Books

“And today, it is not the morning after, hah, there are unlikely to be any more mornings after, but memories surge, fighting for attention, placing themselves one on top of the other, like hands in a child’s game. She wants to hold onto them and re-live the palimpsest that is her life and she wants to remember everything. Memory is all. Memory is her life now.”

Vesna Main followed her cleverly structured Goldsmiths shortlisted Good Day with the stunning Only a Lodger … And Hardly That: A Fictional Autobiography, my favourite book of 2020, and a highly literary and yet very personal, and moving, meditation on memory and ageing.

Waiting For A Party is perhaps more conventional in form, but equally powerful in its exploration of similar themes, and confirms her place as one of our finest novelists.

The novel is narrated by Claire, aged 92 when the novel opens, who is waiting for her “son” Zach, aged 62, to take her to the 102nd birthday party of her friend, originally her husband’s friend, Martin, an author of detective novels.

As she waits, her memories roam over her life, particularly her later life. She married her husband when she was in her early 20s, he, a doctor, more than 20 years older, and her life, and her nascent musical career, was rather subordinated to his, him also treating her rather paternally and patronisingly (always referring to her “my dear, little Claire”).

He died when she was in her early 50s, following an overdose from the medicine he was prescribed after a stroke - and the circumstances of that - whether it was accidental or deliberate on his behalf, her own culpability and her rather passive reaction, carrying on talking to her friend although she suspected something had happened and delaying calling an ambulance when she found him - are one theme she returns to in her recollections.

But much concerns her life after his death, starting with her first sexual assignation, a decade after his death, when she was aged 62 (the ages ending in “2” a theme whose meaning wasn’t clear to me - symbolic or convenient to anchor events and people decades apart?). This the opening to the novel:

“Yes. She remembers the full moon, a large, luminescent paper collage against the sky, the fuliginous sky. That was the word he used, the word that stuck with her. She remembers the sharp lines of the full moon. Later, the image made her think of a picture drawn by a child, with the sky’s sootiness, threatening, noxious, replaced by dark navy blue, and a sprinkling of scintillating stars. She doesn’t remember there being stars on the night, but they entered her memory at some point and remained. That image, the transformed image of the view from the car parked to the side of Petersham Road, became associated with the man. But despite what the symbolism of the moon might suggest, she doesn’t remember him as cold and changeable. Perhaps he was but she could not tell at the time, nor could she tell that later but, if pushed, she would read the connection between him and the image that stood for him in her mind as implying art, meaning artfulness, artificiality, even affectedness, and play, as in lack of seriousness, unpredictability, randomness. Ultimately, he remained an enigma but, in her memory, art and play stand for him and for the experience they shared that night.”

Another strand concerns her unconventional family arrangement. Zach is someone thirty years her junior (now 62 - another 2). Originally they were lovers but she realised he was in denial about his sexuality and introduced him to Gabriel, a novelist, and started to think of Zach as her son (making her a Jocasta as she likes to label it), which in any case was how people tended to treat them when they dined together or booked a hotel.

“Gabriel, her lovely son-in-law. Her novelist son-in-law. His novels have intriguing covers, works of art in themselves. She prefers editions that have no pictures on the cover, classical, minimalist, à la Gallimard, or Fitzcarraldo. All titles with the same plain cover and easily recognisable. But if you are to have a cover, it ought to be designed with care and a great deal of thought. She remembers hearing a publisher saying they were proud to be making books like works of art.”

And in another weave of her thoughts she thinks of what her life has ultimately amounted to:

“Or perhaps her obituary should say she had the potential to become someone, a professional musician of some standing but she accepted her failure and she was content. Shouldn’t there be obituaries about people who accepted failure? Isn’t that more difficult than riding on success? A Nobel Prize for graceful failure and the acceptance of one’s lot, the ultimate acceptance without regret. A Booker, a Goncourt for coming to terms with one’s failure. Many entries and most well-deserving of the prize. Why not? She remembers a friend, a writer, a poet, a wonderful poet, introducing her to a poem by Yeats, yes, ‘To a friend whose work has come to nothing’. A handsome man he was. Anthony. Yes, that was his name. Could he still be around? Unlikely. Older than Martin. Very unlikely. And she remembers the lines ‘Because of all things known / that is most difficult.’ Most difficult, one’s work coming to nothing. Yes. But . . . but, yes, she had been happy throughout her life. She had a long life, she loved and she was loved. That could be mentioned in the obituary. And she had some great sex. Gosh, everyone would be envious but no one ever writes such things in an obituary. A pity. There is something warped about our hierarchy of achievements. Oh yes, she acquired a son, and what a marvellous son, when she was sixty-three. Not many women can boast that.”

Impressive and moving. 4.5 stars

Claire, a nonagenarian, reminiscences - this is what this quick read is. Luckily, it is a smoothly flowing, fast-paced (in most parts) and intriguing study of a woman’s life with its ups and downs. What stood out for me was the third person POV, despite the stream of consciousness or your life as a movie before your eyes thinking, which was a better choice than a first person POV in my opinion, and the POV combined with Claire’s confusing, uncertainty, hence her unreliability.

3 solid stars.

With the blurb giving virtually everything away, this is not a tale of intrigue or suspense. Instead, it is very much a stream-of-consciousness character study, although there are occasional steps into Elizabeth Is Missing territory. This is fluently written and ideal for fans of character-led literary fiction.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.