The house on Fortune Street A novel

Review by New York Times Review

WHAT does it mean to be an unmarried woman? Barbara Pym, that matchless chronicler of unmatched lives, asked a version of this question half a century ago in "Excellent Women" (the title is a euphemism for "spinsters"), her still life of the contented, solitary Mildred Lathbury: "What do women do if they don't marry?" "Oh," Mildred replies wryly, "they stay at home with an aged parent and do the flowers, or they used to, but now perhaps they have jobs and careers." Does the word "spinster" calling to mind a bony, stoopshouldered figure in a cardigan still apply today? Or have the kittenish, tomcatting bachelorettes of "Sex and the City" reset the stereotype, transforming the mopey Mildreds of yesteryear into sensual Samanthas? It's a subject that can't be broached without giving offense. In the '90s, Martin Amis risked it, with the delectably cruel coinage "spinst," in his novel "The Information." "She reeked of spinst," one man tells another, adding, "Like unmarried men reek of batch." When his friend shakes his head in disgust, the man asks why he can't use the word. "Because people will start avoiding you," is the answer. Only a few months ago, The Atlantic set off a furious outcry when it published a 5,000word moan by a single mother deploring her unwed state and ordering familyminded women to lower the bar and jump the broom. "Settling is the way to go," she declared. The novelist Anita Brookner, a shrewder handicapper of the luck of unpartnered women, tested that proposition in her Booker Prizewinning 1984 novel "Hotel du Lac," in which a bloodless man tries to bully a woman into settling for him. "As my wife, you will do very well," he informs her. "Unmarried, I'm afraid you will soon look a bit of a fool." Although tempted, the woman escapes this Faustian bargain when she spots him stealing out of another woman's bedroom, giving her a foretaste of the potential torments of a loveless marriage. In her new novel, "The House on Fortune Street," Margot Livesey brings nuance, context and a cool head to this hotbutton issue through detailed portraits of two friends in their 30s: Abigail, who owns the house of the title, and Dara, who rents the downstairs apartment. Both women are unmarried, but they have distinct emotional templates and back stories that give them different ideas about the role men ought to play in their lives. To Abigail, who runs a theater company and whose harumscarum upbringing forced her to be selfsufficient at an early age, men are interchangeable. If one outwears his welcome, she's unafraid to switch partners, or to do without for a while. When she learns that a livein boyfriend could gain a legal claim to her house, she breaks up with him. "The idea that he could one day turn around and take half of her beautiful house was enraging," she thinks, deciding, "From now on, they all pay rent." Dara's tenderheartedness baffles Abigail. "Men were strictly for pleasure and for experimenting with versions of the self," she concludes, after one of Dara's romantic meltdowns. "What had made Dara give such a large piece of herself into Kevin's careless hands?" Dara, fragile, recessive and compassionate, works at a women's center. She had her confidence torn from her as a child when her father left the family with no explanation. In love, she takes an allornothing approach, handing over her heart and hopes to each of her (few) lovers, risking everything in her craving for belonging. Every departure devastates her, emptying her shallow store of selfworth. Abigail, careless and selfish, is always pursued. Dara, "kind, intelligent, loyal and gainfully employed," is nearly always manless, and even when she has somebody, he's never the sort who could turn into a husband. Feeling low, she broods. "Day after day she saw women who were plain, badtempered, dull, in debt, and yet had accomplished this thing that eluded her." Why should this be? Barbara Pym neatly outlined one explanation many years ago. "It was not the excellent women who got married," conscientious Mildred thinks, as she and the other mild, selfeffacing ladies in her parish watch strongwilled newcomers ensnare the local men. It was "Allegra Gray, who was no good at sewing, and Helena Napier, who left all the washing up." Is it a victory that Livesey's Abigail, standing in for the Allegras and Helenas of the 1950s, could get married but doesn't feel like it? And if Abigail would rather be alone than illmatched is she to be praised or pitied? Livesey divides her novel into four sections, each focused on a significant character. The first section is told from the point of view of Abigail 's boyfriend Sean, a lackluster Keats scholar who left his wife (also a scholar) for Abigail, without quite intending to. In spite of his kickoff position, Sean is somewhat irrelevant to the story, a pale moon in Abigail's solipsistic universe, slipping into ever remoter orbit. In the second section, Livesey introduces Dara's father, Cameron the man who left coloring in his past and humanizing him even as she reveals the inappropriate (though never