Book Review: "Small Pleasures" by Clare Chambers

If you know me, you know that I love a good drama. I love reading about these twisted familial problems and the people who are involved with them. When I first saw "Small Pleasures" by Clare Chambers, I admit I was not too keen to read it seeing as it was not just shorter than I would expect but also a bit pricey. But, again, if you know me you would also know that I bought it anyway and read it anyway because due to reading the description, I was captivated. There are not a lot of books out there like this and certainly not ones written in the 21st century.

“Small Pleasures” is set in the 1950s and investigative journalist, Jean, reads a letter in the newspaper about a woman who has apparently given birth to a child as a virgin. Following up to investigate, she decides to track down the woman named Gretchen and her daughter, Margaret. Finding herself interwoven with their happy and perfect family - Gretchen the dressmaker draws Jean into the family life in which everything is middle class, brilliant and dazzling. Jean then must go home to her own mother who is suffering under the social weight of being a pariah, since refusing to go out and seeks to know wherever her daughter is going and why. As she starts hanging out with Gretchen Tilbury’s family more and more, she comes to have a stronger and stronger connection to not only them but to the ten-year-old daughter, Margaret. Set on the straight and narrow of finding out whether this was, in fact, a virgin birth - Jean offers the family to get examined by doctors. As the tests go on, as the family and Jean become closer - Jean must decide what is professional and what is not. At the end of the day, no family is perfect and this family is definitely not when the surface is finally being scratched away. Jean may have let herself become open to not only being an investigative journalist - but as her mother says, someone else’s ‘project’.

The book is written brilliantly and honestly, all of the symbols I missed in here had me kicking myself afterwards. I will not tell you what they are or you will know what the ending is. I can assure you that the way in which the book is written definitely reflects this sort of move between the situation all at once being business and profession to the situation becoming more personal, more close to home. We can see this weird change in language not only through the way in which Jean speaks, but also the way in which she talks about the Tilbury family to others. The way in which the rabbit comes about the trust that Margaret puts in Jean. Witty and dark, this book often goes off into some unusual places and slowly, we get to know more about Jean than we ever hoped to. A mysterious but often misunderstood figure, we get the feeling constantly that something is always ‘off’ when it comes to the Tilbury family. It strikes us through Jean’s language use but until things go wrong - the reader automatically fobs it off as general suspicion.

In conclusion, I have to say I was so glad I chose this book to read because it was absolutely brilliant in concept and beautifully written. The book itself has a second half that will blow your mind and really, everyone has a secret and not everyone has a secret that is wholeheartedly good. You should really think about who is and who is not to blame here. It will make everything a lot easier.