Just Finished Reading: After the Party by Cressida Connolly (FP: 2018) [261pp] 

England, Summer 1938. In the final analysis it was all for the sake of the children. Returning to England after years abroad Phyllis Forrester wanted them to gain a proper education. She also missed her sisters, rather surprisingly, and the fact that everything at home was always so green. Adapting, however, took longer that she expected, although things improved immeasurably after the family managed to rent a house of their own. As the summer dragged on the children, being children, become increasingly bored and increasingly under foot. School was still months away, so Phyllis gave in to her younger sister’s idea of joining the camp they’d been organising for the British Union. Slowly, over the following weeks, Phyllis found herself relaxing and even becoming interested in the lectures and ideas expressed by her sister and others. With war approaching, their ideas of staying out of yet another European conflict and putting Britain and her Empire first became progressively appealing. Working for the Union’s ideals seemed like perfect fit. Those, especially in the lower classes, who saw them as some sort of traitors had no idea what they were talking about. They were patriots, plain and simple. So, when the police arrived one night to arrest Phyliss and her husband no one was more surprised than her – even when they found the gun in the children's room...     

This was not really what I’d expected of it. Written in a series of flashbacks from the late 1970’s I thought it was going to be more of a crime/murder/mystery sort of thing. The blurb on the back hinted at something like that when it stated that ‘Phyllis lets down her guard for a single moment, with devastating consequences’. OK, something like that did happen, but it was a vanishingly small part of the plot and wasn’t in any way her fault. This is conflated with the idea that ‘years later, Phyllis, alone and embittered, recounts the dramatic events which led to her imprisonment and changed the course of her life forever’. The two events are not related in any way! 

So, not off to the best start! But was it any good otherwise? To start with I thought the writing overall was good. The characters seemed real and their motivations largely understandable and reasonable from their PoVs. Unfortunately, I only found the main character Phyliss tolerable – and even then, I found myself wrinkling my nose in mild disgust at her attitudes and beliefs more than once. The rest of the cast I generally found somewhere along the objectionable scale and often towards the more so than less so. Although it wasn’t completely obvious from the outset the ‘British Union’ or simply ‘Union’ spoken of early on was in fact the re-named/re-branded British Union of Fascists (apparently the name Fascist had ‘bad optics’ in late 1930’s England!) and the game was given away when I recognised the symbol they used – the circle with the lightning bolt through it – and the penny finally dropped. Phyllis, her family and friends turned out to be true believers, hence the all too often wrinkling of noses! 

I must admit that it was kind of interesting though – once you got beyond the fact that the main characters were English Fascists. That period of political history still isn’t talked about much here. I know it happened but I’m not exactly sure of the details. I’m not sure what kind of following they had or what kind of danger they were during the war. I know that a number of them were interned – as in the novel – and it was interesting to see the Isle of Man appear here as the internment camp of choice for the BUF and ‘enemy’ aliens of all types. I think that my thoughts on this book are still very mixed. It was distasteful for a host of reasons – I've never been much of a fan of the lifestyles of the ‘rich’ and shameless so most of the novel either didn’t overly interest me or was positively annoying – but the oblique insights into a, presumably intentionally ‘forgotten’, aspect of British history intrigued and interested me. A reasonable book that I’ll need to ponder further.   

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