In the Dark
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Product Description
Mail on Sunday
`Earthy, original and very witty'
The Sunday Times
`Moggach effectively presents the psychological effects of war.. vividly evokes wartime London'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
39 of 42 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Deborah Moggach is one of those well-selling female authors who's sometimes looked down on for not being literary. Like Joanna Trollope or Anita Shreve, say her detractors, she's a popular - populist - author churning out domestic sagas on a conveyor belt.
This simplification does these successful authors a disservice. They may deal with the everyday and their prose may indeed be accessible and non literary, but that doesn't mean their work should be undervalued. Any author that can bring reading to the masses deserves praise, and, as with Richard and Judy's recommended titles, sometimes first impressions are just plain biased.
In The Dark is a frisky love story set during WW1. Attractive Eithne Clay has a variety of lodgers in her large dilapidated London home. Her loyal maid Winnie and adolescent son Ralph help her run the place. Eithne, however, has always felt she's destined for higher things, and when excitement enters her life in the form of the lusty hulking form of Neville Turk the local butcher, she is swept up into a passionate affair. Meanwhile, the lives of those around them continues, with some disgruntlement.
If it weren't for the setting, Moggach's Orange 2008 longlisted novel would just be a bodice-ripper with added colour from peripheral characters. But Moggach has done her research and the smog-ridden, sooty London of 1916 - 18 really comes alive. Because the details are so convincing, the characters also rise from the page.
Very occasionally, a word that is so archaic crops up that one wonders whether it has been planted just for the sake of its age, for instance when Moggach describes Ralph's 'pollutions' at night (use your imagination). And, because the descriptions conjure such a vivid picture of the era and because the dialogue is so appropriate for that time, the odd anachronism jars, for instance, when one character mulls over whether someone has chronic bronchitis, a medical term that almost certainly wouldn't have been coined then. There's also a scene where it's mentioned that the maid normally washes seven pairs of Mrs Clay's underpants a week: one can't help wondering if in those days a daily bath and change of clothes was de rigeur.
While the novel couldn't be said to be prosaically ambitious, or, therefore, linguistically unusually outstanding, the simple, accessible language suits the story which chugs along briskly like the steam-belching trains described. It's the kind of atmospheric, brooding story that would adapt well to TV, and there's all the requisite angst, sex and moodiness.
All in all, In the Dark is a light but absorbing read with plenty of frissons of excitement. Not a literary masterpiece, but then, it doesn't pretend to be.
***00 1/2
This simplification does these successful authors a disservice. They may deal with the everyday and their prose may indeed be accessible and non literary, but that doesn't mean their work should be undervalued. Any author that can bring reading to the masses deserves praise, and, as with Richard and Judy's recommended titles, sometimes first impressions are just plain biased.
In The Dark is a frisky love story set during WW1. Attractive Eithne Clay has a variety of lodgers in her large dilapidated London home. Her loyal maid Winnie and adolescent son Ralph help her run the place. Eithne, however, has always felt she's destined for higher things, and when excitement enters her life in the form of the lusty hulking form of Neville Turk the local butcher, she is swept up into a passionate affair. Meanwhile, the lives of those around them continues, with some disgruntlement.
If it weren't for the setting, Moggach's Orange 2008 longlisted novel would just be a bodice-ripper with added colour from peripheral characters. But Moggach has done her research and the smog-ridden, sooty London of 1916 - 18 really comes alive. Because the details are so convincing, the characters also rise from the page.
Very occasionally, a word that is so archaic crops up that one wonders whether it has been planted just for the sake of its age, for instance when Moggach describes Ralph's 'pollutions' at night (use your imagination). And, because the descriptions conjure such a vivid picture of the era and because the dialogue is so appropriate for that time, the odd anachronism jars, for instance, when one character mulls over whether someone has chronic bronchitis, a medical term that almost certainly wouldn't have been coined then. There's also a scene where it's mentioned that the maid normally washes seven pairs of Mrs Clay's underpants a week: one can't help wondering if in those days a daily bath and change of clothes was de rigeur.
While the novel couldn't be said to be prosaically ambitious, or, therefore, linguistically unusually outstanding, the simple, accessible language suits the story which chugs along briskly like the steam-belching trains described. It's the kind of atmospheric, brooding story that would adapt well to TV, and there's all the requisite angst, sex and moodiness.
