Novel set in Overijssel 1961
Novel set in the first half 20th Century NORTHUMBERLAND and the RIVIERA
31st May 2024
The Other Side of Paradise by Vanessa Beaumont, novel set in the first half 20th Century Northumberland and the Riviera.
This novel should be a real success, if there is any justice in the publishing world. It is a while since I last read an involving story of family dynamics and tradition that bring a time and place to colourful – if poignant and sad – life.
Jean is a wealthy young American woman who has come to London in the early 1920s with her family. Her father is the American Ambassador, her mother from a wealthy publishing dynasty and they have the world at their feet. Jean has her ‘in’ into London’s society when she meets Edward Warre, who has inherited a rambling pile on the edge of the Moors in Northumberland. Spurred on by her mother, the two decide to marry given her family will be investing in the upkeep of the property and its lands.
Lord and Lady Warre are a feted couple, but the cracks in the marriage are evident from the beginning. An American is no match for the emotionally zipped up British Upper Classes, and with both mothers stirring the pot, really, there is no hope. Jean’s mother encourages her to find a property in the South of France, because socially that is the up-and-coming place, so it would be fitting for her to mingle with the members of society who decamp every year to the Riviera.
This gives Jean a fulfilling project because her hands have been pretty much idle in Harehope, the big family house, the attention of her husband fleeting, dismissive and cold. Once in the Côte d’Azur, she trawls the available properties and settles upon one that appeals. It has a couple of incumbent staff members and the scene is set. She mingles within the British community down there and feels at home.
Two pregnancies ensue in close succession and the ire of her husband becomes ever more entrenched, as he is quick to understand why she chooses to spend considerable time in her new home by the Mediterranean.
Her small boys are her pride and joy but her marriage is long dead. Her husband spends a great deal of time in London, doing goodness knows what and thus these two people, confined in marriage, start to pull at the few remaining cords of their union.
She turns for help to her family, she confides in friends, she seeks out her brother with whom she has had little contact, but the role of a wife and mother overrides any personal desires she may have. This is the lot of women.
This novel is beautifully observed, with a strong sense of place and time, elements that simply fly off the pages. The writing is lyrical, with such a light and articulate touch. This is a quality rendering of the life of one woman in the first half of the twentieth century. Highly recommended.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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