A Far Cry from Kensington (1988) by Muriel Spark #CCSpin

💜 #CCSpin brought me a novel by a-new-to-me author: Muriel Spark. A Far Cry from Kensington is a reminiscent of post war London in 1954-1955 by a young widow: Mrs. Hawkins. At first I thought Mrs. Hawkins was in her late thirties or even early forties. She seemed matured, motherly, and loved to dispose advises. But it turned out she was quite young, only twenty nine. I think it's because of her large body, as well as her personalities, that made her seemed older and unattractive.

💜 Mrs. Hawkins lived alone in a rooming house (boarding house) in South Kensington, and worked as editor in a struggled publishing company. Also residents in the house are William, a medical student; Kate, a nurse; and Wanda Podolak, a Polish dressmakers. The later is the first center of Mrs. Hawkins' story, the other is an aspiring writer called Hector Bartlett, whom she used to call a "pisseur de copie" due to his books which were of rubbish quality.

💜 Wanda Podolak is the kind of hysterical and nervous woman. She's a good dressmaker and had many clients, men and women. One day she received an anonymous letter, threatening her to pay her taxes, or else, prison. This is just the beginning of Wanda's declining. Mrs. Hawkins and the rest of the house thought it just a bully, but Wanda, being an immigrant and hysterical in nature, took it very seriously. It didn't help too when she began taking to radionics - a pseudoscientific form of alternative medicine in the shape of a black box, which was actually a historical event in the early 20th century. The writer of the letter became an exciting mysterious puzzle that was only be solved near the end.

💜 Hector Bartlett also proved to be thorn in Mrs. Hawkins's flesh due to her rude but honest appellation of him. Besides these complexities, Agnes (or Nancy) Hawkins, thirty years later, reminisces her days in the publication world, the eccentricities of her fellow residents and neighbors, as well as her efforts to be a better self - diet is one of them. And it is a thinner and much more contended Nancy Hawkins who told us this amazing story thirty years later from Italy - a far cry from that 1955 Kensington.

💜 I am so glad I had the chance to come upon this book. It seems a short and ordinary story, but it has many layers that intrigued me long after finishing it. Muriel Spark is a brilliant author to capture the depth of humanity in the post-war, but which also applies and is relevant in any era.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2