THE GODMOTHER

by Jauice Elliott ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 9, 1967

This is the first novel to be published here by a young writer of considerable sensibility who has frequently and justifiably been compared with Virginia Woolf. The Godmother opens at the christening of a child, that of Helen Porter's feckless nephew James; it closes a year later with Helen's death, preceded by the suicide of James' wife, and his transference from an affair with divorced, deadened Anne to a more regulated, busy domesticity with Anne's sister. While this might infer that there has been a certain physical and/or dramatic activity, such is not the case; this is a novel consisting almost solely of interior action: meaningful memories and moments, indirect inferences hang in the air; all these lives are enclosed in a kind of lethargic cul de sac ""dully absorbed for all but practical purposes in some inner, timeless contemplation."" All of them also depend to a greater or lesser degree (particularly James and Anne) on some subtle bondage with Helen Porter and her unlived life--godmother, daughter, sister, grand-daughter but no ""more than the sum of the dead."" Miss Elliott, a very fine writer in many senses of the word (delicate, fastidious, excellent) suggests much more than she explores, or defines, and to some extent she is defeated by the materials she has chosen to work with--impalpable themes, unresolved lives which drift and dissolve.

Pub Date: March 9, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION