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The Quiet Woman
After a Chernobyl-like accident at a fast breeder reactor on the north coast of France, Britain is shrouded in radioactive fall-out. When her best friend is murdered, a young writer is forced to make sense of the deadly world she now occupies.
186 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1990
4 people are currently reading
190 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Priest
178 books1,073 followersChristopher Priest was born in Cheshire, England. He began writing soon after leaving school and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1968.
He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.
He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.
He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.
As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.
He has published eleven novels, four short story collections and a number of other books, including critical works, biographies, novelizations and children’s non-fiction.
He has written drama for radio (BBC Radio 4) and television (Thames TV and HTV). In 2006, The Prestige was made into a major production by Newmarket Films. Directed by Christopher Nolan, The Prestige went straight to No.1 US box office. It received two Academy Award nominations. Other novels, including Fugue For a Darkening Island and The Glamour, are currently in preparation for filming.
He is Vice-President of the H. G. Wells Society. In 2007, an exhibition of installation art based on his novel The Affirmation was mounted in London.
As a journalist he has written features and reviews for The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the New Statesman, the Scotsman, and many different magazines.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
November 21, 2015
‘It’s the same with the books I like to read. A book should seem to reveal something about its author, and there should seem to be intimate details of the author’s life coming out. But there should also be little facts that don’t add up, that misdirect the truth…’
‘…There’s nothing unique about this, because a lot of writers do it. I suppose this is a warning. When you find my books you will be right to make assumptions about me from them, but you will be wrong to make too many. There are more trails for you to follow, but they are disguised.’
'The Quiet Woman' is a novel by Christopher Priest, originally published in 1990 and set, one can assume, some time in the late 80s or early 90s. We can date it from the glimpses of emergent technologies: fax machines are widespread, landlines are still the most prominent means of communication, and the nascent internet is only for professionals. The Cold War is over, but fears of nuclear annihilation are still present, albeit in a very different form. The southern part of England has been contaminated by a leaking reactor in the north of France, and though London was unaffected, the countryside around it was washed in radioactive rain, and it now exists in a kind of suspended reality; not entirely safe, but not deadly either. The tourists and farmers are gone, and the long-term effects of the exposure on those who remain is unknown.
One such resident is Alice Stockton, a writer. She lives alone with her cat, and scrapes a living writing historical non-fiction about notable women, until one day she discovers that the manuscript of her latest book has been confiscated by the Home Office. Something in it is objectionable, but they won’t tell her what. When she returns home from her enquiries, she finds that her only friend in the locality — Eleanor, an elderly writer of children’s books — has been killed. Her fascination with the case soon brings her into contact with Eleanor’s son, Gordon, who seems to be something of a creep. It isn’t long before Alice becomes fully involved in the mystery surrounding her death.
As the story develops, we discover that Eleanor wasn’t just a nice old lady; she had a history of campaigning against the nuclear industry. At once the prospect of government conspiracy emerges: could this have anything to do with Alice’s book? Suddenly we are introduced to a second point of view as the narrative switches back and forth between a ‘realistic’ third-person narrative that follows Alice and an intimate first-person mode that seems to lie within the mind of Gordon. And Gordon sees things: he sees his father and brother dying in a bizarre Ferris wheel accident; he sees his mother, distraught with grief and mad and rambling; he sees a series of spinning black cylinders in a field at night; he sees an experimental stealth bomber crash in the field adjacent to his mother’s funeral.
The book is over twenty years old now, but its concerns still feel fresh. The nuclear incident was inspired perhaps by the Chernobyl incident, but we might think also of the Fukushima disaster several years ago. On publication the death of Eleanor might have had echoes of the murder of Hilda Murrell in 1984, but today it’s tempting to think also of the death of David Kelly in 2003, since both of these were perceived to have been affected (or effected?) in some way by the security services. What begins as a playful bit of literary absurdity over a banned book turns into a much darker narrative about the nature of the surveillance state.
Gordon describes himself as an ‘information contractor, with a specialisation in surveillance management’. He is a corporate spy, his vocation couched in the vaguest, most officious terms imaginable. At one point he describes a meeting with a newspaper, the ‘Herald’ — vaguely reminiscent of the Guardian in terms of its political outlook — and he explains how they have not paid their bill for services rendered, and what his company plans to do about it. All this seems remarkably prescient in light of what we’ve learned recently about the proclivities of the British press to rely on phone hacking and other semi-legal surveillance techniques while investigating stories of questionable public interest.
Nobody else seems to see the world in quite the same way as Gordon. Alice’s life is shaped by paranoia and anxiety, yet she is grounded in the immediate busywork of living. Gordon sees the world in calm, orderly terms, but he has an inner life of such intensity that it seems to bleed through to reality. At least that is how the reader is expected to feel: at times the experiences of the two protagonists differ in such a striking way that it isn’t clear which of them is providing a definitive account of events. The style of the writing suggests that Alice’s is the ‘true’ story whereas Gordon’s experience is fantasy, but this seems to me an entirely intentional distraction, and by the end of the book both threads have the bleary, over-saturated quality of manufactured experience.
It’s a strange book. It doesn’t entirely click as a piece of drama; the pacing and development of the plot is aimless, the other characters are wholly peripheral, and there’s no resolution of anything either in particular or in general. But I found it quite enthralling regardless. It has the atmosphere of a slow-burning horror film, one where you feel that something awful is on the verge of happening at any moment. The story presents itself a series of banalities punctuated by increasingly strange, almost hallucinatory sequences that have almost no effect on the plot. Some readers expecting a more conventional novel might find this disappointing or frustrating, but I found it absolutely compelling. Those many ‘disguised trails’ are, I feel, exactly what I often seek out in fiction.
