We might call this, as a genre, novels of the interior: interiors of places, and interiors of people. In some cases the characters’ relationships are crafted with more care than in Mitford’s original The front comes off to show these other lives, and golden light is reflected back on to the reader. The lamp really turns on the radio really plays. Darling belongs in the pantheon of books that feel a bit like opening up a doll’s house to show the impeccable precision of the world within. There are good lovely things, owned by the creative bohemians (squashy sofas, dogs, “square-cut antique emerald cufflinks”), and bad lovely things, owned by the Ukip-voting parvenus (Hunter wellies) and the faux-commie Etonians (slim hardback novels).Īs well as Mitford, there is something of Elizabeth Jane Howard’s much-adored Cazalet Chronicles in here, plus elements of Eva Rice’s The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and Barbara Trapido’s Brother of the More Famous Jack. This is a book full of lovely things: clothes and curtains and old Apple Mac computers in “boiled-sweet pink”.
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