From Publishers Weekly
American readers know English writer Mantel as the author of The Giant, O'Brien, A Place of Greater Safety and other critically hailed novels. This work, a twisted romp through the lives of long-time widow Evelyn Axon and her mentally handicapped middle-aged daughter, Muriel, was her debut novel, originally published in the U.K. in 1985. The peculiar dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship, and the complications arising from assorted meddlers, offset the disarmingly chipper narrative tone and well-appointed language. Evelyn lives with Muriel in a once respectable but now dilapidated house in a tony neighborhood, and she doesn't take kindly to social workers' insistent, condescending interest in her daughter. While Evelyn and a revolving door of social workers--including young and inexperienced Isabel Field--believe Muriel to be severely impaired, she's actually crafty and manipulative, like her mother. Much of the novel's dark humor lies in Muriel's outrageous thought processes, for while she cannot function "normally," her mind is far from simple. Evelyn, who practices the art of the s?ance, is also thrilling to watch as she defends herself against her daughter and the various spirits who taunt her with mysterious household mishaps. When elderly Mrs. Sidney visits Evelyn, hoping to make contact with the late Mr. Sidney, a series of coincidental events convinces Evelyn that Mrs. Sidney's daughter, Florence, is responsible for the social workers' increasing surveillance. Other complications occur through Florence's married brother, Colin, whose contemplated affair with a young woman in his evening writing class involves him in the Axon family circus. Mantel proves that even early on she was an excellent prose stylist and storyteller, expert at threading quirky characterization with black humor and a somewhat macabre imagination. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A rundown, and possibly haunted, Victorian house takes center stage in these back-to-back black comedies, written by British novelist Mantel (The Giant, O'Brien) with a distinct Rendellian flavor. In the first story, set in the mid-Seventies, Evelyn Axon, a terrorized, guilt-ridden widow, lives with her dull-witted daughter, Muriel. Into their lives comes the nettlesome social service bureaucracy, primarily in the person of Isabel Field, the last in a long series of social workers assigned to their case. Isabel has problems of her own, though, the main one being a stagnating affair with Colin Sydney, a married man she has met in an evening class on creative writing. Muriel has been encouraged to participate in weekly workshops for the mentally handicapped at the local community center, but she eludes both her mother and her case workers and manages to get herself pregnant. All these lives intersect at the novel's bizarre conclusion, as Evelyn dies, Muriel is institutionalized, and Colin Sydney's family take up residence in the Axons' house. The second novel opens ten years later as Muriel is caught up in the Eighties trend to deinstitutionalize the mentally challenged. Out on the streets once more, she knowingly adopts multiple personas with the misguided intention of exacting revenge on those she believes have wronged her, principally Isabel Field and Colin Sydney. Slowly, all these entangled lives begin to come undone. Like her fellow Brits Rose Tremain and Penelope Fitzgerald, Mantel continually produces novels that chart fresh terrain and derive from a wellspring of creative imagination. These two early novels herald the promise of the rich and varied literary career that followed. Recommended for most public libraries.
-Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