There’s a potent sense of mood here that contains within it a series of fascinating suggestions about the world we live in today. As with the novels of J.G. Ballard, the power of the human imagination is the central transformative vessel here, but while for Alice it works as a call to action, for Gordon it tempers every moment of his existence. In his mind the line between fantasy and reality has blurred to the extent that it ceases to exist. And yet he’s the one with all the power, both physically and politically; he can access an unprecedented digital archive of information over all the other characters in the story, and with a few keystrokes he can modify it as he chooses. This puts paid to the old lie so beloved of surveillance fanatics that if you have nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear; to record life in any media, then to concentrate access to this media in the hands of an unaccountable and largely invisible sector, must inevitably lead to the usual human failings associated with the corrupting influence of power.
‘…There’s nothing unique about this, because a lot of writers do it. I suppose this is a warning. When you find my books you will be right to make assumptions about me from them, but you will be wrong to make too many. There are more trails for you to follow, but they are disguised.’
'The Quiet Woman' is a novel by Christopher Priest, originally published in 1990 and set, one can assume, some time in the late 80s or early 90s. We can date it from the glimpses of emergent technologies: fax machines are widespread, landlines are still the most prominent means of communication, and the nascent internet is only for professionals. The Cold War is over, but fears of nuclear annihilation are still present, albeit in a very different form. The southern part of England has been contaminated by a leaking reactor in the north of France, and though London was unaffected, the countryside around it was washed in radioactive rain, and it now exists in a kind of suspended reality; not entirely safe, but not deadly either. The tourists and farmers are gone, and the long-term effects of the exposure on those who remain is unknown.
One such resident is Alice Stockton, a writer. She lives alone with her cat, and scrapes a living writing historical non-fiction about notable women, until one day she discovers that the manuscript of her latest book has been confiscated by the Home Office. Something in it is objectionable, but they won’t tell her what. When she returns home from her enquiries, she finds that her only friend in the locality — Eleanor, an elderly writer of children’s books — has been killed. Her fascination with the case soon brings her into contact with Eleanor’s son, Gordon, who seems to be something of a creep. It isn’t long before Alice becomes fully involved in the mystery surrounding her death.
As the story develops, we discover that Eleanor wasn’t just a nice old lady; she had a history of campaigning against the nuclear industry. At once the prospect of government conspiracy emerges: could this have anything to do with Alice’s book? Suddenly we are introduced to a second point of view as the narrative switches back and forth between a ‘realistic’ third-person narrative that follows Alice and an intimate first-person mode that seems to lie within the mind of Gordon. And Gordon sees things: he sees his father and brother dying in a bizarre Ferris wheel accident; he sees his mother, distraught with grief and mad and rambling; he sees a series of spinning black cylinders in a field at night; he sees an experimental stealth bomber crash in the field adjacent to his mother’s funeral.
The book is over twenty years old now, but its concerns still feel fresh. The nuclear incident was inspired perhaps by the Chernobyl incident, but we might think also of the Fukushima disaster several years ago. On publication the death of Eleanor might have had echoes of the murder of Hilda Murrell in 1984, but today it’s tempting to think also of the death of David Kelly in 2003, since both of these were perceived to have been affected (or effected?) in some way by the security services. What begins as a playful bit of literary absurdity over a banned book turns into a much darker narrative about the nature of the surveillance state.
Gordon describes himself as an ‘information contractor, with a specialisation in surveillance management’. He is a corporate spy, his vocation couched in the vaguest, most officious terms imaginable. At one point he describes a meeting with a newspaper, the ‘Herald’ — vaguely reminiscent of the Guardian in terms of its political outlook — and he explains how they have not paid their bill for services rendered, and what his company plans to do about it. All this seems remarkably prescient in light of what we’ve learned recently about the proclivities of the British press to rely on phone hacking and other semi-legal surveillance techniques while investigating stories of questionable public interest.
Nobody else seems to see the world in quite the same way as Gordon. Alice’s life is shaped by paranoia and anxiety, yet she is grounded in the immediate busywork of living. Gordon sees the world in calm, orderly terms, but he has an inner life of such intensity that it seems to bleed through to reality. At least that is how the reader is expected to feel: at times the experiences of the two protagonists differ in such a striking way that it isn’t clear which of them is providing a definitive account of events. The style of the writing suggests that Alice’s is the ‘true’ story whereas Gordon’s experience is fantasy, but this seems to me an entirely intentional distraction, and by the end of the book both threads have the bleary, over-saturated quality of manufactured experience.
It’s a strange book. It doesn’t entirely click as a piece of drama; the pacing and development of the plot is aimless, the other characters are wholly peripheral, and there’s no resolution of anything either in particular or in general. But I found it quite enthralling regardless. It has the atmosphere of a slow-burning horror film, one where you feel that something awful is on the verge of happening at any moment. The story presents itself a series of banalities punctuated by increasingly strange, almost hallucinatory sequences that have almost no effect on the plot. Some readers expecting a more conventional novel might find this disappointing or frustrating, but I found it absolutely compelling. Those many ‘disguised trails’ are, I feel, exactly what I often seek out in fiction.
There’s a potent sense of mood here that contains within it a series of fascinating suggestions about the world we live in today. As with the novels of J.G. Ballard, the power of the human imagination is the central transformative vessel here, but while for Alice it works as a call to action, for Gordon it tempers every moment of his existence. In his mind the line between fantasy and reality has blurred to the extent that it ceases to exist. And yet he’s the one with all the power, both physically and politically; he can access an unprecedented digital archive of information over all the other characters in the story, and with a few keystrokes he can modify it as he chooses. This puts paid to the old lie so beloved of surveillance fanatics that if you have nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear; to record life in any media, then to concentrate access to this media in the hands of an unaccountable and largely invisible sector, must inevitably lead to the usual human failings associated with the corrupting influence of power.
