Secrets And Lives, Middle England Revealed [Hardcover]

Anyone curious about other people will enjoy Secrets and Lives, created by award-winning writer Mary Loudon. Concerned to "distil without deceiving" over 2 million words from interviews with residents of the Oxfordshire market town of Wantage, she presents what she calls "a series of photographs", in words, of lives and opinions. Mary Loudon grew up in Wantage and clearly has the trust of her subjects, who speak openly of their views on important issues and who share the ups and downs of their lives. From the estate agent to the vicar, from the gay nurse to the saxophone-playing film extra, this apparently ordinary community has some extraordinary stories to tell. There is much to empathise with, much to debate with and a surprising amount to learn. Aiming to correct the "myth of harvest-festival cosiness", the book also directly expresses views on life in a rural market town. What is a "great feeling of community" to some is "claustrophobic" to others. Although Loudon states that it is "not social history and it's not analysis", Secrets and Lives certainly contributes to the topical debate on British rural life and will surely become an excellent resource for future social historians. Bringing the allure of television docu-soap to literature, Secrets and Lives is informative and entertaining. --Karen Tiley

"Secrets and Lives" is a collection of 60 personal stories taken from years of conversations with nearly 100 people from a typical English market town where the author herself grew up.

'[A] Canterbury Tale for our times ... Everyone has something of value to impart, even the humblest; in some, there is a shining nobility.' Valerie Grove, The Times 'There is great ambition and equal skill in successfully communicating nothing more, nothing less, than the stuff of humanity. A real-life soap opera going on in Oxfordshire, with better stories by far than fiction' Bel Mooney, The Times 'As a writer, Mary Loudon has a precious gift. She can listen. And so, people tell her things they might otherwise lock inside their hearts. She follows in the footsteps of Tony Parker in Britain and Studs Terkel in America. Those men, like her, had ears as sharp as scalpels. At the end of her stories, the cliches have collapsed. Under the beeswaxed middle-class veneer, emotion eats into the woodwork: envy, pride, grief, ambition, despair. Above all, this is a chronicle of people's dreams; their hopes of what might have been and their regrets about what could have been.' Paul Barker, The Independent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review quotes for Secrets & lives
Review quotes - Secrets & lives

"Mary Loudon has already proved herself a skilful practitioner in previous books about nuns and clerics. Here she walks fearlessly in the streets of her home town to capture the lives and thoughts of the butcher, baker and the candlestick maker. Let it be said that if the enterprise seems modest, there is great ambition and equal skill in successfully communicating nothing more, nothing less, than the stuff of humanity. Loudon’s labour has paid off... This is the England of broken marriages and disillusionment. It is also the land where hope triumphs over experience... When the interviewees refer to each other [there is] a sense of a real-life soap opera going on in Oxfordshire, with better stories by far than fiction."

- The Times

"Sharp, poignant, tragic or comic short stories... [offer] a powerful sense of the sheer wonder and private eccentricity of human life... Loudon’s [approach] is plainly literary... [and] this literariness is highly effective. All the stories are readable and some are remarkably intense, [with] Dostoyevskian power... Most gripping and moving is the way people order their consciousness around the peculiar systems imposed upon them by their place in the world."

- Sunday Times

"As a writer, Mary Loudon has a precious gift. She can listen. And so, people tell her things they might otherwise lock inside their hearts. Under the beeswaxed middle-class veneer [of Middle England], emotion eats into the woodwork: envy, pride, grief, ambition, despair. Above all, this is a chronicle of people’s dreams... [Loudon] follows in the footsteps of Tony Parker and Studs Terkel. Those men, like her, had ears as sharp as scalpels. At the end of her stories, the cliches have collapsed. A remarkable, compulsively readable portrait."

- The Independent

"[These] accounts of blighted lives and ruined businesses are sober, unrancorous and fair-minded to a fault... Brutal transitions are countered by an equally powerful sense of continuity. A poignant picture of change."

- Daily Telegraph

"This book reveals the intimicies and indiscretions of life behind garden walls and net curtains in a way seldom, if ever, associated with the sedately average English heart, pulsing reticence, moderation, stability and other supposedly age-old virtues... Sins, anti-social behaviour, criminal acts, jealousies, infidelities, disenchantments, moments of madness, despair and pathos are all unearthed where they had been buried by prudence and propriety... A remarkably uncensored portrait. Confessions ... that undermine widely held myths about Middle England."

- Evening Standard

"Where’s your sense of community now? Read Loudon’s subtle and insightful collage of interviews and you realise that it still lives on. Loudon wrote of her anger as a teenager at hearing Margaret Thatcher say that there’s no such thing as society. It’s a sweet, neat form of revenge to show, as she does here, that there is."

- The Scotsman

"Here is a rarity. A work that does not act as a platform for the writer’s naked ego. Mary Loudon sits in the background, ghosting 50 human tales from the town [of which] she has a deep, and perhaps rare, understanding... Time and time again, in these stories, we find that "dull and ordinary" is a superficial sheen, Dig a little, as Mary Loudon does, and the real story unfolds into a vivid drama. Secrets And Lives is a ... profound and eloquent work that zips around our archaic and tiresome class system... It would take considerable strength of character to put the book down."

- Manchester Evening News

"Fascinating... If you are expecting a cosy cliche of small town life, all Wellingtons and Women’s Institute jam, prepare for a surprise. In this version of the provinces, privilege and poverty are the least of the extremes we encounter. Mary Loudon has managed to get her subjects to open up their hearts to her: in learning their dreams and sorrows we will all find something we recognise."

- The Lady

"Loudon has succeeded in destroying a myth, and exposed our "Middle England" in its true colours. The veil has been torn away and we find the raw material of day to day life. An important document of social history... Secrets And Lives shatters all the illusions."

- Oxford Mail

"A picture of the far-from-average individuals to be found in any average English town... the pieces do not betray the toil that must have gone into getting them on to the page. The subjects come imperceptibly into focus as they speak of loss, suffering, betrayal, fortitude and big ideas... A retort to metropolitan snipes at small-town provincialism."

- Times Educational Supplement

Mary Loudon was born and grew up in Wantage. She is the author of two highly acclaimed books, Unveiled: Nuns Talking and Revelations. The Clergy Questioned. She is a regular book critic for The Times and has written and broadcast widely. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.