The Winds of Heaven

I think I must have picked this up at a jumble sale around the time I read my first Persephone, Monica Dickens's Mariana, but a story about an old lady didn't hold much appeal to me as a 13 year old and it's languished on my shelves ever since. Hopefully I'm less ageist now at nearly 22. I was quite excited to read in the Persephone Biannually that it's going to be one of their autumn titles and it seemed the perfect time to take it off the shelf. I have no idea what the rooster on the cover is supposed to represent and I very much doubt the person who wrote the tag line, "Her husband's death leaves Louise with nothing- except her freedom" had read the book. The whole point of the story is that a penniless widow is entirely dependent on others and has no freedom at all. You can only be a merry widow if you have money. Despite this rather gloomy predicament, it's just as enjoyable as Dickens's coming-of-age classic Mariana as it has the same wry humour, well-drawn characters and the feeling that things will be all right in the end.

The Winds of Heaven is set in London and the Home Counties of the early 1950s, familiar Persephone and Virago territory. The protagonist Louise in her fifties (when fifty really was elderly) and is left penniless and homeless after the death of her awful husband Dudley and is passed from one daughter to another: brisk, house-proud Miriam, married to a successful barrister, temperamental actress Eva and (the worst of the lot, in my opinion) Anne, a lazy, hideously insensitive, self-centered brat who could give Mary Musgrove a run for her money. Anne's husband Frank is 'socially inferior' and looked down upon by the rest of the family, but he's the only adult in the family to show any real empathy towards his mother-in-law's predicament. Louise bonds with her eldest grandchild Ellen, a kindred spirit who also doesn't really belong, and unexpectedly makes friends with a bed salesman who writes thrillers with titles like The Girl in the Bloodstained Bikini on the side. In the winter she's packed off to an old school friend who runs a haphazard seaside hotel on the Isle of Wight. Her attempts to help out are met with a lack of enthusiasm ('Oh, Mother, you're living in the past. People don't do great big washes on Monday anymore') and I think this passage perfectly sums up the agony of being dependent:

Going from one to the other and trying to pass the time and keep out of the way in someone else's house, temporizing with visit after visit, and no roots anywhere- what did other women do, who had been left alone without money or purpose in life? How did they bear this futile necessity to be house somewhere, like a surplus piece of furniture?

What did they do? If their children would not have them, they went to shabby hotels, or were pushed into old ladies' homes, if they were senile enough. It would be easier on the family, Louise thought, if I were an invalid. Then they could put me away in a nursing home without any qualms.

A bleak passage, I know, but this is a story about confounding prejudices and taking risks in order to follow your heart and develop the relationships that really matter, regardless of what anyone thinks of them. Perfect for snuggling up in an armchair with. I look forward to reading more reviews of it in the autumn and to seeing what kind of endpapers Nicola & co. choose for it.

Thanks very much to Claire and Verity for organising the second (annual?) Persephone reading week and I've had lots of fun reading everyone's posts. There are so many beautiful blogs out there (some of which I have to admit inspire a bit of lifestyle envy) and I'm making a resolution- in May, I know- to post more regularly on my little corner of the internet. Not because I expect anyone to read it, I just want to feel as if I'm being vaguely productive.