January 12, 2018
My first contact to Cristopher Priest in long form. Not so fortunate for me.
A readable novel, but, because of it`s final scenes, without any discernable meaning, at first glance, at least. Only after I`ve read some of the comments here, the things becomed clearer. Still, there are some things left unexplained.
The background image, of a Britain under a nuclear disaster was interesting, though. Also the characters and the writing was good, it was just the misshapen end, that spoils everything.
Anyway, hope that the next one by him that I will be reading, will be more well structured and finalized.
A readable novel, but, because of it`s final scenes, without any discernable meaning, at first glance, at least. Only after I`ve read some of the comments here, the things becomed clearer. Still, there are some things left unexplained.
The background image, of a Britain under a nuclear disaster was interesting, though. Also the characters and the writing was good, it was just the misshapen end, that spoils everything.
Anyway, hope that the next one by him that I will be reading, will be more well structured and finalized.
March 15, 2017
I’ve spent nearly 12 of the past 36 hours on trains, so have a backlog of reviews to write. This was my first train book, a title found in the dystopia keyword search. Like the majority of the dystopia keyword list that I’ve read to date, I don’t consider it a dystopia. It reminded me of Rule Britannia, the Daphne du Maurier novel in which America invades England. ‘The Quiet Woman’ also depicts ominous disaster impinging on a bucolic rural cottage occupied by a woman. ‘The Quiet Woman’ is unsettling in a different way, though. There’s a sort of analogy drawn between the risk of radiation, after a meltdown accident, and the similarly invisible risk of a shadowy private sector spy company run by a maniac. Alice, the central character, is dealing with possible radiation sickness and the inexplicable censorship of her recently finished book. I was a little disappointed not to find Alice more interesting - she is sympathetic, however she isn’t given much to do. Things happen to her, she rarely takes the initiative. I wouldn’t necessarily mind that if her personality had been developed a bit more.
Perhaps this is exacerbated by the fact that Alice is often seen through the eyes of an intensely creepy man with several names. This man gets the only first person narrations in the book, which are at first unsettling and then become horrifying. There’s a scene of rape and murder that seems to take place only in his head and was so viscerally horrible that I nearly stopped reading. Priest certainly manages to make the man seem like a truly frightening predator. As you can perhaps tell from the emphasis I’m putting on these remarks, I didn’t really enjoy ‘The Quiet Woman’ at all. It is well written and creepy, however it turned out to be a claustrophobic psychological drama rather than anything approaching a dystopia. A bit of stray radiation isn’t enough world-building for that. Christopher Priest’s novels seem a bit hit and miss. The Prestige was great; Indoctrinaire and this one didn’t do much for me. I thought he wrote The Unconsoled, but turns out that was Kazuo Ishigiro. The format of the title must have confused me. The Unconsoled is much better book and a generally mind-bending experience, so I suggest reading that instead.
Perhaps this is exacerbated by the fact that Alice is often seen through the eyes of an intensely creepy man with several names. This man gets the only first person narrations in the book, which are at first unsettling and then become horrifying. There’s a scene of rape and murder that seems to take place only in his head and was so viscerally horrible that I nearly stopped reading. Priest certainly manages to make the man seem like a truly frightening predator. As you can perhaps tell from the emphasis I’m putting on these remarks, I didn’t really enjoy ‘The Quiet Woman’ at all. It is well written and creepy, however it turned out to be a claustrophobic psychological drama rather than anything approaching a dystopia. A bit of stray radiation isn’t enough world-building for that. Christopher Priest’s novels seem a bit hit and miss. The Prestige was great; Indoctrinaire and this one didn’t do much for me. I thought he wrote The Unconsoled, but turns out that was Kazuo Ishigiro. The format of the title must have confused me. The Unconsoled is much better book and a generally mind-bending experience, so I suggest reading that instead.
December 3, 2021
Pas le meilleur de Christopher Priest. Je n'ai pas bien compris où l'histoire allait et pourquoi. la seule scène de SF est posée comme un cheveux sur la soupe et n'a aucune suite ni aucune incidence sur l'histoire.
Je suis juste content qu'il n'arrive rien au chat qui est le meilleur personnage du roman.
Je suis juste content qu'il n'arrive rien au chat qui est le meilleur personnage du roman.
May 22, 2023
This book had the potential to be a great read, alas in its present form left me as a reader unsatisfied. Shame.
July 24, 2016
Written in 1990, though it seems to have been updated around 2005as this edition includes references to the internet and other devices that were unknown back then. The story features some quite vivid characters and makes interesting shifts of perspectives. The background story is of the secret state/ undercover surveillance world covered in "Edge Of Darkness" in the mid 80s, but the nuclear references here are fairly incidental, and the Hilda Murrell story is another obvious allusion. It has an apparent resolution as a story about delusional psychosis. "At the end of the book there is a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that the book has been leading nowhere, that it is an artificial construct with no adequate purpose." (pg. 218) is Priest's moment of archness. The real ironic moment here, which he would not have grasped even in 2005, is that his "Cultural Repository" scam seems to be an premonition of Amazon Kindle self-publication.
January 16, 2022
Not my favorite Priest novel. His writing and voice will always be enough to keep me happy and interested but this book lacked his familiar flair. I think we are meant to understand quite a bit about the origins of this book in its own subtext. Priest probably wrote this for the pay check. I think you can see certain recycled plot devices or allusions to them all throughout this book. Whether or not he was beginning to formulate those concepts or simply recycling them to make work easy isn’t for me to say.
