Lynn Reid Banks has written another involving novel. We follow Maggie living in Scotland in the fifties, wanting to be an actress a career her father forbids,Nowb a mother living life with all its issues coping with being a woman A mother in the world.#netgalley#Saperebooks

Another solid piece of storytelling from Lynne Reid Banks, who can always be relied upon to create memorable plots and characters. This time we meet young Maggie Robertson who is determined to become an actress at whatever the cost. Leaving her repressive home in 1950s Scotland she follows her dream and we accompany her through her often tumultuous life. As Maggie copes with the demands of marriage, motherhood and career, we get a nice slice of social history as well as an entertaining and compelling tale of one woman’s fight for independence and a fulfilling life.

Thought this was a new book, but originally published in 1980's. It has echoes of L shaped room about it although Maggie is a married woman who struggles with motherhood. Interesting read with stirrings of feminism and questions of morality. Enjoyable .

A few years ago I stumbled upon Lynne Reid Banks’s 1960 classic, "The L-Shaped Room," a feminist novel about a former actress who gets pregnant in her late twenties and moves into a rooming house. (The stigma of unwed pregnancy used to be great.)  I’ve been looking for her other books ever since.

And now Sapere Books has reissued her 1986 novel, "The Warning Bell," which, I assure you, is just as good, and treats similar issues. It is one of those novels that straddle the line between literary and pop fiction. It takes a few chapters to get into it, but then I found it unputdownable. 

The heroine, Maggie, feels guilty much of the time. Raised in Scotland by a strict father and a gentle, fearful mother, Maggie feels split: at home she is Margaret Robertson, her parents’ dull daughter, and outside she is bright Maggie, who takes chances. Encouraged by an impulsive English teacher, Maggie takes a big chance. She accepts her father’s money, pretending to take a domestic science course in London for two years, while she is actually going to drama school.

Being an actress, of course, is not easy. And Maggie frequently hears the voice of her alter-ego Margaret telling her to slow down and be sensible. She gets some good roles in a repertory company, but cannot find work in London. If not for her flamboyant friend, Tanya, a more talented actress, she feels she would have gone crazy. But the two argue and split up when pregnant Maggie decides to marry the man who date-raped her and emigrate to Africa.

Being a woman seems to be all about splitting selves. Reid writes about the split between career and motherhood, the split between living in Britain and Africa. The section in Africa reminds me of Doris Lessing’s "A Proper Marriage"–what happens when you live in a provincial town and you fail as a mother, or feel that you fail?
After her husband leaves her, Maggie and her son Matt return to London, where Maggie makes some difficult decisions about careers and motherhood, some of which she regrets. 

As Maggie’s mother says to her, “You know, Maggie, the vainest and most futile mental exercise in the world is tracing back some accident or blunder to its origins, and letting one’s heart gnaw itself in regret that one didn’t know what was going to result…. One’s whole life can turn on some tiny thing. It’s not fair. there ought to be a bell, a warning bell, sounding at dangerous corners. But there never, never is.”

So true–and we do love Maggie’s mother.

In the prologue, we learn that Maggie Robertson has been married three times and is now a widow. She was an actress and has made a comeback in a play after several years. A host of characters are mentioned which arouse our curiosity. Specially the name of Tanya, who has not come for the play, who has had no contact with Maggie during the last several because Maggie has “bought her marriage with Tanya’s friendship”

Whereas Maggie’s mother hopes that there would be warning bells sounding at dangerous corners, Maggie realises that there have been such warning bells throughout her life but she has chosen to ignore them.

The first warning bell rings when Maggie deceives her father saying that she is studying domestic science but instead joins the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art with the assistance of Fiona Dalzell, her English teacher. She is desperate to escape an oppressive father and a domineering elder brother both of whom have very strict and dogmatic views on how her life should be lived. Inspired by Fiona Dalzell, she accompanies her to see a musical Oklahoma which transforms her life. It convinces her that she should be in the stage. The father never forgives her when he learns that his hard-earned money has been misused. He disowns Maggie and takes revenge on the teacher and gets her fired.

Maggie once again refuses to acknowledge the warning bell, when she hears a cry for help from Fiona Dalzell who has been so kind and helpful and who is jobless. Though Maggie has initial success on the stage, her golden hour soon runs out and she is jobless. Ignoring a warning bell, she had a liaison with a man she does not particularly love, gets pregnant and, once again forsaking the warning bell abandons the stage and follows him to Africa.
She finds it impossible to love her son and ignores the warning bell by handing him over to Tolly, an Ibo nurse maid, and as a consequence he transfers his affections to this devoted servant who loves and rears him. When her marriage ends in divorce and she returns with her son to Edinburgh, she once again refuses to hear the warning bell and abandons her son to her mother and chooses to live in London and pursue a career in television news. As a result, the son grows more and more distant from her. However, the most despicable act, is her selfish treatment of her best friend, Tanya, who has been a constant companion over the years.

The novel lacks the energy and the brilliance of The L-Shaped Room but is a good read and Banks presents a sympathetic portrait of a rather unlikeable heroine.

I adored this novel. Let me preface my remarks by telling you I love the Brits in general. I could iterate a raft of favorite ones and I add this one as well. What a wonderful portrait of an Englishwoman's life as the war ends in Europe and the old rules and expectations are shattered by the beginning of a cultural and sexual change on both continents. Margaret, Maggie, is this wonderful protagonist who is the center of this captivating tale of coming of age and the breaking of boundaries. Her family and friends are depicted so realistically and Scotland and London post war come into sharp focus as they recover from the horrors inEngland. Read it and relish it. I did.

An engaging, interesting story of the lives of women in the mid twentieth century which I really enjoyed. The characters are well drawn and interesting. This book made me question the extent to which the contortions of women's lives are a product of society and what a product of our relationships with men - and how far one set of constraints can be separated from the other. Each of the main characters lives would have been so much more fulfilling (and so much less painful and tramelled by guilt) had they simply eshewed all male companionship (filial, paternal and romantic) and invested in an Ann Summers selection box and a decent annuity.

Highly recommended

The Warning Bell was published originally in 1984, but has recently been reissued by Sapere Books. I requested the opportunity to read and review it because in the early 1970s I read and very much enjoyed Lynne Reid Banks' L Shape Room trilogy, and her novel on the Brontes, Dark Quartet.

Maggie sounded as if she would be a woman at the edge of the feminist movement, breaking down barriers and facing up to the dilemmas women still face when they feel pressured to make sacrifices for their career. Sadly this is not the case. Maggie is vain and unlikeable. She may have been a believable protagonist in a novel set in the 1930s, but TWB is set in the 1950s and 1960s. In fact the whole novel felt as if it had been written in the 1930s. It has a quaint, but annoying tone and Maggie is a very unlikeable protagonist. I kept hoping that she would redeem herself or even do something interesting, but she doesn't.
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