British Author Challenge November 2021: Elizabeth Taylor & Tade Thompson

Elizabeth Taylor was born in in Reading, Berkshire in 1912. The first of her twelve novels was published in 1945; she also wrote numerous short stories for magazines. She died in 1975.

Selected works
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont
A View of the Harbour
A Wreath of Roses
A Dedicated Man and Other Stories
The Sleeping Beauty
Angel
In a Summer Season
The Devastating Boys
Palladian

Tade Thompson was born in London and moved with his family to Nigeria when he was about seven years old. He studied medicine and social anthropology, specializing in psychiatry. As a speculative fiction writer, Thompson's works have garnered him a number of honors, including two Nommo Awards, a Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award, and an Arthur C. Clarke Award.

Selected works
Wormwood Trilogy
"Bicycle Girl" (Short story available at Expanded Horizons)
The Murders of Molly Southbourne
Household Gods and Other Narrative Offences*
Making Wolf
Far from the Light of Heaven

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*This was available from Thompson's twitter account, which he seems to have deleted. He did give permission to share the work, so shoot me a PM with your email address if you want it and I can send you either an epub or mobi.

I have quite a few Taylor novels on the shelves, as well as a volume of short stories. I've read 6 novels, my favorites so far being Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (also a great movie) and At Mrs Lippincote's.

I plan to read A Game of Hide and Seek, and if time permits Angel and/or The Sleeping Beauty.

Joining up with Mrs. Palfrey - inviting title!

>3 kac522: & >4 m.belljackson: I really enjoyed Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont. It's a melancholy read, but very good.

I'll read Angel if my ILL request comes in. If not, I have The Wedding Group and Blaming from the library.

I completely forgot that I read Taylor's Palladian a couple of months ago, which says a great deal about its quality. It felt like Taylor was trying to write a satire of gothic romances, but it was too earnest to be satire and not serious enough to be a straight gothic romance.

>6 amanda4242: I read that one in 2019, but I don't remember much, except the house disintegrating like the family (or vice-versa). Looking at my notes, I called it a cross between Austen (Fanny Price/Catherine Morland mash-up), Bronte and Wilkie Collins. Gave it 3 stars for the writing, but didn't like the characters or story.

>4 m.belljackson: and if you can find the movie, it was well done (and counts for the book+movie thread!).

>8 kac522: Thank you - we will add it to our Netflix list.

I'm not going to get to a reread of any Tailor, but my favourite is still A View of the Harbour, something about its tone. I've returned to it several times.

I read A Sleeping Beauty last year, so I've read all her novels now, just the short stories to read.

>10 Caroline_McElwee: A View of the Harbour does sound good.

You might want to fix your touchstone for A Sleeping Beauty: it's going to Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, which is a very different book!

>11 amanda4242: Thanks re touchstone Amanda. Sorted.

My ILL for Angel is in transit! I could have it as early as next week!

Household Gods and Other Narrative Offences by Tade Thompson

An enjoyable collection of speculative fiction tales. Thompson acquits himself well with these short stories, creating striking images and satisfying plots in just a handful of pages.

Far from the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson is on sale for $2.99.

I finished A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor (1951).

Two teenagers, Harriet and Vesey, fall in love, drift apart, and are re-united by chance about 20 years later. Harriet is well-married with a child; Vesey is now an actor and just barely making ends meet.

Elizabeth Taylor has a dense writing style that requires full attention when reading each line. I found it hard to read more than 30 or 40 pages at a time, and the book did not call to me to pick up and continue, but I did persevere to the end. The love story was believable as children, but much less so as adults. Taylor drifts from character to character, and we are briefly but intensely in that person's mental space. Always interesting, but sometimes I wanted the main story. This is a book I will need to re-read to fully appreciate all that's going on here, as many consider this to be Taylor's finest novel.

>16 kac522: Elizabeth Taylor has a dense writing style that requires full attention when reading each line.

I'm finding the same thing with Angel. It's very well written, but not something I can speed through. It also doesn't help that the main character is an exceptional well-drawn portrait of a stupid, shallow, and vain girl who's hard to take in large doses.

>17 amanda4242: Right, I can't say I warmed to any of the characters in my book, either. Only Harriet had my sympathy, but she still made frustrating choices. Taylor's point, I think (I hope!).

I just finished Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont by Elizabeth Taylor in the nick of time. I so much enjoyed it. What a wonderful study of old age.

>19 Kristelh: Yes, I've read 7 of Taylor's novels, and Mrs Palfrey is by far my favorite. The movie is good, too.

The Guardian just posted their Best books of 2021, and Tade Thompsons's Far from the Light of Heaven is the first book on the list of "Five of the best science fiction and fantasy books of 2021".
It sounds like an interesting book - I'm going to see if I can get my hands on it some time. A murder mystery on a space ship? Sounds fun!

Gnaw by Tade Thompson

A decent take on a haunted house story. It's nothing revolutionary, but Thompson gives this novella enough twists to keep it interesting.

Angel by Elizabeth Taylor

A five star read. Taylor crafted a perfect portrait of a shallow, ignorant, and humorless hack novelist, but she also made Angel hard-working, occasionally intensely loyal, and capable of the occasional spot of empathy.

(If anyone is interested in seeing something like a real-life version of Angel, check out this thread. The short version: LT posts interview with author who claims she's proven that most of the works of the British Renaissance were written by six ghostwriters. Author reacts poorly when everyone says she's jumped to conclusion based on suspicious data generated by faulty methodology. I should also add that Ms. Taylor's character is far more pleasant.)

>22 amanda4242: So I skimmed through that thread, and all I can say is OMG. (You've brilliantly summed up 500 posts!)

Actually, I think somebody should analyze the LT posts of this person, the texts of the books and compare. Probably ghost-written by Weird Al Yankovic or some other likely character.

Anyway, it's heightened my desire to read Angel.

>23 kac522: Actually, I think somebody should analyze the LT posts of this person, the texts of the books and compare. Probably ghost-written by Weird Al Yankovic or some other likely character.

You probably could "prove" that if you used the author's methods!

>22 amanda4242: Interesting. I only opened a couple of pages but do a www search for her name and you get 36,900 hits!

>25 Caroline_McElwee: Perhaps her true genius lies in self-promotion.

>26 amanda4242: Indeed--The lady doth protest too much, methinks.