All I can think is that reading this book felt a lot like reading another Priest book “The Glamour”. That book was winding and labyrinthian much in the way this one was. It felt as though we were always being pulled deeper into the mystery and closer to the secret, just as in The Quiet Woman. The difference is that “The Glamour” resolves the mystery brilliantly and cryptically in a way that doesn’t tie up all the loose ends but totally subverts expectation and changes the entire context of the story. This book simply ends. It ends in a typical Priestian way, ambiguously, but lacks a real feeling of resolution. The mystery is not explained in a way that either leaves it open to more possibilities, like in his book “The Separation”, or resolves it in a way that is understandable while still being shrouded with some doubt like in “The Islanders” or “The evidence”.
I did enjoy this book, as a Priest fan I will always be able to take something from his writing, but I don’t think I would recommend this book to others unless they were fans like me.
All I can think is that reading this book felt a lot like reading another Priest book “The Glamour”. That book was winding and labyrinthian much in the way this one was. It felt as though we were always being pulled deeper into the mystery and closer to the secret, just as in The Quiet Woman. The difference is that “The Glamour” resolves the mystery brilliantly and cryptically in a way that doesn’t tie up all the loose ends but totally subverts expectation and changes the entire context of the story. This book simply ends. It ends in a typical Priestian way, ambiguously, but lacks a real feeling of resolution. The mystery is not explained in a way that either leaves it open to more possibilities, like in his book “The Separation”, or resolves it in a way that is understandable while still being shrouded with some doubt like in “The Islanders” or “The evidence”.
I did enjoy this book, as a Priest fan I will always be able to take something from his writing, but I don’t think I would recommend this book to others unless they were fans like me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 18, 2020
The weakest and least satisfying of the Christopher Priest novels I've read. Not an outright terrible book compared to so much that's out there, but while reading it I kept thinking about The Affirmation, The Adjacent, The Dream Archipelago, The Prestige, The Gradual, and how much I enjoyed them. This one suffers from comparison to Priest's other far better work - I expect only a Priest completionist would read this.
June 27, 2009
Weird- couldn't relate to this one- he must have been on something that made this seem as though it had more content!
April 18, 2022
I enjoyed the characters and their interplay but the sir of mystery surrounding them never seemed to get resolved.
December 14, 2019
The book left a taste of "unfinished".
It was extremely captivating from the beginning with several unexpexted plots and story lines, however a lot of them were left hanging without actual closure.
Eleanor remains a mistery. until the end we know very little about her; only from the letters and the literary work she left behind. you'd hope that with her son as POV character you'd learn more about her but no.
The big question remains unanswered: why did she and her son become estranged?
From Gordon/Peter's perspective, he stated that she was "mad" and that she told repeatedly endless stories
that made him develop and ability to "daydream". Then what?
We don't really know what actually made him resent his mother to the point of being unmoved by her death (possibly causing it...)
There is also the backdrop of the nuclear accident that seems to go nowhere although very present in the life and of Alice in Wiltshire.
What's up with the cynlinder story that suddently disappeared (first Gordon scene)?
I honestly believed there will be more that will be unvealed (especially with all the secret governmental work that gordon seemed to be doing).
Also, did Alice actually remember Gordon when he reappeared in her life?
It seems like they actually knew each other before, intimately, but they kept acting
like strangers, or was that a game they were playing?
Was it a coincidence that it was him, in particular,the son of Eleanor?
As a result you're left starving for an explanation...
Having said that, to quote from the book: "A book should seem to reveal something about its author".
It seems like Christian wanted us to tell us "don't believe what you read".
Especially, at the end, during the last meeting between gordon and Alice.
It was divided into two chapters and retold twice each time from Alice and then Gordon's Point of View.
Although the story was narrated from their perspective they were not telling you (the reader) the whole truth.
It's as if they selectively chose to omit certain facts to mislead you.
When you realize that, this brings all the book into question: at any given moment in time although we thought (as readers) that we were in the 'mind' of the narrator, the latter might not have been reveiling
everything.
And this explains how Alice could at the same time be the "innocent" writer in the Wiltshire chapters and the "sultry adultress" in the London chapters.
I found this mode of writing genius and and intentionally disingenuous!
It was extremely captivating from the beginning with several unexpexted plots and story lines, however a lot of them were left hanging without actual closure.
Eleanor remains a mistery. until the end we know very little about her; only from the letters and the literary work she left behind. you'd hope that with her son as POV character you'd learn more about her but no.
The big question remains unanswered: why did she and her son become estranged?
From Gordon/Peter's perspective, he stated that she was "mad" and that she told repeatedly endless stories
that made him develop and ability to "daydream". Then what?
We don't really know what actually made him resent his mother to the point of being unmoved by her death (possibly causing it...)
There is also the backdrop of the nuclear accident that seems to go nowhere although very present in the life and of Alice in Wiltshire.
What's up with the cynlinder story that suddently disappeared (first Gordon scene)?
I honestly believed there will be more that will be unvealed (especially with all the secret governmental work that gordon seemed to be doing).
Also, did Alice actually remember Gordon when he reappeared in her life?
It seems like they actually knew each other before, intimately, but they kept acting
like strangers, or was that a game they were playing?
Was it a coincidence that it was him, in particular,the son of Eleanor?
As a result you're left starving for an explanation...
Having said that, to quote from the book: "A book should seem to reveal something about its author".
It seems like Christian wanted us to tell us "don't believe what you read".
Especially, at the end, during the last meeting between gordon and Alice.
It was divided into two chapters and retold twice each time from Alice and then Gordon's Point of View.
Although the story was narrated from their perspective they were not telling you (the reader) the whole truth.
It's as if they selectively chose to omit certain facts to mislead you.