All in all, In the Dark is a light but absorbing read with plenty of frissons of excitement. Not a literary masterpiece, but then, it doesn't pretend to be.
***00 1/2
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book Deborah Moggach has written a wonderful character driven story, its wonderful descriptive writing and keeps you intrigued throughout. It's touching, funny and saucy in parts and has some great twists to the story. This is the first book I have read of Deborah Moggach and I will definitely be reading more in the future. It's a master class in writing.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Set in a narrow terraced house in a London street, just after the start of World War I, In The Dark, tells the story of Ralph, aged 14, living with Mum and Dad, in their lodging house consisting of tenants who are mostly misfits and war casualties. Dad enlisted early and sends cheerful letters home telling of matey japes and football games in the trenches. Then Mum, Eithne, receives the telegram telling her that her husband is dead and circumstances become grim, until she attracts the attention of the flashy local butcher, Neville Turk, after which meals at the lodging house vastly improve and other changes are afoot for the inhabitants.
Moggach's rich stew of character-driven experiences captivates from the first page and there is an authentic feeling to every turn of the plot. The lodging house, next to a railway viaduct and prone to soot streaks and general grime, is almost another character as, Eithne's maid-of-all-work, Winnie, finds herself increasingly responsible for the well-being and upkeep of the family's proprieties. Young Ralph hero-worships the world-weary Boycie, soon to march off to war, and Eithne falls under the spell of the brilliantined and ebullient Mr Turk. Before the end of the novel Ralph will uncover a number of secrets kept by the family's lodgers, not least the shocking truth about the blind Communist sympathiser Alwyne Flyte.
This warm-hearted, funny and often touching novel is briskly paced and a pleasure to read.
Moggach's rich stew of character-driven experiences captivates from the first page and there is an authentic feeling to every turn of the plot. The lodging house, next to a railway viaduct and prone to soot streaks and general grime, is almost another character as, Eithne's maid-of-all-work, Winnie, finds herself increasingly responsible for the well-being and upkeep of the family's proprieties. Young Ralph hero-worships the world-weary Boycie, soon to march off to war, and Eithne falls under the spell of the brilliantined and ebullient Mr Turk. Before the end of the novel Ralph will uncover a number of secrets kept by the family's lodgers, not least the shocking truth about the blind Communist sympathiser Alwyne Flyte.
This warm-hearted, funny and often touching novel is briskly paced and a pleasure to read.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
In the Dark
I really enjoyed this page turner. It is witty and amusing and has some interesting allusions to light and dark in a true Thomas Hardy way. Read more
Published 7 months ago by kc
Excellent
This was a really good book. Thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it highly. Set in the war, it illustrated the ordinary day to day issues people faced and the characters... Read more
Published on 20 Sep 2009 by Susan
Highly recommended!
This is the first book I have read by this author. I was not disappointed. I was attracted to the time in which the book was set (First World War). Read more
Published on 9 Jun 2009 by Pamela Hearn
A little confused...
I am somewhat confused by the glowing reviews submitted by other readers. I was waiting for the twists and turns mentioned by them but at the end of the novel I was left wanting. Read more
Published on 31 Mar 2009 by Book Worm
CLEVERLY CONSTRUCTED, A SQUIRMING SNAKE OF A NOVEL
If you like to be teased, surprised, intrigued and intermittently moved then buy this. It has a gripping story with lots of wartime detail, and characters that could grace a... Read more
Published on 22 Dec 2008 by N. Lake
Grim life in London, WWI.
This is basically a love story set in the dark days of WWI, when soldiers are returning home unable to speak of the horrors that they have witnessed. Read more
Published on 31 Aug 2008 by eclectic reader
Brilliant!
In the Dark Deborah Moggach has long been one of the best writers in English, and under-appreciated, but this is her best book to date. Read more
Published on 10 July 2008 by The Bagster
Wartime London if you like Nightwatch you'll love this as well.
I adore Deborah Moggach's books, particular favourites being Tulip Fever, Stolen and Final Demand. Her latest novel does not disappoint. Read more
Published on 19 July 2007 by Sarah Curran
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