After the Party
Feb. 24th, 2020 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI just finished After the Party, by Cressida Connolly, which is a fascniating look at how a middle class woman gets embroiled in facism in the UK just before the Second World War. Phyllis comes back from living abroad with her husband and children in 1938, and is invited to attend a summer camp run by one of her sisters. It all seems like good fun, and a way to entertain the children before they go back to school, but it quickly becomes apparent that the organisation behind the camp is the British Union of Fascists, run by Oswald Mosley.
What annoyed me about the book was that it is structured like a modern thriller, with chapters set in 1979, referring obliquely to a 'shocking thing' that happened at a party Phyllis attended in 1938, and implying that this led to her being sent to prison. Then, the 1938 storyline slowly builds up to the event of the party, the reveal of 'the thing' and the subsequent consequences. I'm very familiar with this kind of book structure, but I really don't think it's needed here. I think I would actually have enjoyed the book more without the foreshadowing of 'the thing', as the portrayal of Phyllis's social circle and family dynamics in this interesting period are vivid and immersive enough to hold the reader's attention and provide intrigue. This became even more the case when 'the thing' turned out to be barely anything at all, and in fact completely unrelated to Phyllis' arrest and imprisonment.
So, after building up suspense, the second half of the book was rather a let down, especially since it became very repetitive and lacklustre after Phyllis went to prison. The whole thing was very interesting and generally well written, but it didn't really go anywhere, and I don't think it was well served at all by the way the story was presented.
There are, however, lots of really interesting things about it, and it prompted me to look up more information about the period, which is rare for me. So, I enjoyed it overall - it's a fascinating concept and absorbing up to a point. It just didn't need the thriller treatment in the first half.
What annoyed me about the book was that it is structured like a modern thriller, with chapters set in 1979, referring obliquely to a 'shocking thing' that happened at a party Phyllis attended in 1938, and implying that this led to her being sent to prison. Then, the 1938 storyline slowly builds up to the event of the party, the reveal of 'the thing' and the subsequent consequences. I'm very familiar with this kind of book structure, but I really don't think it's needed here. I think I would actually have enjoyed the book more without the foreshadowing of 'the thing', as the portrayal of Phyllis's social circle and family dynamics in this interesting period are vivid and immersive enough to hold the reader's attention and provide intrigue. This became even more the case when 'the thing' turned out to be barely anything at all, and in fact completely unrelated to Phyllis' arrest and imprisonment.
So, after building up suspense, the second half of the book was rather a let down, especially since it became very repetitive and lacklustre after Phyllis went to prison. The whole thing was very interesting and generally well written, but it didn't really go anywhere, and I don't think it was well served at all by the way the story was presented.
There are, however, lots of really interesting things about it, and it prompted me to look up more information about the period, which is rare for me. So, I enjoyed it overall - it's a fascinating concept and absorbing up to a point. It just didn't need the thriller treatment in the first half.
