In England half a century ago, well-brought-up young women are meant to aspire to the respectable life. Some things are not to be spoken of; some are most certainly not to be done. There are rules, conventions. Meg Bailey obeys them. She progresses from Home Counties school to un-Bohemian art college with few outward signs of passion or frustration. Her personality is submerged in polite routines; even with her best friend, Roxane, what can't be said looms far larger than what can. But circumstances change. Meg gets a job and moves to London. Roxane gets married to a man picked out by her mother. And then Meg does something shocking - shocking not only by the standards of her time, but by our own.
Early on the novel seems unfocused, but it becomes tighter ... This novel shows not so much that Athill should have written more fiction – we wouldn’t want to be without those memoirs – but that she could.
Although the brushwork is light...a well defined first novel sketching in people and places with a sure touch ... While Miss Athill is not as sharp a writer as say Edna O'Brien (the problem perhaps--you identify all this without identifying) she appeals to the same audience which has had very little of this kind to read lately--a woman's novel with a flickering, sympathetic intelligence.
