Harare Review of Books

232 pages.

Expected publication date: April 2, 2024 (Pushkin Press Classics)

Fiction anthology.

This is a lovely collection of short fiction from 1940s and 1950s from women writers (white, and one British Indian) such as Daphne du Maurier, Stella Gibbons, and Elizabeth Taylor. In the background or foreground of most of the stories, understandably, is the Second World War: in Diana Gardner’s The Land Girl, the protagonist completely disrupts the life of the couple on whose farm she is placed (my first time learning about land girls); Summer Night, the thriller by Elizabeth Bowen is suffused with an atmosphere of dread and menace, and one of the characters is profoundly affected by the war.

My favourite story, Daphne du Maurier’s incredible The Birds, has a small family in the countryside fighting for its life against huge flocks of birds gone mysteriously rogue; it’s one of the most thrilling short stories I’ve ever read. In it, too, the war is another character, and life revolves around what can and can’t be done because of it.

In Listen to the Magnolias by Stella Gibbons, an elderly widow reluctantly takes in a group of American soldiers, but they’re not what she—nor the reader—expects at all. Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Scorched Earth Policy features a couple planning what they’ll do with their land and possessions if the Germans invade.

Three Miles Up by Elizabeth Jane Howard is one of the stories that don’t feature the war explicitly or implicitly; it delighted me with its supernatural weirdness, and is my other favourite story. The only story by a woman of colour, Attia Hosain’s The First Party, is fascinating for the picture it paints of the clash of cultures and effects of colonization.

This is a solid collection and a great read; my only complaint is the insularity that naturally proceeds from it being such a narrow slice of mid-century female experience, which may or may not be helped. Because of this, though, the title is rather a misnomer: although the collection shows off the different “styles and subjects” of the writers included, in the end, there’s nothing different or groundbreaking about giving a voice to those who already had one. Still recommended, because these are excellent, well-written stories, very much worth your attention.

Many thanks to Pushkin Press and to Edelweiss for early access.

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