The Orange shortlisted author's haunting debut about the pursuit of passion.
Love in Idleness
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Amazon Review
Love in Idleness is a wonderful first novel, a witty and closely observed study of a young woman's search for an adult identity. Anna Raine has just finished her degree and is desperate to begin her adult life, which she imagines will be filled with success, fame and sexually fulfilling relationships. When her glamorous Aunt Stella offers to let Anna stay in her London flat while she is away in Paris, Anna jumps at the chance to escape from her oppressive mother. But she has no friends in London and Mendelson's descriptions of the embarrassing situations that Anna gets herself into in her gauche attempts to meet people and find a job are excruciatingly funny.
Stella has secrets that the family won't talk about and, while trying to settle in to a new job in a bookshop, Anna keeps herself distracted from her loneliness by searching the flat for clues. She imagines romantic explanations for the secrecy and her obsession builds until she can think of almost nothing but Stella. When the errant aunt finally comes home, Anna' s pent-up feelings bubble over, but inevitably she has to cope with the fact that Stella, too, is only human. The book is filled with a warm affection for the hapless but slowly maturing Anna, and the descriptions of her everyday anguish will strike a chord with any reader who has ever been uncertain of their place in the world. The writing is assured, polished and in places very, very funny. This is a splendid debut. Charlotte Mendelson is an author to watch. --Elizabeth Sourbut --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Anna Raine is desperate: to escape Somerset, to evade her mother, and above all, to find a model of adulthood on whom to base her future self. When Stella, her mother's thrillingly reckless and beautiful younger sister, offers her Bloomsbury flat, Anna feels sure that an idiosyncratic but stylish wardrobe, interesting friends, several handsome suitors and some form of stardom will shortly follow. While by day Anna feigns efficient adulthood, by night she sinks deeper into an increasingly heated world of discovery. As secrets rise to the surface and her fantasies begin to flower, fed by a photograph of Stella and another woman at a party, Anna tries to focus on Richard, Stella's enigmatic, occasional lover. And meanwhile the date for Stella's brief return from Paris approaches . . . 'An intelligent and gripping first novel with a pleasurable ripple of sexual tension' Diva 'A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book' Ali Smith, Glasgow Herald 'Love in Idleness is an elegant and assured debut, both a neat comedy of London manners and a poignant journey to self-discovery' Michael Arditti, Daily Mail 'With her gift for light humour, Mendelson seems to be skipping across the surface. Then she'll suddenly dive into a world of obsession' Josie Barnard, Independent on Sunday
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Having read Mendelson's other two novels, I bought this up on a whim for something to skim through quickly. It is certainly a fast read - the prose is simple and the plot trots along at a fair pace. But I can't say I found it a pleasant read. The story at the heart of the book vacillates between the trivial and the frankly distasteful. Without including spoilers, it should be said that if you're looking for a compelling romantic story - or even an appropriate and non-squick-worthy one - this is not the right book to pick up.
The protagonist is defined by a naïvité that is neither charming nor believable. Lacking any sense of ambition or the slightest self-consciousness, she merely - as Mendelson might put it - lollops along in life, stumbling from hideously clumsy and thoroughly uncharming faux pas to another. She lives off others unrepentantly, with no expectation of anything so realistic as a career - a feature of the novel that grates especially to today's reader. What twentysomething now could stand to read about a character so directionless and complacent, who daydreams about the interpersonal situations she encounters as if she were a young teenager? There is no existential insight, no moral complexity - merely vacuous tales of one's exasperating relatives, and a supposedly-scandalous denouement which descends into melodramatic tedium without ever quite getting to grips with any juicy details of betrayal.
In terms of its writing style, the novel begins well. There are some lovely bits of description in its early pages, but this is not sustained throughout. Instead, it becomes a sequence of scenes in which we are supposed to see the development of an obsession. It is all rather superficial, however, and peppered with scraps of unnecessarily graphic description of bodily business that add little to our understanding of the character, save a generalised feeling of distaste. A theme of self-harm suddenly emerges from nowhere, half-way through, then vanishes as quickly as it had arrived.
While the prose is often light and readable, it is also rapidly becoming rather dated, and ultimately one is left distinctly unsatisfied. If you want what Mendelson does to a T in her fiction - neurotic, ungainly, elliptically-Jewish characters with messy but oh-so-darling families, slow-burning love affairs and dramatic showdowns, pick up 'Daughters of Jerusalem' instead.
