I read a Joanne Trollope novel and really rather enjoyed it.

[Tinker]

In a didn't-have-to-think-too-hard kind of way. What's the consensus here - is she a guilty pleasure, menopausal chick-lit or actually quite good/not bad?

[ScummyMummy]

Bath book, I think.

[ClaudiaSchiffer]

I like her, .

Also Deborah Moggagh (sp?).

Lovely. Relaxing.

[cherryblossoms]

I rather like JT. I think she's a "problem" novellist - she thinks of an issue, then sets up a situation to act it out. She's pretty linear but I like the way she deals with women's issues. She's criticised for being a bit traditional in her values - women tend to get "punished" in some of her books for wanting "freedom", either sexual or simply something beyond the domestic. But there again, in other books, they're applauded for it.

I think the fact she deals so specifically with women has meant sh'e been slightly undervalued. Which makes me a bit cross ... .

Ramble over. Thanks for offering the opportunity to offload ... .

[Tinker]

This was Second Honeymoon and, yes, the female did get punished for wanting to do more that just be a SAHM. In fact, her DIL got punished for earning more than her partner as well.

[cherryblossoms]

Oooh. I've read "Second honeymoon". I didn't read it like that.

i thought the point JT was making was that women often hide behind having children to protect themselves from the possibility of failure when they go after what they want. So the actress lady has had slightly unrealistic ambitions about her acting career and hasn't reality checked them (taking the voice-over work) and hasn't really full-on pursued her ambitions, either. That said, i think JT does give space to the fact that having dc will take huge chunks out of your life/career. and that ageing , for women, is hard and has a bigger impact than for men.

So, the dc leave home, she goes for this job, half-heartedly, she gets it ... and it doesn't progress to a west-end run. BUT it doesn't kill her, and she realises she can keep on working. Though, as an actress, her age is going to be a huge factor against her.

With the dil, doesn't the son agree to become a house-husband?

Agreed, she's no revolutionary feminist, but I do think she writes in an interesting corner of women's lives.

And I do like the fact that all her novels begin way after the place that romantic fiction ends ie well after the wedding. So "Second Honeymoon" pitches right in with that rather unexplored part of women's lives - when the kids leave. Which is such an interesting place, given that we spend so much of lives defined by having children/not having children/being carers and so on.

There, just one way to read it!

(Sorry - but I really am thanking you for the chance to discuss JT!)

[cherryblossoms]

Oooh - just read thread in AIBU and ... . Just want to say, I think JT is just playing with the idea of "whether women hide behind ... ". she sort of turns it round in her hands in the book. I think she's more subtle than saying "Oh yes, all women do this" or "Oh no they don't". It's rather that it's a possibility. Which I thought was interesting because it's one of those existential things that's "woman-shaped" and so doesn't get discussed because most "abstract" things about life are "man-shaped".

and as i said, I just read the thread about SAHM etc in AIBU and I want to make it clear I, personally, have no views, other than interest!! though clearly, it really matters to us women.

Sorry, you can probably tell that I don't have anyone else to talk to about this ....

I'll slope off and stop thread hogging ....

[Tinker]

cherryblossoms - your interpretation is probably more accurate/what JT was trying to say. I think I thought she was trying to say that you can't really have it all - she loved being a mother when the kids were young and presumably was good at it (if loved it). And she still wanted that control now but a) she couldn't, they were too old and b) she also couldn't because she wanted to work as well. I nevre really picked up what acting work she'd done in the past, might have skipped that bit .

And, yes, her son did then become a stay-at-home-dad so, again, women can't have it all.

Anyway, it was absorbing enough to pick up another one in a charity shop.

Incidentally, I don't know of you remember JanH/WW on here but that's who I pictured as Edie when I read the book

[ScummyMummy]

I must revisit. Am short of bath books atm.

[Tinker]

You can have mine, I can send it to you scummy. As long as you don't tut at my turned down corners.

[nkf]

She's clever. An utterly mainstream novelist who does tricky subjects and rarely offers traditional happy endings. Not a stunning wordsmith but usually interesting.

[Tinker]

God, just noticed I haven't called her Joanna in the title

[bagsforlife]

Yes, the 'a' makes all the difference.....

Think I might re-read The Rectors Wife (I think it was called) now!

[ManicMother7777]

I love JT's books on the whole. (The only thing I don't like is her irritating habit of unnecessarily splitting sentences eg...
'That,' she said, 'would be very nice').

Rector's Wife is brilliant, you should definitely re-read it bags.

Does anyone else find her slightly...misandrist if that's the word...how the heroine's needs (manifesting itself in adultery in some cases)are met at the expense of the hapless husband whose only crime is to be a bit dull? Eg - A Village Affair, The Rector's Wife?

[cherryblossoms]

Tinker - I think you're spot on with that interpretation. It's so funny when she gets them all back, though, isn't it?
I do think it's great she wrote about "empty nest syndrome" - it's such a big deal in mothers' lives and yet explorations of it are just not widespread. And it's (I'm guessing) so muti-faceted and complicated. Brings up so many things, such as the fat that having children is such a major life-event, absolutely changes you and the shape of your life, yet we have them with us physically in a decreasingly intense way (or in some ways it's less intense). And it's a mark of success as a parent that they do leave ... .

So much to say about it - it really is strangely unexplored terrain.

Manicmother777 - Yes, I know what you mean about "A Village Affair". He does hit her but I felt it was almost "cheating" when he did because he had been pretty sympathetic up until then; it almost seemed a cop out making him do that.
I tend to think that it's JT raising the stakes on the ethical front. I can sort of imagine a "jury of her peers" sitting down discussing the central character's actions and asking "was it justified?", "would it be more justified in x situation, or y?", "when is it justified?", and so on.

I do think she's be a good book group choice for those reasons.

Anyone else remember when she demanded her right to be taken seriously as a novellist and how much merriment there was about it?
That did make me cross.

Btw, can you tell that I don't have a book group to go to, and this is the closest I can get to one? [sob]

[Hassled]

Bath book sums it up perfectly. JT is also great for those insomniac nights when your brain just won't switch off. I do have a certain guilty fondness for her. She does what she does very well.