Morton, K. (2008) The House at Riverton. New York: Atria. (Originally published in 2006 as The Shifting Fog, Allen & Unwin.)

 

Morton, K. (2008) The House at Riverton. New York: Atria. (Originally published in 2006 as The Shifting Fog, Allen & Unwin.)

 

Summary

Ursula Ryan, a film director, visits Grace Bradley, who is ending her days in a nursing home. Ursula has come to see Grace in preparation for a film she is making about a tragedy at Riverton - a country manor in the east of England, where Grace worked between 1914 and 1924 - first as a housemaid, then as a ladies maid. Ursula summarises the tragedy thus: 'A rising star of the English poetry scene kills himself by a dark lake on the eve of a huge society party. His only witnesses are two beautiful sisters who never speak to each other again. One his fiancée, the other rumoured to be his lover. It's terribly romantic.' (p. 14) Her visit prompts Grace to use a tape recorder to tell her life story for her grandson Marcus, who disappeared after his wife died. Grace recounts her time at Riverton in a series of flashbacks that evoke the tumultuous times in England during and after the First World War.

 

Comments

I'm a sucker for the 'Upstairs, Downstairs' genre, so I'm probably less critical about this book that I might be otherwise! My fondness for the genre is probably why I was able to guess by page 50 (of 468!) that Grace was the illegitimate child of Mister Frederick; and that her mother's pregnancy ended her tenure at Riverton. Having said that, I enjoyed reading the book! Morton writes simply (but not simplistically), her characters were credible and substantial and period detail is an integral part of the characters' lives, not evidence that this is 'an historical novel' (it isn't).

 

The 'Upstairs, Downstairs' genre is characterised by, among other things, a strong thread of tragedy, requiring Morton to tread the thin line between sentiment and sentimentality*. She mostly succeeded, because of her strong characters. Each was more than just their emotions and feelings, although 'the gentry' tended to be more substantial than the servants, who were sometimes just reduced to duty and deference.

 

Towards the end, as secrets emerged and myths were undermined, Morton seemed desperate to close the story by showing that most of the characters (including Ursula!) were related to everyone else in the family! This wasn't necessary and stretched the book's credibility unnecessarily. A final small point: I've never read a book in which characters 'exhaled' so often!

8/10

* sentiment - susceptibility to tender or romantic emption; sentimentality - tending to indulge the emotions excessively