acted upon) passion that ended his marriage. Cameron's mysteries help explain Dara's miseries, but Abigail can be explained only by herself. The reader is expected to absorb these interlocking life stories, then resort them, "Rashomon" style, to answer the puzzle of why Abigail and Dara have made such drastically dissimilar choices. It's strange that this novel, essentially an exploration of how and why two grown women have remained single, begins with the stories of two men. The brisk first section recalls Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim" a novel about a barely competent young academic who has a bad attitude and two women (one plain and one fancy) to juggle. The second section, told in a more muffled tone, bundled up in male sexual regret and a gauze of pedophilia, has echoes of Ian McEwan. The book's last two sections, in which Dara and Abigail get their turns, coordinate and cohere better as linked narratives, for obvious reasons. This raises the question: why leave them for last? Did Livesey not want her characters to "reek of spinst"? Did she want to show Abigail and Dara in the context of their menfolk so readers wouldn't find them uninteresting, wouldn't make the mistake of regarding these unmarried women as women entirely without men? Was she trying to place the blame for their solo status outside the female realm? Did she think they couldn't carry the story on their own? Or was she possibly scanting them to reduce the need to take a clear position, and to avoid the reckless, colorful opinioneering that makes people "start avoiding you"? Livesey, the author of half a dozen previous works of fiction, is a lovely, cautious writer. She likes to take her time building the atmosphere her characters move through, adding increments of color, dot by dot. "Eva Moves the Furniture," perhaps her best (though her least characteristic) novel, tracks the comingofage of a motherless Scottish girl in the 1930s and '4Os who is haunted by ghostlike "companions." But Livesey more typically turns her lens to current times, focusing on delicately offkilter emotions relationships set atilt by a pregnancy, a stepchild, an illness, a lie (or lies). There can be a stillness in her writing, and a painstaking attention to setting, that tie her to a previous generation of female authors from the British Isles (Livesey was born in Scotland but today lives in Massachusetts) like Pym and Brookner and Elizabeth Bowen. The women in the fiction of those earlier writers were defined by their surroundings, by the furnishings of their domestic lives, and seemed out of place without their confining walls. Livesey springs from this tradition yet challenges it in a spirit of respectful, nonviolent rebellion. Her Abigail and Dara show by example that these days the label "unmarried woman" can be either glorious or tragic, not a stigma but a choice. Both women live in the house on Fortune Street, but Dara is merely a tenant. Abigail, through owning her house, owns both her surroundings and herself. And to herself she unquestionably belongs. 'Men were strictly for pleasure and for experimenting with versions of the self.' Liesl Schillinger is a frequent contributor to the Book Review.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 27, 2009]

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Review by Booklist Review

Life has a way of parceling out both good luck and bad, and for the residents of the duplex on the ironically named Fortune Street, the latter was regrettably the case. Failed Keats scholar Sean left his wife for Abigail, a charismatic, fiercely independent actress, only to lose her to a close friend and writing partner. Dara, Abigail's best friend from college and downstairs neighbor, moved to London hoping to establish a relationship with her estranged father, Cameron, only to be betrayed by a duplicitous lover. Dara's desire to uncover the reason he abandoned their family prompts Cameron to acknowledge an unsavory part of his past. And when Abigail loses both her oldest friend and true love, she is forced to reevaluate everything she once believed about herself. Intricately weaving the cause and effect of each character's circumstances into four self-contained but essentially linked episodes, Livesey, polished and intriguing as ever, incisively explores the sinuous themes of regret and responsibility, truth and trust with an understated yet tenacious certainty.--Haggas, Carol Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The absorbing latest from Livesey (Homework) opens multiple perspectives on the life of Dara MacLeod, a young London therapist, partly by paying subtle homage to literary figures and works. The first of four sections follows Keats scholar Sean Wyman: his girlfriend, Abigail, is Dara's best friend, and the couple lives upstairs from Dara in the titular London house. While Dara tries to coax her boyfriend Edward to move out of the house he shares with his ex-girlfriend and daughter, Sean receives a mysterious letter implying that Abigail is having an affair, and both relationships start to fall apart. The second section, set during Dara's childhood, is narrated by Dara's father, who has a strange fascination with Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and shares Dodgson's creepy interest in young girls. Dara's meeting with Edward dominates part three, which mirrors the plot of Jane Eyre, and the final part, reminiscent of Great Expectations, is told mainly from Abigail's college-era point of view. The pieces cross-reference and fit together seamlessly, with Dara's fate being revealed by the end of part one and explained in the denouement. Livesey's use of the classics enriches the narrative, giving Dara a larger-than-life resonance. