Peck has found some wonderfully apposite epigraphs for the chapters, including -

"It is for homely features to keep home" - Milton

"I will kindle my fire this morning
In the presence of the Holy Angels of Heaven" - Ancient Gaelic Blessing

"Houses live and die: there is a time for building
And a time for living and for generation
And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane" - T. S. Eliot

and for the maids' departure:

"And I was left alone
She left me there alone" = A. E. Housman ( )

I always feel as if I’m in safe hands when I pick up a Persephone book – it’s rare I’m ever disappointed and then usually only slightly. I was right; this is another of those Persephone books about a family that I generally find I love so much. On the face of it House-Bound is a novel about an upper middle- class woman who suddenly has to manage her rather unmanageable house herself, as her remaining staff leave to undertake war work. However it is of course about rather more than that.

Set in Edinburgh in 1942, the novel opens with Rose Fairlaw waiting at Mrs Loman’s Registry Office for Domestic Servants – her quest as she soon finds out is hopeless.

“It was as she stood in Mrs Loman’s Registry Office for Domestic Servants that Rose Fairlaw suddenly realised what a useless and helpless woman she was. Up till that moment she had always assumed vaguely that she was a busy and useful member of society.
Mrs Loman, who cocked an appraising eye at Rose, even as she made acid efforts to stem the volubility of the stout lady who held her ear, had no such illusions. There, sitting against the wall on hard chairs were rows of ladies the very image of Mrs Fairlaw, waiting desperately for an interview. They all wore the same type of well cut, well-worn tweeds, shoes and gloves, and beneath their well-bred self-restraint, the same hunted and hunting expression. For thirty years they had come to her office, as they wandered in the wilderness of domestic troubles, and most of them, in her eyes, deserved the troubles they had and the half-crowns they paid her.”

So much to the bemusement of Rose’s friends and family she determines to undertake the daunting task herself. She is a woman with a large and difficult house to care for, with a large basement kitchen just one of the problems she needs to wrestle with. Poor Rose really has no idea; she’s not even certain whether she need use soap to wash potatoes. Thankfully Rose does get some help and much needed instruction, first from daily Mrs Childes who undertakes to use her three hours a day at the Fairlaw house to instruct Rose in the mysteries of housework, and then (maybe more bizarrely) from an American Major and psychiatrist Percy Hosmer who takes it upon himself to teach Rose to cook.

Rose comes to describe herself as being House-Bound – by her new domestic routine, but soon recognises that she, and many other people like her are house-bound in their minds. Rose is married to Stuart – her second husband – her first husband was killed in World War I. Rose has a daughter by her first marriage, Flora with whom she has a difficult relationship Flora is unhappy, selfish and blames her mother for everything. Stuart’s first marriage produced a son Mickie, of whom Rose has had charge since he was a young baby, and on whom Rose always doted, much to Flora’s disgust. Tom is the youngest child of the family the only child of Stuart and Rose’s marriage. These three grown up children give Rose other things to worry about; Mickie and Tom in the services, Flora deeply unhappy leading a mysterious life down south.

Rose is surprised to find out that Major Hosmer knows Flora – and has talked to her, is interested in her problems. When Flora eventually does return home unexpectedly she brings chaos with her, but the Major seems to think he can help her. The Second World War provides a poignant back drop to this story of domestic disharmony – with the waste of young lives and the changing times for everyone.

There is some lovely gentle humour in this novel with Rose’s attempts to take charge of her house, collapsing exhausted in the afternoon. House-Bound is much more than a novel about house-work; it is also a novel about family, and the misunderstandings and complexities that arise when people don’t really talk about how they feel. It is also a story about people living under the threat of war – what kind of world would it be afterwards, and who would the war claim? At the time it was written the author could have had no idea how it would all turn out. Winifred Peck’s characters are wonderfully real, she satirises slightly the class that Rose comes from, in Rose ‘s best friend Linda and the hilarious Grannie don’t chah see. The American Major who is really a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen, coming up against the dour restraint of Stuart Fairlaw is really very well done.
This was a joy of a domestic novel, I loved Rose, and was fascinated by the dreadful Flora’s story. ( )

21 Jan 2010 - from Ali

This is an intriguing book. Set in a thinly-disguised Edinburgh in the middle of WWII, it was actually written (as I discovered the wartime Provincial Lady book was the other day) in 1942 so there really is a sense of not knowing what was going to happen. After a glorious opening scene at a domestic service agency, our heroine, Rose, decides to run her, fairly large and oddly-arranged, house herself. Fortunately the marvellous Mrs Childe comes to help her in the mornings, and sets about educating her on the mysteries of cooking and cleaning. I'm sure there's some bottoming-out in there too. Mixed in with this interesting theme is a sub-plot regarding Rose's difficult daughter Flora and her troubles, and a bit of slightly wistful religious thinking and philosophising, to which some reviewers have taken exception; I found it fitted in with the style and period of the book and was not bothered by it. The best parts for me were the delicately drawn relationship between Rose and her reticent husband, Stuart, and Rose and her best friend, Linda. Interesting for its portrayal of lives under the strain of war, and a good balance of pathos, story and humour. ( )