Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies
£7.99
‘I am going on a trip. Wait until I tell you about it. It’s terrible.’
First published in 1943, Jane Bowles’ novel ‘Two Serious Ladies’ has just been re-issued by Sort Of Books. Just as well, as I’ve been raving about this book for some time and now at least one of our book groups has chosen to read this very original novel.
In her lifetime, Jane – wife of the more famous novelist, Paul – produced just one novel, one play and twelve short stories. Booksellers are so used to seeing books produced by writers who really should think again about the relative merits of quantity and quality, that it comes as a genuine shock to discover an author who is – to borrow the parlance of music journalism – ‘all killer, no filler’.
There are few writers who prove so capable of steering a steady course between tragedy and comedy. I envy readers who have yet to discover this novel, a tale of an impulsive, eccentric New York heiress called Christina Goering who meets the equally unpredictable Mrs Copperfield. Singularly determined in their belief that nothing is natural and everything is possible, they blaze a trail in search of personal salvation.
Before lesser writers reduced the lives of women to shopping, shoes and sobriety, Jane Bowles wrote of women who dared, even as they were being challenged by the constraints of society. Acclaimed by writers as diverse as Truman Capote, Ali Smith and Alan Sillitoe, this is the great novel you’ve been waiting to discover.