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Dara, a therapist at a women's center, lives in the downstairs flat of her friend Abigail's London home. A workaholic actress and theatrical producer, Abigail lives upstairs with her boyfriend, Sean, a struggling Keats scholar and writer. Although Dara and Abigail were best friends in college, their lives are so busy there is not much time for getting together. Sean is financially strapped and agrees to coauthor a book on euthanasia. He suspects Abigail is having an affair. Dara is involved with a married man she is perennially sure will leave his wife. And although she is often able to help her clients with their problems, Dara has never resolved issues revolving around her parents' divorce. Her father, Cameron, has never been able to tell her he struggled with attractions to young girls, whom he photographed obsessively. How these four characters ultimately fail at connecting with each other results in a tragedy three will regret for the rest of their lives. Livesey's latest novel (after Banishing Verona) keeps readers brooding over the power of secrets in this dark and disturbing psychological tale. Recommended for literary fiction collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/08.]-Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Love proves a destructive force in the lives of four Brits who have divergent perspectives on their interrelated dilemmas in another probing, satisfying novel from Livesey (Banishing Verona, 2004, etc.). In its first section, the story seems to be about a selfish, heartless actress, Abigail, who breaks up poor graduate student Sean's marriage, then sleeps with his university chum Valentine. Abigail's so busy and preoccupied she doesn't notice that her best friend, Dara, is in suicidal despair over a lying lover--but then again, neither does Sean until he comes across Dara's body in the downstairs flat of the house they all share on Fortune Street in London. The book's second section concerns Dara's childhood, seen through the eyes of her father Cameron, who has an unconsummated but unwholesome interest in prepubescent girls. His wife throws him out when she realizes his fondness for Dara's best friend is more than fatherly, and we see in the third section that his daughter has never recovered from Cameron's abrupt disappearance when she was ten. We also see that Dara is partly responsible for her disappointments in love, because she makes her boyfriends the obsessive center of her life. She's rather shocked by Abigail's casual attitude toward sex; even though the two women have been close since they met at university, their totally different personalities often chafe. Abigail, whose feckless parents let her work her way through both high school and university, is tough-minded and something of a user. She loves Dara, but can't understand her friend's neurotic vulnerability. In the moving final pages, Cameron confesses to Abigail what he could never tell Dara, and both confront their failures. "There was no question of them forgiving each other," Abigail bleakly concludes. Yet the novel is filled with sorrowful wisdom about the fallible human heart and our myopic view of ourselves and those we love. Moving, gruffly tender and piercingly truthful. Livesey has plenty of critical respect already, but her talents merit a broad popular audience as well. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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The House on Fortune Street A Novel Chapter One The letter came, deceptively, in the kind of envelope a businesslike friend, or his supervisor, might use. It was typed on rather heavy white paper and signed with the pleasing name of Beth Giardini. Sean read the brief paragraphs twice, admiring the mixture of courtesy and menace. Perhaps it had escaped his notice that he was overdrawn by one hundred and twenty-eight pounds? As he doubtless recalled, the bank had waived the penalty last time; this time, regretfully, they must impose their normal fee. Would he kindly telephone to discuss the matter at his earliest convenience? Sitting in the empty kitchen, surrounded by the evidence of Abigail's hasty departure, Sean understood that he was suffering from what his beloved Keats had called bill pestilence. When he was still living in Oxford, still married, most people he knew, including himself and his wife, were poor but their poverty hadn't seemed to matter. Of course he had yearned after expensive books and