When you realize that, this brings all the book into question: at any given moment in time although we thought (as readers) that we were in the 'mind' of the narrator, the latter might not have been reveiling
everything.
And this explains how Alice could at the same time be the "innocent" writer in the Wiltshire chapters and the "sultry adultress" in the London chapters.
I found this mode of writing genius and and intentionally disingenuous!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 11, 2024
Had this on a shelf and thought 'I really should re-read The Quiet Woman.
And having started it, realised that I hadn't read it before in the first place. So that was a treat; an unread Christopher Priest novel, with my copy purchased, likely in 1991. And I'd only discerned that he had passed away in February this year (2024).
The Quiet Woman was first published in 1990, six years after my favourite novel of his The Glamour. My next favourite Priest book is Running Tall which he co-authored with the book's subject, the British athlete Sally Gunnell. The account of what goes through an athletes mind just before the start of a race remains, I reckon, the greatest piece of sports writing I've read.
Back though to The Quiet Woman (and you couldn't get further from Running Tall if you tried). It is 'typically Priest' and the term is valid. Quite a few of the staples of his writing are here; the fallibility of memory, the risks of imagination, the abuse of authority, lots of Manchester (Priest was born and grew up in Cheadle, Stockport) and London (later he lived in the outskirts, north of Southgate). Although Alice Hazeldine seems like the prime protagonist, it's Gordon Sinclair/Hamilton who is perhaps the most fascinating of the characters. And there are quite a few.
Sinclair's alternate world, with its references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, sexual encounters of the very weird kind, and an accident that only he appears to witness, give the reader some clues as to what he's really about. Sometimes The Quiet Woman feels a bit disjointed, but that's deliberate I think, a mechanism Priest used to echo what is happening to Alice. The novel flips narrators and perspectives regularly and that kept me on-my-toes. It's never boring, always intriguing.
Although not normally counted as being one-of-his-best, The Quiet Woman is 5-stars for me. It will get a reread, though perhaps in 30 years time!
And having started it, realised that I hadn't read it before in the first place. So that was a treat; an unread Christopher Priest novel, with my copy purchased, likely in 1991. And I'd only discerned that he had passed away in February this year (2024).
The Quiet Woman was first published in 1990, six years after my favourite novel of his The Glamour. My next favourite Priest book is Running Tall which he co-authored with the book's subject, the British athlete Sally Gunnell. The account of what goes through an athletes mind just before the start of a race remains, I reckon, the greatest piece of sports writing I've read.
Back though to The Quiet Woman (and you couldn't get further from Running Tall if you tried). It is 'typically Priest' and the term is valid. Quite a few of the staples of his writing are here; the fallibility of memory, the risks of imagination, the abuse of authority, lots of Manchester (Priest was born and grew up in Cheadle, Stockport) and London (later he lived in the outskirts, north of Southgate). Although Alice Hazeldine seems like the prime protagonist, it's Gordon Sinclair/Hamilton who is perhaps the most fascinating of the characters. And there are quite a few.
Sinclair's alternate world, with its references to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, sexual encounters of the very weird kind, and an accident that only he appears to witness, give the reader some clues as to what he's really about. Sometimes The Quiet Woman feels a bit disjointed, but that's deliberate I think, a mechanism Priest used to echo what is happening to Alice. The novel flips narrators and perspectives regularly and that kept me on-my-toes. It's never boring, always intriguing.
Although not normally counted as being one-of-his-best, The Quiet Woman is 5-stars for me. It will get a reread, though perhaps in 30 years time!
February 9, 2025
The Quiet Woman is a novel from Christopher Priest's mid-career and one I enjoyed far more than the only other novel of his I've read, The Inverted World.
This one follows Alice Stockton, a writer who has recently moved to a quiet English village following a divorce. The inciting incident comes when her neighbour, an elderly woman called Eleanor, is found dead in what appears to be a murder. Meanwhile, Alice's proposed next book has been seized by the Home Office for apparently containing "subversive material".
Eleanor's son arrives in the area to oversee the formalities and paperwork resulting from his mother's death. But Eleanor (whom Alice had become very friendly with) never mentioned a son. With Eleanor also having been a writer while she was alive, Alice takes it upon herself to start writing a literary biography of her deceased neighbour; but becomes increasingly caught up in Eleanor's enigmatic life. Was she really the woman she said she was or lived the life she said she did?
Priest demonstrates his mastery over cognitive estrangement in this novel - we get alternate tellings of the same events through two characters' eyes as the chapters alternate between Alice and the mysterious son of her deceased neighbour. All this against a background conceit of a radioactive incident affecting the south of England, which may or may not have some tenuous connection to Eleanor's activities in life and why she was murdered.
A strange novel that will make you uncomfortable, but it was with this more minor work by Priest which really made me appreciate his craft and why he's so often considered by those who know his work as the best at dealing with memory and perception.
This was a real page-turner for me; I devoured it in 2 days there are so many other details embedded into the fabric of this narrative that I'm sure will compel me to re-read it in the future.
This one follows Alice Stockton, a writer who has recently moved to a quiet English village following a divorce. The inciting incident comes when her neighbour, an elderly woman called Eleanor, is found dead in what appears to be a murder. Meanwhile, Alice's proposed next book has been seized by the Home Office for apparently containing "subversive material".
Eleanor's son arrives in the area to oversee the formalities and paperwork resulting from his mother's death. But Eleanor (whom Alice had become very friendly with) never mentioned a son. With Eleanor also having been a writer while she was alive, Alice takes it upon herself to start writing a literary biography of her deceased neighbour; but becomes increasingly caught up in Eleanor's enigmatic life. Was she really the woman she said she was or lived the life she said she did?
