... they got all the best lines, the most thought-out monologues, beautiful little musings... the women all sounded as though they were written by a 12 year old. I'm not sure Anthony Quinn has ever met a woman he's actually liked.
February 16, 2024
I throughly enjoyed this novel. I did find the beginning a little hard to get through but realize it was imperative in laying the groundwork for the novel. The number of social elements that he touches on reminds me how far we have come as a culture but also how much further we still have to go and grow. The concept of friendship demonstrates both the good and bad that any deep relationship has to offer. In the end though it points out just how important acceptance is in love.
August 3, 2018
I enjoyed this big well written historical read, mostly character driven, revolving around friendship and all it entails. This book reminded me of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series in writing and storytelling style.
August 22, 2017
Like Elena Ferrante in North London, with the caustic, difficult woman as lead character. Loved it.
June 14, 2021
Freya is a wonderful character and I enjoyed the way the friendship was central to the story. A little long for my liking but I listened to the audio and this worked well for me with this book.
June 5, 2023
Listened as an audio book but enjoyed it so much I thought it worth rating. Nostalgic and wonderful.
July 4, 2025
Don’t waste your time. I, for sure, did. Freya is so unbelievably boring, as a character and a book. Everything worked out for that nothing was interesting. When she fucked her best friend’s crush, the bff just forgave her and that was that. I stopped a little halfway through because nothing could’ve happened that would’ve made this flat character interesting enough to suffer through.
April 29, 2020
Engrossing story with interesting, well-drawn characters. The second two-thirds of the book weren't quite as well-written or well-plotted as the first; the later parts felt a little more rote and sometimes predictable. The story sped along, and I did enjoy it, just not as much as I did its predecessor, the wonderful "Curtain Call." Still, I will most likely move on to the third book in the trilogy.
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