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Product Description
Book Description
A compelling tale of social misfits told with Gibbons' trademark humour and affection.
Product Description
Gladys and Annie Barnes are impoverished sisters who have seen better times. They live in a modest cottage in the backstreets of Highate with Mr Fisher, a mild but eccentric old man living secretively in the attic above them. Their quiet lives are thrown into confusion when a new landlord takes over, a dreaded and unscrupulous 'rackman'. He installs his wife in part of the cottages in the hope that there she will recover from an unspecified malady. With a mounting sense of fear, Gladys and Annie become convinced she is possessed by an evil spirit...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of Stella Gibbons's most unsettling works; here we have a strange mixture of genteel poverty and demonic possession, the latter being depicted subtly, not through schlock horror. I'm a big fan of Stella Gibbons, and delighted to see her work in print again.
I'd thoroughly recommend, also, the biography, 'Out of the Woodshed' by Reggie Oliver (Stella Gibbons nephew.)
I'd thoroughly recommend, also, the biography, 'Out of the Woodshed' by Reggie Oliver (Stella Gibbons nephew.)
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is, without doubt, one of the strangest novels I have ever read. Told from several different perspectives the book deals with the events surrounding a rather run-down cottage in Highgate, London, and the tenants who live there. When the original owner sells up an unscrupulous 'rackman' takes over causing fear and concern amongst the inhabitants. Will they be forced out? Will the rents rise to astronomical levels? Will the place be allowed to fall into ever greater disrepair? The inhabitants of the cottage fear the worst: Gladys, a frightful, self-important gossip; her sister Annie, confined to bed and perpetually wrapped in blankets and overcoats; and an elderly gentleman on the top floor with secretive habits and the strange quirk of using a new name every month all suspect the future will be very bleak but what actually happens is more peculiar than they could ever have imagined. The 'rackman' moves his wife into one of the spare flats; a wife who is beautiful, rather frail and, so it appears, possessed by a malevolent spirit.
It's actually quite difficult to place the tone of the book. At times the novel is lighthearted and playful, with characters such as Gladys pronouncing quirky little observations on life whereas, at other moments, the book is beyond black as, for example, when two members of the clergy sit beside a frail woman who appears to be under the influence of something demonic and destructive. There are also comic episodes - the curate's awkward attempts to make small-talk with a succession of overbearing elderly ladies - which nestle against episodes of deep, and genuinely shocking, tragedy. In a sense this makes the novel feel uneven but, then again, one could argue that life - in which the comic and the tragic so often go hand-in-hand - is much the same.
For all its flaws, however, the story is ultimately extremely moving. Almost without being aware of it the characters become real people and we find ourselves caring what happens to them. Not all of them receive happy endings as the novel closes and it a tribute to Stella Gibbons's skill as a novelist that we feel pangs of anxiety and sorrow for those who do not come out smiling at the end. The book is also extremely well written - so much so that I was surprised to learn it had been out of print for such a long time - and the descriptions of a rundown London after the war are both melancholy and shocking. It's a very odd tale, but one told with great flare and skill: by turns amusing, shocking, frightening and uplifting it will, in all probability, be quite unlike anything else you have ever read. In an age where it is so difficult to surprise that in itself is enough to mark out the novel as something of a triumph.
It's actually quite difficult to place the tone of the book. At times the novel is lighthearted and playful, with characters such as Gladys pronouncing quirky little observations on life whereas, at other moments, the book is beyond black as, for example, when two members of the clergy sit beside a frail woman who appears to be under the influence of something demonic and destructive. There are also comic episodes - the curate's awkward attempts to make small-talk with a succession of overbearing elderly ladies - which nestle against episodes of deep, and genuinely shocking, tragedy. In a sense this makes the novel feel uneven but, then again, one could argue that life - in which the comic and the tragic so often go hand-in-hand - is much the same.
For all its flaws, however, the story is ultimately extremely moving. Almost without being aware of it the characters become real people and we find ourselves caring what happens to them. Not all of them receive happy endings as the novel closes and it a tribute to Stella Gibbons's skill as a novelist that we feel pangs of anxiety and sorrow for those who do not come out smiling at the end. The book is also extremely well written - so much so that I was surprised to learn it had been out of print for such a long time - and the descriptions of a rundown London after the war are both melancholy and shocking. It's a very odd tale, but one told with great flare and skill: by turns amusing, shocking, frightening and uplifting it will, in all probability, be quite unlike anything else you have ever read. In an age where it is so difficult to surprise that in itself is enough to mark out the novel as something of a triumph.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
I read STARLIGHT many years ago. I remembered enjoying it, that it dealt, perhaps rather unexpectedly for the author, with demoniac possession (what would Flora Poste have said?) and one detail of that exorcism: the patient, endless repetition of the demand for the demon's name. But what I had not remembered is what a very good book this is. I am so glad I now have a copy that belongs to me and I can go back to when I wish. The description of London, the way the author catches the feeling of the place in a particular era, the detail, the food, and above all the characters - look for the joyful, unsentimental rescue of a little piece of human flotsam by interfering, nosy good hearted women who insist on treating her like a human being, and at the treatment of the "rackman" who might have been just a villain and is so much more...
Thank you, Vintage, for re-publishing it.
Thank you, Vintage, for re-publishing it.
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