August 15, 2023
One year, three affairs, and a woman transformed. In a reissue of the late Mavor's 1973 Booker Prize--shortlisted novel, heroine Hero Kinoull is already in the throes of an affair--the first of three she will have over the course of a year. "Through books, beautiful but so dangerous books," antiquarian and bookbinder Hero meets and begins falling for Hugh Shafto, the appointed guardian of the Rococo collection at Beaudesert Park. Married to Belle, an earnest optimist, Hugh finds himself bored by her opinions and beliefs--while also comforted and romanced by her tolerance and compassion. When the two women finally meet, Belle is still unaware of her husband's affair and welcomes Hero into her inner circle. Quickly Hero is roped into one of Belle's hopeful missions, which includes saving a historic fixture at Beaudesert. As the two women become closer, Hero struggles with the "spoiling maggot of truth" beneath their seeming friendship. After a traumatic accident, Belle and Hero are sent to recover at the home of Hugh's mother and Belle's mother-in-law, Kate Shafto. Hugh has always had a complicated relationship with his mother, whose enormous life and dogged pursuit of experience has left him feeling inferior. Their relationship is further strained when his mistress and wife strike up a short-lived affair of their own under his mother's roof. After Hero recovers, she does not leave Kate Shafto's "small kingdom"; instead, she forges a relationship with her that transcends categorization. Mavor writes beautifully about time and explores how each affair gives Hero the opportunity to orient her relationship to it: With Hugh, she revels in the past; with Belle, she looks hopefully toward the future; and with Kate Shafto, she finally lives unapologetically in the present. Though Mavor's lush and ornate prose and dialogue meanders at times, she effectively captures the timelessness of love, grief, sexuality, illness, and desire. A transgressive novel about love, art, and gender is given new life.
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October 9, 2023
This vibrant and resonant story of love and sickness from Mavor (1927–2013) was shortlisted for the Booker when it was first published in 1973. Hero Kinoull, a bookseller and admirer of cultural artifacts (“I have the Great Sickness... that love affair, sexual almost, with the lost past”) is content to be the mistress of Hugh Shafto, an upper-crust art historian of the rococo. Then, after Mavor implies Hero has caught typhoid during an outbreak in their English village of Beaudesert, Hero is in a car accident with Belle, Hugh’s activist wife. During their convalescence, Hero becomes smitten with Belle, and is later drawn into Belle’s campaign to save a community tree. As drama ratchets up around the typhoid lockdown, Hero takes refuge in a garden paradise created by Hugh’s formidable and worldly mother, Kate. “It’s really so very, very neurotic attaching yourself to one person after another. It isn’t adult of you, you know,” Belle says to Hero, after she falls under Kate’s spell. The plague sections of this unconventional story feel au courant, as does the timeless exploration of the many different ways to approach love. Mavor’s passionate story endures.