{"product_id":"someone-at-a-distance","title":"Someone at a Distance","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"std\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"width: 362px;\"\u003e\n\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/7642\/5795\/files\/CDN_BHH_1994_34jpeg.jpg?v=1593031514\u0026amp;width=700\"\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"wp-caption-text\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePREFACE BY NINA BAWDEN\u003cbr\u003e432pp\u003cbr\u003eISBN 9780953478026\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e'This Fifties novel about a quietly catastrophic love triangle is beautiful and moving,' was the headline in \u003cem\u003eThe Times\u003c\/em\u003e under which the following review of \u003cstrong data-mce-fragment=\"1\"\u003eSomeone at a Distance\u003c\/strong\u003e, by Rachel Joyce, recently appeared:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Published in 1953 and set in England’s rural commuter belt, \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSomeone at a Distance\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eis a love triangle with two unlikely protagonists.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWho is responsible for changing the course of our lives, the novel asks? Is it ourselves, those closest to us, or can our lives be\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eshaped by people we don’t even know?\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'Ellen North is a good woman. She loves her husband, Avery, a London publisher, and her home, her garden and her children. She is kind\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eand considerate. She prefers staying in to going out, and if she’s guilty of anything, it’s an almost naive faith in the simplicity of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003elife. The only blot on the landscape is Avery’s mother, Mrs North, a woman who likes to complain about how neglected she\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e is. So when Mrs\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNorth takes on a young Frenchwoman as a live-in companion, everything seems perfect.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e'But beautiful Louise Lanier is trouble. Jilted by her aristocratic lover because she’s a provincial shopkeeper’s\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003edaughter (ie not the sort you marry), Louise has fled to England to lick her wounds. Louise is one of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eliterature’s worse narcissists. She is Emma Bovary without the nice bits. When Mrs North dies and makes Louise a\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ebeneficiary of her will, Ellen does the “right” thing and invites Louise to stay. Within no time Louise has set\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eher sights on Avery. She doesn’t even want Avery. She just wants to feel desired. She just wants what another\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ewoman already has...\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e'Someone at a Distance\u003c\/strong\u003e is a beautiful and moving story, not just about love, but the lies we tell to protect love. Whipple writes her characters with the kind of understanding that comes from a keen observer of the ordinary. Her style is clear-eyed and precise, superbly elegant and subtle, witty but never showy. Her characters live and breathe and leave little footprints wherever they go; even the minor ones. And it’s her attention to the small things — sentences that are only half-finished, furtive glances, hands that brush one another in passing, the smell of nicotiana on a hot summer night, that make the storytelling so powerful. We see the inevitability of the drama, long before the characters in the middle of it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Described by JB Priestley as “the Jane Austen of the 20th century”, Whipple was the bestselling author of nine novels, many short stories and two volumes of memoirs. Her popularity waned when her understated storytelling was replaced by the much louder and pithy voices of the 1960s. (Famously her editor informed her that what the publishing world wanted was more passion, more action.) But for the modern reader, the novel poses a complex question. Who is the true instigator of this love triangle? Is it really that minx, Louise? Is it the man Louise once adored, who rejected her and set her on a path of destruction? Or is there something more progressive at play?...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'In Dorothy Whipple’s own way — quietly probing, loving and truthful — she was just as disruptive as the writers of the 1960s who replaced her.'\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlso available as a Persephone Classic, a Persephone e-book and a Persephone Audiobook read by Susan Wooldridge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEndpaper\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003eThe 1950s linen furnishing fabric by Ashley Havinden is based on drawings done in the 1930s when Ellen furnished her house; it combines a menacing feel with a hint of the domestic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePicture Caption\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp class=\"endpaper-caption\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eAlice Ashley on a Garden Seat\u003c\/em\u003e by Donald Chisholm Towner, 1937 © Burgh House and Hampstead Museum\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Dorothy Whipple","offers":[{"title":"None","offer_id":54098744836403,"sku":"ond1789694325307","price":25.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Tissue\/Endpaper","offer_id":54098744869171,"sku":"nvi1789694325308","price":29.76,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cambridge Imprint paper","offer_id":54098744901939,"sku":"pxp1789694325309","price":35.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Reusable fabric napkin","offer_id":54098744934707,"sku":"mnu1789694325310","price":48.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0989\/0578\/4627\/files\/someone-at-a-distance_1.jpg?v=1789694330","url":"https:\/\/sandstepclad.shop\/products\/someone-at-a-distance","provider":"My Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}