Some years ago, a woman wrote to Dear Mary, at the back of this periodical, with an unusual problem: she was a keen follower of new fiction but felt guilty to be seen lying around on sofas reading novels in the presence of her domestic staff. Mary advised that she should let it be known she had taken up fiction reviewing.
If there is anything in publishing to melt the realities of book reviewing into this delicious scene it’s the prospect of a new Cazalet novel. Not only do I get to read it in plain sight, but the 19-year break since the last one necessitates a re-read of the whole lot. Days and days, that means, immersed in the lives of that many-petalled flower of the home counties, the Cazalet family. So that’s 2,500 pages, ten whole Christmases at honey-coloured Home Place (1937-47) with the Brig, the Duchy, the self-sacrificing Rachel and her adoring friend Sid, the trio of handsome sons, extensively wived and mistressed and the impassioned granddaughters, Polly, Clary, Louise and Lydia et al, sharing secrets and sticks of tangee lipstick in the frosty morning light.