Priest demonstrates his mastery over cognitive estrangement in this novel - we get alternate tellings of the same events through two characters' eyes as the chapters alternate between Alice and the mysterious son of her deceased neighbour. All this against a background conceit of a radioactive incident affecting the south of England, which may or may not have some tenuous connection to Eleanor's activities in life and why she was murdered.
A strange novel that will make you uncomfortable, but it was with this more minor work by Priest which really made me appreciate his craft and why he's so often considered by those who know his work as the best at dealing with memory and perception.
This was a real page-turner for me; I devoured it in 2 days there are so many other details embedded into the fabric of this narrative that I'm sure will compel me to re-read it in the future.
January 3, 2019
What an odd book. The half of it through the point of view of Alice, a youngish author, I really enjoyed. She has left an unfaithful husband and is living in a small cottage in the English countryside. Cheap because it is in an area affected by a radiation spill. Alice doesn't know whether to believe the government when they say there is no risk and is worried about her cat. Unfortunately, the other half is from the point of view of the fairly unattractive Gordon who has some kind of shadowy job in security, and who comes in contact with Alice when Alice's friend Eleanor, Gordon's mother, is found murdered. I have read (and enjoyed) another of Priest's books, The Adjacent, so I should have been prepared for weird. It seems as though the novel is about patriarchy, the surveillance state, nuclear politics, the nature of reality, amongst other things. I was left pretty bamboozled. Written in 1990, it felt a little dated.
March 30, 2023
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" - Pink Floyd
Priest is the quintessential writer of that English way. From the first sentence I have been inundated with that quiet desperation of unknown origin. Like a constant drizzle, nothing really happening, yet something brewing underneath. Priest is not really concerned of uncovering what it is, that is as irrelevant as the reality of the story at hand. Like in Escher's famous drawing of hands drawing each other, here each of the interlocking stories might be the leading one and the other just a story within.
Unfortunately, it seems like Priest himself couldn't settle on the goal of it all. After that initial quietness, we get into Hitchcockian Psycho territory only to emerge into a metaphysical writer/editor/publisher discussion and the apparent meaningless of postmodern writing itself. I didn't appreciate those sudden changes (either way) therefore 4 stars only.
Priest is the quintessential writer of that English way. From the first sentence I have been inundated with that quiet desperation of unknown origin. Like a constant drizzle, nothing really happening, yet something brewing underneath. Priest is not really concerned of uncovering what it is, that is as irrelevant as the reality of the story at hand. Like in Escher's famous drawing of hands drawing each other, here each of the interlocking stories might be the leading one and the other just a story within.
Unfortunately, it seems like Priest himself couldn't settle on the goal of it all. After that initial quietness, we get into Hitchcockian Psycho territory only to emerge into a metaphysical writer/editor/publisher discussion and the apparent meaningless of postmodern writing itself. I didn't appreciate those sudden changes (either way) therefore 4 stars only.
November 1, 2020
A more routine novel from Mr Priest. At lest the staging is. But - as ever with CP - there are twists and turns, and strange, quiet, cul de sacs. Just enough doubt and intrigue to keep you wondering. There’s that world of dream and vision (and doubt about reality) that CP crosses in and out of with ease.
This is an interesting book, written in his usual engaging style, and with a great deal to say about the life of a writer, as well as the world around us.
Originally published in 1990, it references the recent Chernobyl meltdown, the beginnings of the internet, and the rise of surveillance culture. While dealing with very human mundanities and worries. It’s part dream, part nightmare, and portrays both very convincingly.
This is an interesting book, written in his usual engaging style, and with a great deal to say about the life of a writer, as well as the world around us.
Originally published in 1990, it references the recent Chernobyl meltdown, the beginnings of the internet, and the rise of surveillance culture. While dealing with very human mundanities and worries. It’s part dream, part nightmare, and portrays both very convincingly.
April 11, 2025
makes for uneasy reading in several senses. i find a lot to admire here - the second central character is a deeply sinister creation, all the more so for how effectively he's portrayed to /also/ be an unendurable bore - but after several readings over several years, i couldn't say that i confidently understood the story.
certainly the first time i read this i put the book down in a state of deep confusion.
if you have read this book, or intend to do so, i strongly recommend you also read 'the affirmation'. one doesn't complete the other, and it doesn't remotely matter which order you read them in, but you should read both. this will lead to a memorable, if unreliable, experience.
certainly the first time i read this i put the book down in a state of deep confusion.
if you have read this book, or intend to do so, i strongly recommend you also read 'the affirmation'. one doesn't complete the other, and it doesn't remotely matter which order you read them in, but you should read both. this will lead to a memorable, if unreliable, experience.
March 14, 2025
Granted, speculative fiction should contrast the everyday with the unreal; but Priest takes ‘everyday’ to banal extremes, and his ‘unreal’ is merely a half-baked melange of surveillance state and mental breakdown. A book-length, autological lament/sneer at the state of the publishing industry.
January 28, 2018
Feels like a missed opportunity. Good until halfway, then it starts becoming confusing. I found the chapters dealing with Gordon's job extremely boring.
January 7, 2019
A very prescient book foreshadowing the digital age. It did feel like it was set in the 1950s.
February 21, 2019
Weird and dream-like.
December 10, 2021
Classic Priest. A book about writing and fiction with a cleverly plotted dual storyline.
August 7, 2022
A difficult book, in retrospect, for all of Priest's seemingly simple style, working on multiple levels . I was enjoying the layered storytelling, the shifting perspectives, the whole sense that things were not all as they seemed, even as the narrative went about its humdrum way, making the most of everyday lives infected by a strange and implacable otherness, but the ending made me feel I'd somehow missed something.
