A Far Cry from Kensington

by Muriel Spark

Overview

The fraying fringes of 1950s literary London

Rich and slim, the celebrated author Nancy Hawkins takes us in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London, where she spends her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher (“of very good books”) and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house. Everywhere Mrs. Hawkins finds evil: with aplomb, however, she confidently sets about putting things to order, to terrible effect.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780811220149
Publisher:	New Directions Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	12/15/2012
Series:	New Directions Classic
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	134,636
File size:	435 KB

About the Author

Muriel Spark (1918–2006) was the author of dozens of novels, including The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Girls of Slender Means, The Ballad of Peckham Rye, The Driver’s Seat, and many more. She became Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1993.

Editorial Reviews

Even the title is witty in this latest of Spark's delightful novels, bearing as it does at least three layers of ambiguity. It is a tale told in a splendidly commonsensical way by Mrs. Hawkins, a buxom young war widow who is a tower of strength in a failing London publishing house during the lean years after WW II. She is surrounded, both at work and in her seedy Kensington boarding house, by those slightly off-center eccentrics the Englishand particularly Sparkdraw to perfection; everything on the surface seems utterly realistic, yet fantasy as rich as anything in Garcia Marquez is only a breath away. Mrs. Hawkins selects a hate object among the literary hangers-on at her firm, and that hatred changes her life. She also becomes involved with a Polish dressmaker with a dark secret, invents a supremely successful method of dieting and almost in spite of herself becomes happy. Spark knows the wonderfully zany world of postwar-London publishing backward, her wit has never been more telling, and any book person is going to gobble this up. A sample, to whet the appetite: ``Publishers, for obvious reasons, attempt to make friends with their authors. Martin York tried to make authors of his friends.'' (July)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Spark's latest novel is a taut, controlled portrait of the residents of a Kensington boarding house and the members of London's publishing world in 1954. Linking the two settings is Mrs. Hawkins, a solid young widow who becomes a center of normalcy as she solves the novel's clever mystery. Spark balances devastatingly eccentric characters and funny situations with darker elements, even pathos. Her well-constructed novel has no loose ends and few contrived situations. Characterizations and plot details reveal her at her best; comparison with Spark's The Girls of Slender Means and Memento Mori is tempting. Serious yet entertaining fiction; for most libraries. Elizabeth Guiney Sandvick, North Hennepin Community Coll., Minneapolis

Library Journal

"The plot arrow is large and sharp and accurate. There's crazies, death, fist-fighting, insults, medical emergencies, injustice ... hoodoo and more."

Glyph Jockey - Stephen Hanulec

"The divine Spark is shining at her brightest—pure delight. "

Colm Tóibín

"Mercurially funny, playful and mischievous."

The Guardian - Ali Smith

"This slip of a novel includes, among other things, anonymous threats, a fraudulent book publisher, the pseudoscience of radionics, the metaphysics of evil, a love story and an endorsement of cats. But Spark’s sly wit is what shimmers throughout. "

The New York Times - Jennifer Szalai

"A 1950s Kensington of shabby-genteel bedsitters, espresso bars...irradiated with the sudden glows of lyricism she can so beautifully effect."

Sunday Times [London]

"The divine Spark is shining at her brightest—pure delight."

Independent Whig.

" Far Cry is, among other things, a comedy that holds a tragedy as an egg-cup holds an egg. "

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Narrator Pamela Garelick’s rich, throaty voice is perfect for the character of Mrs. Hawkins, a portly, young widow in post-WWII London who lives in a boarding house filled with quirky neighbors and who finds herself in the middle of a mystery. Written by the author of THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, the story offers a glimpse into the publishing world of that time, although the plot is somewhat musty and unfocused. Garelick delivers the story with gusto, taking verbal risks with the many secondary characters that make each one distinct and quite often hilarious. Garelick’s wit and obvious pleasure keep the listener well entertained, and Spark’s apt descriptions and witty observations make up for what is missing in tension. F.J.K. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2011 - AudioFile