{"id":7002,"date":"2016-08-15T11:11:22","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T11:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7002"},"modified":"2016-08-18T11:26:47","modified_gmt":"2016-08-18T11:26:47","slug":"a-quiet-life-by-natasha-walter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/?p=7002","title":{"rendered":"A Quiet Life by Natasha Walter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Published by Borough Press 16 June 2016 <\/strong><\/p>\n

448pp, hardback, \u00a314.99<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Click here to buy this book<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

A powerful current of imaginative insight propels this impressive first novel by feminist writer and human-rights activist Natasha Walter about double lives during World War II and the Cold War.<\/p>\n

Ins\"\"<\/a><\/strong>pired by the life of Melinda Marling, American wife of British diplomacy\u2019s golden boy, the traitor Donald Maclean, A Quiet Life<\/em> follows the career of Laura Leverett, who follows her heart into a life of secrecy. Travelling to London by sea in January 1939, to stay with cousins in England, self-contained young Laura experiences for the first time the heady freedom of new encounters.\u00a0 She comes from a closed-off family, where disappointment and hidden violence have stunted interest in the world of politics and ideas.\u00a0 At sea, she meets young people of an altogether different kind:\u00a0 Florence Bell, a free-spirited young communist, and Joe Segal, a dissolute young journalist.\u00a0 In London, where she lodges with her cousin Winifred and is introduced to an elite social set, she observes the behaviour of the privileged.\u00a0 For a while, she moves between Winifred\u2019s world and Florence\u2019s world\u00a0 –\u00a0 between sophisticated London nightlife and country-house weekends on the one hand, and bedsits and political rallies on the other.\u00a0 The contrast,especially in the role of women, is stark.<\/p>\n

For a while, Laura swims uneasily in these two environments, learning to keep her own counsel.\u00a0 At one of the heavy-drinking parties, she meets British diplomat, Edward Last\u00a0 –\u00a0 a similarly watchful member of a charmed circle at the heart of the Establishment.\u00a0 The novel explores the consequences of their love-affair and marriage, throughout most of which, unknown to anyone except themselves and their Russian minders, both are engaged in betrayal.<\/p>\n

At first, adjustments have to be made.\u00a0 Edward is warned to break off with Laura, whose communist sympathies might blow his cover.\u00a0 Instead, Laura breaks off with Florence. She is then recruited to photograph and pass on information gathered by Edward. \u00a0The pressure and danger are intense, as they maintain their exhausting roles: he the brilliant albeit alcoholic servant of his country, she the relatively shallow American outsider, given to chasing other people\u2019s men. \u00a0Scenes at the height of theBlitz on London are especially vivid.<\/p>\n

One of the strengths of Natasha Walter\u2019s reconstruction of this period\u00a0 –\u00a0 before, during and after the Second World War \u00a0\u00a0–\u00a0 is her feeling for the strains and cracks in social, political and emotional life at the time.\u00a0 The party-goers survive on drink, drugs and debauchery, while still contriving to run the country.\u00a0 Privilege cannot see that it stands on a precipice. \u00a0The attractions of Communism are made painfully clear, and Walter does not shy away from its contradictions. \u00a0It is with relief that the reader follows Laura and Edward away from haggard post-war London to Edward\u2019s new posting at the British Embassy in Washington DC in 1945\u00a0 –\u00a0 yet here the strains continue.\u00a0 And how could they not?\u00a0 The danger also.\u00a0 It is an incredibly risky and lonely path they are on.<\/p>\n

Another of Walter\u2019s strengths is the lack of melodrama.\u00a0 The reader encounters in thisstory quite a few of the tropes of popular spy fiction\u00a0 –\u00a0 the sudden violence, the fear of discovery, the darkened cars, the night flight\u00a0 –\u00a0 but, through Laura\u2019s eyes, Walter is asking constantly, \u2018What can this have been like for those who lived it?\u2019<\/p>\n

By all accounts, one of the most remarkable features of the (all-male) Cambridge Spy Ring was that, for so long, no-one suspected them.\u00a0 \u00a0A Quiet Life <\/em>is an interesting addition to the literature on the subject: it explores the female experience and examines in depth the bitterness of secrecy.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Alison Burns<\/p>\n

Inspired by the life of Melinda Marling, American wife of British diplomacy\u2019s golden boy, the traitor Donald Maclean, A Quiet Life<\/em> follows the career of Laura Leverett, who follows her heart into a life of secrecy. Travelling to London by sea in January 1939, to stay with cousins in England, self-contained young Laura experiences for the first time the heady freedom of new encounters. She comes from a closed-off family, where disappointment and hidden violence have stunted interest in the world of politics and ideas […] in Reviews<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-fiction-and-non-fiction","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7002"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7024,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions\/7024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bookoxygen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}