July 22, 2009
(Read my review in English)
J'ai découvert Priest récemment avec Le Prestige, bien décidée à approfondir l'œuvre de cet auteur qui m'a violemment tapé dans l'œil.
J'ai encore Le monde inverti dans ma PAL mais j'avais depuis plus longtemps encore Une femme sans histoire, et mon choix s'est arbitrairement porté sur ce dernier.
Tout d'abord je ne comprends pas ce qui justifie de classer ce roman dans la SF, ça reste un mystère pour moi. J'hésite même à le classer dans les thrillers. Ceci étant, l'histoire de base est très alléchante, les personnages intéressants, inquiétants pour certains. Bien des aspects du récit m'ont fait penser à David Lynch, ce qui est un sérieux atout. On passe souvent d'un point de vue à l'autre, Gordon Sinclair apparait comme un individu étrange, ambigu, dont les motivations ne sont pas immédiatement claires. L'intrigue se déroule dans la campagne anglaise et j'ai beaucoup apprécié ce côté en apparence paisible, alors que la région évoquée a été irradiée. L'ombre de la mort plane sur l'histoire, et notamment l'héroïne. Mais ce détail ainsi que tant d'autre sont à peine survolés. Le traitement du sujet m'a paru bâclé, pas assez approfondi, on s'attend à plus de choses, plus de tout !
Un roman pas mauvais, mais qui laisse une impression d'inachevé, un comble sachant que l'édition que j'ai lue à été révisée en 2005 (ce qui explique qu'un livre de 1990 parle d'Internet et de téléphones portables...).
Dans l'ensemble j'ai passé un bon moment, je ne me suis pas du tout ennuyée, mais je reste un peu (beaucoup) sur ma faim.
À lire par les fans, mais à éviter si on veut découvrir Priest.
J'ai découvert Priest récemment avec Le Prestige, bien décidée à approfondir l'œuvre de cet auteur qui m'a violemment tapé dans l'œil.
J'ai encore Le monde inverti dans ma PAL mais j'avais depuis plus longtemps encore Une femme sans histoire, et mon choix s'est arbitrairement porté sur ce dernier.
Tout d'abord je ne comprends pas ce qui justifie de classer ce roman dans la SF, ça reste un mystère pour moi. J'hésite même à le classer dans les thrillers. Ceci étant, l'histoire de base est très alléchante, les personnages intéressants, inquiétants pour certains. Bien des aspects du récit m'ont fait penser à David Lynch, ce qui est un sérieux atout. On passe souvent d'un point de vue à l'autre, Gordon Sinclair apparait comme un individu étrange, ambigu, dont les motivations ne sont pas immédiatement claires. L'intrigue se déroule dans la campagne anglaise et j'ai beaucoup apprécié ce côté en apparence paisible, alors que la région évoquée a été irradiée. L'ombre de la mort plane sur l'histoire, et notamment l'héroïne. Mais ce détail ainsi que tant d'autre sont à peine survolés. Le traitement du sujet m'a paru bâclé, pas assez approfondi, on s'attend à plus de choses, plus de tout !
Un roman pas mauvais, mais qui laisse une impression d'inachevé, un comble sachant que l'édition que j'ai lue à été révisée en 2005 (ce qui explique qu'un livre de 1990 parle d'Internet et de téléphones portables...).
Dans l'ensemble j'ai passé un bon moment, je ne me suis pas du tout ennuyée, mais je reste un peu (beaucoup) sur ma faim.
À lire par les fans, mais à éviter si on veut découvrir Priest.
May 28, 2013
Towards the end of this book, when the protagonist Alice finally manages to drag out of her antagonist George some kind of explanation as to why her manuscript has been seized, she is told this:
"The depiction of characters is sketchey, and only the most shallow of motives are attributed to them to explain their actions[...]The text changes direction unexpectedly[...]Parts of the story appear to have been left out. There are implausible coincidences. You seem anxious to explain many things, but the reader is left unsatisfied[...]At the end of the book there is a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that the book has been leading nowhere, that it is an artificial construct with no adequate purpose."
The above criticisms might well have been leveled against the very book one is reading and, one feels, the author's intended effect.
So then, one shouldn't approach this book expecting anything like a conventionally written novel or they will be heavily disappointed. But people don't approach Priest's work expecting that, do they? Let's just say I wouldn't suggest this book as a place to start with his work. But to one seasoned with Priest's writing, one will find an exploration of familiar themes that he has explored many times elsewhere, but in a new and intriguing way.
There are hints throughout the narrative that suggest that Priest might be casting himself as the protagonist and that this is in some way autobiographical but we are also warned that any truths will be wrapped in deceptions and contradictory points deliberately included. And are there not some aspects of the antagonist that we might imagine the author also relates to? And how much of Tom's conspiracy theories reflect the author's own view of Britain and the way it is developing?
A befuddling novel that will leave the reader pondering it's meaning for some time afterwards.
"The depiction of characters is sketchey, and only the most shallow of motives are attributed to them to explain their actions[...]The text changes direction unexpectedly[...]Parts of the story appear to have been left out. There are implausible coincidences. You seem anxious to explain many things, but the reader is left unsatisfied[...]At the end of the book there is a feeling of dissatisfaction, a sense that the book has been leading nowhere, that it is an artificial construct with no adequate purpose."
The above criticisms might well have been leveled against the very book one is reading and, one feels, the author's intended effect.
So then, one shouldn't approach this book expecting anything like a conventionally written novel or they will be heavily disappointed. But people don't approach Priest's work expecting that, do they? Let's just say I wouldn't suggest this book as a place to start with his work. But to one seasoned with Priest's writing, one will find an exploration of familiar themes that he has explored many times elsewhere, but in a new and intriguing way.
