The Essence of the Thing

This very readable psychological drama by Madeleine St. John maps the course of a Notting Hill relationship, using the couple’s friendship network as commentary and setting. It's a well-crafted, fast moving, narrow scope story that unfolds via sixty-nine short chapters.

We're treated to the minutiae of home-made wardrobes, hangovers and ashtrays, with home-made marmalade, and a mother called Elinor who "had a pantry and an inglenook fireplace". You could say it's Bridget Jones meets Anita Brookner. Nicola and Jonathan, the model couple, are thrown into turmoil on page one, by Jonathan’s dropping his verbal bombshell, "I've come to the conclusion - that we should part".



Nicola's subsequent torment and desolation are brought into sharp focus by her interaction with couple-friends whose sympathy and support range from comic absurd to superficial pragmatism. The narrative is enlivened by the continual shifts in point of view, expertly executed by lively dialogue and economical narration. Nicola's angle is predominant and it's here that we see a drab, thin, self-effacing protagonist very similar to Edith Hope in Brookner's Hotel du Lac.

Brookner's women possess strength of the 'wrong' kind. It blocks them from the very fulfillment they seek, and this same trait applies to Nicola. This is why her development is so compelling. We are made to breathe every breath, think every thought, and share her perception of herself as insignificant, dumped by the man who had made her feel alive for the first time in her dull life. "Nicola lay under the bedclothes, hunched around her pain, despising herself"

If anything, the friends' children get in the way in this evocation of thirty-something fashionable North London life. But then, they would I suppose. Guy, the ten-year-old boffin and sweet, messy little Henrietta, add to the twee patina of yuppie life and highlight Nicola's desolation.

Ironically, she takes on Henrietta as a kind of pet and reminds us that Jonathan "wouldn't hear of children". I found the focus on these kids a bit much, but that might be prejudice on my part. The novel as a whole is a triumph. It made me contemplate the human spirit, and the ending is perfect.