The protagonist is defined by a naïvité that is neither charming nor believable. Lacking any sense of ambition or the slightest self-consciousness, she merely - as Mendelson might put it - lollops along in life, stumbling from hideously clumsy and thoroughly uncharming faux pas to another. She lives off others unrepentantly, with no expectation of anything so realistic as a career - a feature of the novel that grates especially to today's reader. What twentysomething now could stand to read about a character so directionless and complacent, who daydreams about the interpersonal situations she encounters as if she were a young teenager? There is no existential insight, no moral complexity - merely vacuous tales of one's exasperating relatives, and a supposedly-scandalous denouement which descends into melodramatic tedium without ever quite getting to grips with any juicy details of betrayal.
In terms of its writing style, the novel begins well. There are some lovely bits of description in its early pages, but this is not sustained throughout. Instead, it becomes a sequence of scenes in which we are supposed to see the development of an obsession. It is all rather superficial, however, and peppered with scraps of unnecessarily graphic description of bodily business that add little to our understanding of the character, save a generalised feeling of distaste. A theme of self-harm suddenly emerges from nowhere, half-way through, then vanishes as quickly as it had arrived.
While the prose is often light and readable, it is also rapidly becoming rather dated, and ultimately one is left distinctly unsatisfied. If you want what Mendelson does to a T in her fiction - neurotic, ungainly, elliptically-Jewish characters with messy but oh-so-darling families, slow-burning love affairs and dramatic showdowns, pick up 'Daughters of Jerusalem' instead.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Bob Ventos
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The early 90s: Anna leaves university and comes to London, imagining an exciting and sophisticated social life, but in fact gets lonely. It doesn't help that she has a difficult mum, a druggy sister (a character and plot-line I found less credible than the rest?), a wildly dangerous aunt, and is a bit obsessive and nervous herself. She stays in her aunt's Bloomsbury flat, gets a job in a bookshop, and as she becomes involved in her aunt's affairs, gradually learns family secrets. It's one of those novels in which everyone is either an author, a documentary film-maker or a top journalist - but the writing is so good and the characters so funny and touching that I didn't in the least mind!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I liked Anna a lot. Perhaps because she didn't have any friends, so she wasn't the typical popular girl which usually leaves me seething in jealousy. I didn't care much about Stella until the end of the novel, but her presence is definitely felt throughout, which affects Anna's behaviour and her relationships to no end! I didn't really understand the ending, but I think it was because I rushed through the book- I couldn't put it down, I liked it so much! I admit that the writing did seem a bit pretentious at times, and the over use of metaphor was annoying, but the writer had a good story to tell, and she told it wonderfully. I'll definitely be reading it again.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
FANTASTIC.
I really loved this book it is such a refreshing change from all those 'chick lit' books that all seen to follow the same old tired formula. Read more
Published on 19 Jun 2002 by louise appleton
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully written and very moving
This book is so good - managing to be moving, funny and has a great way with language. I so empathised with Anna and it brought back such memories of when I first faced the big... Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great read a real page turner, very very funny.
I really loved this book. Anna moves to london where she hopes to pass as an effective adult. The author portrays her feelings of solitude and attempts to be grown up with... Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2002 by alicebruce@hotmail.com
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bliss ... A truly special read
I didn't know what I was in for when I read this novel, but it's one of the best novels I've read for a long time. Read more
Published on 31 July 2001
2.0 out of 5 stars
A disappointing first novel
Having read both the newspaper reviews and the on-line ones, I have to say that I felt this novel was a disappointment. Read more
Published on 5 July 2001
4.0 out of 5 stars
pretty damn good
Good read - you can feel the honesty with which it's written. OK, I couldn't identify with all her dilemmas: no one's ever offered me a rent-free flat and none of my aunts is at... Read more
Published on 31 May 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fabulous and surprising novel
I didn't know what I was in for when I read this novel, but it's one of the best novels I've read for a long time. Read more
Published on 19 May 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sexy, hilarious, and lyrical
I loved this book. It's a great rites-of-passage novel by a young author who's talent makes me long for the next work - quick! Read more
Published on 19 May 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
A WONDERFUL STORY!
Way to go! This is a great book. Couldnt put it down. a great read! Characters well developed, story line very catching. This will be read and re-read over and over again. Read more
Published on 19 May 2001
4.0 out of 5 stars
Infectiously written and hard to put down
Not having forgotten the experience of moving to London and attempting to find work, friends and romance I could completely empathise with the heroine of Love in Idleness. Read more
Published on 9 May 2001
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