A review by nohoperadio
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

3.25

Mostly unmemorable writing with a memorable whiplash structure: first half is quite a benign comedy about a snooty French girl (of modest background) coming to live with a middle class but unsnooty English family and the silly ways they predictably fail to live in harmony. At almost exactly the midpoint of the book the husband runs off with the French girl and suddenly the novel is now a psychological study of the shock and depression his wife and daughter are thrown into that almost reminded me of a less full-on version of Elena Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment. I said the writing was mostly unmemorable and that’s true, I don’t think either half of this novel would amount to much without the contrast with the other half, but it wasn’t bad either. I did enjoy this.