sometimes, walking at night, he and Judy had stopped to gaze enviously through the windows of the large lit-up houses, but for the most part his needs had fitted his income. In London, however, living with Abigail, the two had rapidly fallen out of joint, as Sean was only too well aware. This letter was not the result of any reckless extravagance. For six months he had been trying to cut back on photocopying and refusing invitations to the pub. Now gazing at Abigail's plate, rimmed with crumbs and one glistening fragment of marmalade, he did his best not to dwell on all the steps, large and small, that had brought this letter to his door. Instead he concentrated on the hundred and twenty-eight pounds, not a huge sum but a serious amount to borrow and, realistically, he would need more, at least two hundred, to remain solvent. On the back of the envelope he jotted down dates and numbers: when he might receive his small salary from the theater, when various bills were due. The figures were undeniable, and irreconcilable. He tried to think of people from whom he might borrow: his brother, one or two Oxford friends, his old friend Tyler. Much longer and more immediately available was the list of those whom he could not ask; his thrifty parents and Abigail jostled for first place. But then his second slice of toast popped up, and so did a name: Valentine. Sean had vowed, after their last book together, not to take on anything else until he had finished his dissertation, but such a vow, made only to the four walls of his study, was clearly irrelevant in the light of this current emergency. At once the figures on the envelope grew a little less daunting. With luck Valentine's agent would be able to find them another project soon. And if he knew he had money coming in, Sean thought, he could phone the bank and arrange a sensible overdraft. He was reaching for the marmalade when he heard a sound at the front door. Thinking Abigail had forgotten something, he seized the letter, thrust it into the pocket of his jeans, and tried to impersonate a man having a leisurely breakfast. But it was only someone delivering a leaflet, one of the dozens advertising pizza or estate agents that arrived at the house each day. In the silent aftermath Sean couldn't help noticing that his familiar surroundings had taken on a new intensity; the sage-colored walls were more vivid, the stove shone more brightly, the refrigerator purred more insistently, the glasses gleamed. His home here was in danger. Four days later Sean was sitting on Valentine's sofa, scanning the theater reviews in the newspaper, while across the room Valentine talked to his agent on the phone. "So, it'll be the usual three payments?" The response elicited brisk note taking. Then Sean heard his name. "Yes, Sean and I are doing this together. He'll keep my nose to the grindstone." Giving up all pretense of reading, he set aside the paper and studied his friend. In his gray linen shirt and expensive jeans, Valentine looked ready to hold forth, at a moment's notice, on some television arts program. His canary yellow hair had darkened in the last few years, and his features, which when he was an undergraduate used to crowd the middle of his face, had now taken up their proper places between his square chin and his high forehead. Even in June, Sean noticed, he was already mysteriously tanned. "Excellent," said Valentine. Glancing up from the notebook, he twitched the corners of his mouth. After several more superlatives he hung up. "Well," he said, rubbing his hands, "I think this calls for an early drink." He refused to say more until he had fetched a beer for Sean, and a gin and tonic for himself. Then he raised his glass and broke the news. His agent, Jane, had called to say that the Belladonna Society, a small but well-funded organization founded soon after the First World War, was commissioning a handbook for euthanasia. "They want to make the case for legalizing euthanasia and to give an overview of the medical stuff. They'll provide most of the material but there'll be some research and we'll have to do interviews with medical personnel, relatives." As Valentine described the society's proposal, the number of pages, and the pay, Sean felt a cold finger run down his spine. "But isn't this like telling people how to kill themselves?" he said. "Isn't it better not to know certain things?" "I don't think so." Valentine swirled his gin and tonic. "As I understand it the information is out there anyway. Our job is to present it in the sanest, most lucid form. Just because you give someone a gun," he added, his chin rising fractionally to meet Sean's objections, "doesn't mean they have to use it." "I think people usually do feel they have to use guns," Sean said. "And I think whoever gave them the gun is partly responsible. Couldn't Jane find us something else?" The House on Fortune Street A Novel . Copyright © by Margot Livesey. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from The House on Fortune Street by Margot Livesey All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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