An Imaginative Experience: A Novel - Hardcover

Wesley, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670856495 ISBN 13: 9780670856497

Publisher: Viking, 1995

Synopsis

An accomplished and affecting comedy of manners, from an eighty-year-old author, follows the love that builds, after a chance meeting, between an impulsive woman and a man who has recently lost his wife and child. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

Reviews

Those who relished Wesley's A Sensible Life and the seven other novels in which she displays her tart tongue, mordant humor and laser eye for human foibles, may be a bit taken aback by her latest effort. Compared to her previous work, this novel is both more sentimental and more cynical; it lacks some of the edgy balance that made the earlier books deliciously distinctive. When Julia Piper pulls the emergency cord on an InterCity train to London and leaps off to rescue a sheep in a field, astonished observers can't know that she's returning from the funeral of her husband and small son, killed in a car crash that was alcoholic Giles Piper's final destructive act. But two of those observers-book agent and sometime novelist Sylvester Wykes, who is heartbroken and humiliated by the failure of his marriage, and nasty ne'er-do-well birdwatcher Maurice Benson-eventually meet up with Julia, through a series of coincidences that are sometimes credible, sometimes not. Unbeknownst to each other, they will conduct an invisible tug of war between benevolence and malevolence that will determine Julia's future. Wesley's prose is as spare and witty as usual, but this time her acerbic view of human nature seems positively dyspeptic. All the male characters, save Sylvester and a kindly Pakistani grocer, are alcoholics, lechers and abusers of women. In Wesley's books, there's always one character that one wants to strangle, and here it's Clodagh May, Julia's mother, but several others come dangerously close to being equally odious. Wesley's abhorrence of racism is neatly underscored by having both British and American bigots; but, in the end, most characters are so rude, racist, uncivil and selfish that the fated romance between Julia and Sylvester seems to flower in a noxious wasteland. Wesley's dialogue still comes bouncing off the page, and she still produces observations that make other writers seem to write with blinders on, but the rickety plot of this one makes it not quite up to standard.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mary Wesley published her first novel 10 years ago at age 70. Eight books later, her powers are undiminished. This delightful story opens with a young woman, Julia Piper, stopping a train to save a sheep who is stuck on the tracks. This event affects two passengers on the train in very different ways: Maurice Benson, a dissolute bird-watcher, wants to seduce Julia; Sylvester Wykes, nearly divorced and deeply embittered, is so impressed with Julia's pluck that he protects her from Maurice. The lives of the three characters are charmingly interwoven throughout the rest of this too short novel. Although a tale of modern London, the novel is blessedly free of that peculiarly English sense of ennui that seems to pervade much contemporary British fiction. Sylvester and Julia are moral characters treading water in a cynically sophisticated society; their only kindred spirits are the Patels, an Indian couple who run the neighborhood grocery store/community center. The chapter in which the Patels comfort a grieving Julia includes one of the most moving passages in recent literature. Do your readers a favor: don't let them miss this novel! George Needham

When Julia Piper pulls the emergency cord on a British Rail train and runs out to rescue a stranded sheep, she inadvertently attracts the interest of two fellow passengers: Sylvester Wykes, a youngish, sophisticated book editor, whose wife has just left him; and Maurice Benson, an obnoxious bird watcher and aspiring writer. From this improbable opening, Wesley (A Dubious Legacy, LJ 10/1/92) has deftly fashioned a delightful love story and charming comedy of manners. Hoping to write an article about Julia, Maurice discovers that she is grieving for her young son, recently killed in an automobile accident. Staunchly independent and down to earth, Julia supports herself by cleaning houses for people she never sees. She is taking refuge in one such empty house when the owner, Sylvester, comes home unexpectedly, remembers her from the train, and promptly falls in love. With wry humor and intelligent, likable characters, Wesley gracefully steers her fantasy to a happy ending. Warmly recommended.
Patricia Ross, Westerville P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670856495
• ISBN 13: 9780670856497
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224