On toughness - toughest writers of all time?

[WhisperTree]

With a view to adding to my TBR pile, I've been trying to think of the toughest, least sentimental female authors of all time, with an emphasis on midcentury to the present day.

The names which keep coming to mind are North Americans and Continental Europeans. I must have a blindspot for these fair isles, which must surely have their own tradition of stylistic toughness.

Help me out, please?

Who are some of the toughest, least sentimental British fiction and non-fiction writers - the ones who might be criticised as e.g. "cold", "heartless" etc because their style leaves space for the reader to feel their own feels

Sarah Hall. Particularly The Carhullan Army.

I've never gone there @LiterallyOnFire I will investigate

Some great shouts above so won't repeat but must add Rebecca West. Her phenomenal, massive and delightfully readable book on the history and culture of what was then Yugoslavia, which I am a third of the way through (over 1,100 pages long), has shocked me into realising that I've never read any of her fiction which I intend to remedy ASAP.
Also one you may not have come across- I'm reading the first volume of her memoir, Mermaid Singing, currently and it is excellent- Charmian Clift.
Love a book thread OP. 💓
Oh and Rose Macaulay! I'm gonna think of more and more I know it, I feel the tingle of names appearing out of the mist...

I read this! It is AMAZING. Adding her to my list.

Which one, Rebecca West? I meant to add the title BTW for people. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It's astonishing isn't it? A total tour de force.

Definitely Fay Weldon. Brilliant writer. I studied her for my degree and then went on to read a lot more.

Ooh the only one I know there is Rose McCaulay's What Not. A tad early for my purposes, but honourable mention.

Thanks for the new recs @heldinadream 🙌

I've lined up some Elizabeth Bowen and read a couple of short stories. Intrigued to read more.

I loved Collette as a teen. Eminently re-visitable.

Lively - good catch!

Howard - new to me. Thanks.

Sorry - I should have been using the quote function. I meant the Sarah Hall book. I haven't begun with Rebecca West yet.

Bowen was Irish, but yes, absolutely. No one else would describe a family watching their house being burned down in terms of a door ‘hospitably’ open upon a furnace, or write her brilliantly disruptive, chilly child characters.

I can’t recommend her more strongly. Start with The Last September, or The House in Paris.

Agree with Penelope Fitzgerald, Muriel Spark, Iris Murdoch, Hilary Mantel (Beyond Black is brilliantly, blackly cruel, if you haven’t read it, with a very cruel cameo from the ghost of Princess Diana). Jenny Diski, more in her non-fiction, maybe?

West’s The Fountain Overflows trilogy is brilliantly vividly realised and morally tough-minded, though because the second two volumes weren’t finished and were put together by an editor after RW’s death, a couple of mysteries are left unsolved, and plots unresolved.

So she was, so she was. But she moved here and stayed, didn't she? So Anglo-Irish / broadly British, I suppose. I intend to devote time to Bowen. Diski rings a bell too - Britain's Didion? Thanks for the recs @VosgesViper

Sorry @WhisperTree I got confused, I tend to get very excited talking about books. 😂Lots of amazing recommendations on this thread.

Bless. Same.

I can feel a major new book haul approaching...How long will it take me to read them? Sigh.

Thank you. 😊
I passed the point of wondering whether I could possibly live long enough to read everything I acquire years and years ago. I'll be 70 next year and in order to read all my unread books I'd have to live to about 500, and have a few eye replacements too.. 👀

😂I find that reassuring actually. Who was it who said we need more books than we can ever read, that its like having all the medicinal remedies you could ever need on hand, so you can select just the right tonic for the moment? I can't remember, but I agree with whoever said that. Stockpiling is the way.

Pat Barker is tough.

Iris Murdoch

Richmal Crompton is massively underrated. Obviously the William stories are deliberately tough, but her adult stuff is brilliant and she has such a sharp eye — and tongue — for relationships, class, and social situations. Her ghost stories, especially, have a real “edge”. I want everyone to read her!

… and, of course, my namesake Lucy M Boston. Google her life story; you want a tough old bird, she was a top one 😎

I had such a hoot reading the William books with eldest, I should add her adult fiction to the list. Thanks @LMBoston

I DO! 😁
And shall

Lionel Shriver - I guess she is American but writes in the UK. She tackles uncomfortable subjects in a very honest way.

Agree with Iris Murdoch

On my TBR pile I have The Balkan Trilogy by Olivia Manning, would that fit the bill?