There are hints throughout the narrative that suggest that Priest might be casting himself as the protagonist and that this is in some way autobiographical but we are also warned that any truths will be wrapped in deceptions and contradictory points deliberately included. And are there not some aspects of the antagonist that we might imagine the author also relates to? And how much of Tom's conspiracy theories reflect the author's own view of Britain and the way it is developing?
A befuddling novel that will leave the reader pondering it's meaning for some time afterwards.
November 17, 2015
Esta novela es probablemente la menos conocida de Priest aun cuando fuera escrita en su época de madurez (después de La afirmación y El glamour; antes de El prestigio). Algo que se explica cuando uno descubre el tremendo desequilibrio que presenta entre su trama y el subtexto sobre el cual se levanta.
The Quiet Woman es una novela de intriga criminal que destaca por el virtuosismo con el que introduce una distopía; cómo la narración crece a partir de lo particular y se abre lentamente el foco hasta presentar una Inglaterra donde la libertad quedó abolida junto a la intimidad. En ese terreno pone en juego a dos narradores poco honestos que a través de sus relatos generan todo tipo de resonancias deliciosas. Sin embargo la historia central se desarrolla a tirones y se remata con un desenlace absolutamente precipitado.
Sin duda, es una obra fallida por detrás de las dos novelas con las que más conexiones tiene: Fugue for a Darkening Island y The Extremes. Sin embargo, también es el típico libro que de haber sido traducido por una colección mainstream como las de Anagrama o Alfaguara habría obtenido un cierto eco. Lamentablemente, Priest quedó etiquetado como carne de ghetto hace cuarenta años y no ha conseguido quitarse de encima esa marca ni con sus novelas más accesibles para el gran público.
The Quiet Woman es una novela de intriga criminal que destaca por el virtuosismo con el que introduce una distopía; cómo la narración crece a partir de lo particular y se abre lentamente el foco hasta presentar una Inglaterra donde la libertad quedó abolida junto a la intimidad. En ese terreno pone en juego a dos narradores poco honestos que a través de sus relatos generan todo tipo de resonancias deliciosas. Sin embargo la historia central se desarrolla a tirones y se remata con un desenlace absolutamente precipitado.
Sin duda, es una obra fallida por detrás de las dos novelas con las que más conexiones tiene: Fugue for a Darkening Island y The Extremes. Sin embargo, también es el típico libro que de haber sido traducido por una colección mainstream como las de Anagrama o Alfaguara habría obtenido un cierto eco. Lamentablemente, Priest quedó etiquetado como carne de ghetto hace cuarenta años y no ha conseguido quitarse de encima esa marca ni con sus novelas más accesibles para el gran público.
April 8, 2015
It reminded me of The Leftovers, by Tom Perotta, because there's mention of a catastrophe that has happened - an accident at a nuclear power plant in this case - but it never leaves the background, it's just an unsettling event that triggers the plot and creates the setting, but it never takes the center stage.
The book's very short and it alternates points of view - most of it is 3rd person and these are the parts that focus on Alice, a writer whose latest book manuscript has been confiscated by Home Office for reasons unknown, some parts are a very unreliable first person, Gordon Sinclair, the son of Eleanor (an elderly writer, antinuclear activist and a friend of Alice, who is murdered in mysterious circumstances). Eleanor's voice is heard as well in 2 letters she writes to Alice.
This is actually a dystopia of a more subtle kind - apparently nothing is wrong but there's talk of radioactive poisoning, there's censorship and there's just something amiss with Priest's English society.
You have to read a lot between the lines, there are many things hinted at, about the plot, the general state of affairs and the characters themselves.
The book's certainly not gripping, but nevertheless interesting, in a quiet way.
The book's very short and it alternates points of view - most of it is 3rd person and these are the parts that focus on Alice, a writer whose latest book manuscript has been confiscated by Home Office for reasons unknown, some parts are a very unreliable first person, Gordon Sinclair, the son of Eleanor (an elderly writer, antinuclear activist and a friend of Alice, who is murdered in mysterious circumstances). Eleanor's voice is heard as well in 2 letters she writes to Alice.
This is actually a dystopia of a more subtle kind - apparently nothing is wrong but there's talk of radioactive poisoning, there's censorship and there's just something amiss with Priest's English society.
You have to read a lot between the lines, there are many things hinted at, about the plot, the general state of affairs and the characters themselves.
The book's certainly not gripping, but nevertheless interesting, in a quiet way.
February 11, 2015
An enjoyable read, but also a confusing and somewhat fragmented one. I really liked the setting and backstory and found the characters expertly developed and fascinating, as I have come to expect from Mr Priest. However, I finished the book wanting more ( it could have been longer) and wanting more answers. The backstory of nuclear fallout didn't really go anywhere, and the alternating chapters left me somewhat puzzled and confused, and in parts, were a little too graphic for my taste.
The Quiet Woman has left me with something to think about with parts of it to perhaps revisit, but on the whole, it felt a little disjointed leaving me with a few loose ends. There are some great ideas here, but I did wonder whether I'd missed something, that might become more apparent in a second reading.
The Quiet Woman has left me with something to think about with parts of it to perhaps revisit, but on the whole, it felt a little disjointed leaving me with a few loose ends. There are some great ideas here, but I did wonder whether I'd missed something, that might become more apparent in a second reading.
December 9, 2012
Christopher Priest is a favourite writer of mine, his books are usually original, inventive and excellent, but I don't actually remember this book, and on my spreadsheet of books I have read I have put "OK," so I guess this one wasn't one of his best.
July 28, 2013
Unsettling and sweaty. Christopher Priest goes back to his obsession of reality and imagination. What is real? I love this guys work.
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