Our Spoons Came From Woolworths: A Virago Modern Classic (Virago Modern Classics) - Softcover

Comyns, Barbara

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1844089274 ISBN 13: 9781844089277

Publisher: Virago, 2013

Synopsis

Pretty, unworldly Sophia is twenty-one years old and hastily married to a young painter called Charles. An artist's model with an eccentric collection of pets, she is ill-equipped to cope with the bohemian London of the 1930s, where poverty, babies (however much loved) and husband conspire to torment her. Hoping to add some spice to her life, Sophia takes up with Peregrine, a dismal, ageing critic, and comes to regret her marriage - and her affair. But in this case virtue is more than its own reward, for repentance brings an abrupt end to the cycle of unsold pictures, unpaid bills and unwashed dishes . . .

About this title

About the Author:

Barbara Comyns (1909-92) was born in Bidford-on-Avon in Warwickshire. She was an artist and writer, worked in advertising, dealt in old cars and antiques, bred poodles and developed property. She was twice married, and she and her second husband lived in Spain for eighteen years, returning to the UK in the early 1970s. She is the author of eleven books, includingSisters by a River(1947),Our Spoons Came from Woolworths(1950),The Vet's Daughter(1959),The Skin Chairs(1962) andA Touch of Mistletoe(1967). She died in Shropshire in 1992

Review:

"Comyns's world is weird and wonderful ... there's also something uniquely original about her voice. Tragic, comic and completely bonkers all in one, I'd go as far as to call her something of a neglected genius." --Lucy Scholes, The Observer

"A Depression-era artist struggles with crippling poverty and sexism in bohemian London; the result is a surprisingly charming and funny novel...Much of the story revolves around issues of reproduction, housework, and economic opportunity that contemporary feminists would see as questions of justice. But Sophia narrates a story of fairy tale-like fatality, casting an amused, self-deprecating light on even the most painful moments." —Kirkus starred review

"A startling, immersive excavation of poor, young womanhood and marriage gone awry in 1930s London.” —Jane Yong Kim, BOMB magazine

“Our Spoons contains one of the best distillations of Comyns' peculiar style currently available stateside, and is essential for understanding her dark, delightful oeuvre...calculatedly meek, yet sharp enough to give you paper cuts.” —Amy Gentry, Chicago Tribune

“Her capturing of youth is so fresh and accurate that nothing is lost in the passing of decades. There is a modern sensibility at play in her women and their experiences, their attitudes and reactions towards love and sex, marriage and having children...quietly startling...Comyns’s skill is subtle and surprising...I felt both thrill and pride, and I expect as her work continues to be reissued this sense of finding a hidden gem will be shared by other readers, startled and attracted by her talent.”—Lauren Goldenberg, Music and Literature

“A curious hybrid: a mixture of domestic disaster, social commentary, comedy, and romance...What I find so really excellent in this novel, in addition to Comyns’s powers of description and the slow fuse of her comedy, is her ability to show the cold world and its indecencies without spelling everything out...Comyns is a virtuoso at portraying bad behavior...written beautifully, with dash and economy, and...truly unique in [its] eccentric black comedy, whether grotesque or ineffably subtle.” —Katherine A. Powers, The Barnes & Noble Review

"I defy anyone to read the opening pages and not to be drawn in, as I was . . . Quite simply, Comyns writes like no one else" --Maggie O'Farrell

"Comyn's voice has childlike qualities; she looks at everything in the world as though seeing it for the first time. In later books, though, her narrators' naivety is deployed in order to provoke horror; the gap between what the reader knows and the narrator doesn't serves to make the reader fascinated and fearful." --Emily Gould, The Awl

About this edition

• Publisher: Virago
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1844089274
• ISBN 13: 9781844089277
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208