On toughness - toughest writers of all time?

Jean Rhys! How could I have forgotten one of my favourites as a teenager.

Which reminds me of another favourite at that time Antonia White's series of autobiographical novels, Frost in May is the first one.

(you are going to be busy OP)

Yes I agree there and definitely don't want to accuse her of being cold!! but I was thinking of the 'leaving space to work out your feelings aspect' and not being overly sentimental. That's what I meant about all the writers I mentioned.

ETA I saw Deborah Levy talk in Bristol once and she's so wonderful.

Jane Gardam is wonderful.

Sarah Waters? Has anyone mentioned her? The Little Stranger and Fingerposts?

Ali Smith is a good call, up thread. I find her work a bit cold.

That's interesting. I find Deborah Levy a very warm writer. Very humane and passionate and emotional (good things imo.) Never sentimental, never over written or forcing the reader into cheer or optimism. Tough as in strong, certainly but not cold or heartless. The opposite.

I don't quite get your definition @WhisperTree . I've always thought leaving space for the reader to have their own feelings was a sign of subtlety in a writer, not cold heartlessness.

I've always found PD James a bit cold. Val McDermid is not cosy
For literary writers, I agree that Fay Weldon is fairly emotionally cool. She Devil is glorious but not in any way sympathetic. Edna O'Brien is magnificent - I think of her as astute not cold. The Red Chairs is a jaw-droppingly tough read.

I find Kate Atkinson quite chilly. When Will There Be Good News is a powerful novel, but she kills off a baby or a family on almost every page at the beginning.

I love Jane Gardam and think she is massively underrated. A bit old fashioned now and very no-nonsense (sort of - He went to boarding school aged four because his parents were in Malay - so what? Get over it) but her work is incredibly moving because she just lays the characters and their situations out for you and never tries to cajole you into feeling something specific about them.

Another - Scarlett Thomas. I loved her recent book The Sleepwalkers.

I agree with the slightly left field suggestion of Daphne du Maurier, I think she's definitely unsentimental especially books such as The Scapegoat.

Also maybe Sarah Moss eg Ghost Wall?

And I absolutely adore Elizabeth Taylor.

For a philosophical style how about Ali Smith? However I haven't yet read her so don't know for sure if she is unsentimental.

Ooh and Deborah Levy!!!! Love her!!!!

I’d like to put in a word for Sybille Bedford (1911–2006). She was born in Germany and spent her formative years there and in France and Italy, but she is considered to be an English writer. Travelogue, fiction, non-fiction, biography (Huxley), and memoir. A very interesting woman and an excellent writer.

A Visit to Don Otavio (on Mexico)
A Legacy
Jigsaw
A Favourite of the Gods
A Compass Error
Quicksands (memoir)

This profile by Selina Hastings, her biographer, gives a good overview.
https://rsliterature.org/fellows/sybille-bedford/

I’m not quite sure that I understand “tough” in this context, but if “unsentimental” is a virtue, then I’ll echo previous mentions of Anita Brookner, who wrote – exquisitely – with a scalpel.

Although Jean Rhys is Domenican-British

Did anyone say Jean Rhys? Good Morning Midnight an amazing book.

I love Beryl Bainbridge. Injury Time is fabulous. Does read like a tv film

And Pat Barker one of my all time favourite writers.

Yes 🙌🏻

Another vote for the incomparable Beryl Bainbridge.

Also, have a look at the slightly dated threads, there's definitely a strong thread of realism to a lot of mid century women writers. Even someone like Nancy Mitford, who ostensibly wrote comedies, had a streak of darkness through her novels. Or Barbara Pym, light comedic novels but so many spinsters leading small lives.

Has anyone said Anita Brookner yet?

Rachel Cusk
Elizabeth Taylor
Perhaps obvious but Agatha Christie and lots of other fantastic female crime writers
Edna O’Brien (Irish)
Shirley Jackson (American)
Patricia Highsmith (American)

Sylvia Townsend Warner.

Stella Gibbons - Cold Comfort Farm skewers a certain type of English pastoral soppiness.

Browse the Persephone catalogue to see if anything takes your fancy:

persephonebooks.flywheelsites.com/catalogue_2024/index.html

I was thinking of Rumer Godden too; I would love to re-read The Greengage Summer.

This is a great thread, thanks OP!

I love Rebecca West’s journalism. Very, very witty, even when still a teenager.

I’ve been meaning to read the Yugoslavia book for ages.

Ali Smith?

And, I know she is not British (is New Zealand) but Eleanor Catton might fit the bill?

The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark should be on your list, I reckon. Tough as they come 😉

Also, if no one else has mentioned her, Mollie Panter-Downes' short stories written during WWII pull no punches about the reality of the Home Front and what it was really like for women while the men were away.

Absolutely!

She shuttled around without a home for years (I mean, she wasn’t couch surfing or in a tent, she was teaching at US universities for a semester or two, staying with friends in Ireland and the UK, living in Rome to research a book), then settled in Hythe in Kent for the last few years of her life. She died in London of lung cancer in 1973 and is buried next to her husband near the site of Bowenscourt in north Cork. There’s a Bowen lecture in the little church there annually. I hope you enjoy her work.

Has anyone said Jane Austen? She always strikes me as very morally tough-minded. She knows love without enough to live on won’t work, she knows love and money are inextricably linked for women who have no independent means, and as a flipside to Jane and Lizzy Bennet managing to marry rich men for love, she gives us Charlotte Lucas marrying Mr Collins so as not to be a dependent spinster at home, and doesn’t condemn her for it. She thinks the ghastly Aunt Norris would have been a better poor mother of many than Mrs Price, and that Mrs Price and Lady Bertram are different only in their financial circumstances, and that Mrs Price’s marriage for love was a disaster.

A couple of tough children's authors to add: Noel Streatfeild & Antonia Forest.