Temples of Delight

Alice Pilling becomes obsessed with discovering what happened to Jem, her best friend at school, who mysteriously disappeared without a trace

While set in the present, Trapido's ( Brother of the More Famous Jack ) third novel seems somehow caught in a timeless past when girls went to finishing school to learn "how to emerge gracefully from a Rolls-Royce in a hat." It thus conveys in many ways the unchanging rhythms of the British upper middle class with its rigid caste structures. Shy, naive and afflicted with a stammer, Alice Pilling, the novel's main character, is the daughter of a real estate developer. Her dreary, ordered world is enlivened with the arrival at her school of Jem McCrail, sophisticated, mendacious and given to delightful malapropisms. The plot revolves around the pair's relationship over the ensuing years--a relationship leavened with more than a little sexual ambiguity. Though witty, lyrical, at times rollicking, Alice and Jem's story is ultimately tragic; yet even in tragedy there is a note of triumph. These are two women who refuse to be done in by life--or death--and who see defeats as opportunities for growth and transformation. Well-crafted, richly textured and full of surprises, the book is reminiscent of Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds , and the themes of its novel within-a-novel consciously evoke the work of Giuseppe di Lampedusa. In addition, Trapido has created, in Jem, a truly memorable character.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

One of those amiably literate British novels, with modest intellectual pretensions, vivid characters, and a creaky but engaging plot. When Alice Pilling first met brilliant and beautiful Jem MacCrail back in her very proper private girls' school, she was enchanted with Jem's insouciance, the remarkable stories she wrote and told, and her contempt for school rules. The two soon became friends, much to the concern of Alice's prosperous and upwardly mobile parents, who adored their only child. But for quiet Alice, Jem was the perfect friend--one who suggested all the rich possibilities of life beyond suburbia. Jem introduced her to literature, to music--in particular The Magic Flute, which gives a sort of intermittent thematic structure to the story here--and regaled her with tales of her colorful family, a family radically unlike the Pillings. But Jem left school as abruptly as she arrived, giving Alice the novel and stories she had written as mementos. Alice went up to Oxford, was courted by the estimable Roland, but nothing ever quite measured up to Jem and her stories. But now, while recuperating from a car accident, Alice receives an all-explaining letter from Jem, now pregnant and on the point of death. Alice is too late to see Jem, but the baby becomes hers, and quiet and agnostic Alice, fighting to get Jem's novel published, finds true love and faith at last. An often barely credible plot is more than compensated for by an unerring eye for the telling detail and nuance--and by a splendid assortment of vibrant characters. An eminently satisfying read from Trapido (Brother of the More Famous Jack, 1982). -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Trapido's third novel centers on two characters: Alice, an upper-middle-class only child of indulgent parents, and Jem, a poor, orphaned, worldly rebel with an imaginary family and a romantic outlook. The girls meet at school and become inseparable, literally and figuratively. Then Jem drops out of school and leaves Surrey, while Alice continues on to Oxford University. During her search for self, Alice also searches for Jem. Their eventual reunion is tragic but gives Alice's life new meaning. Discussing The Magic Flute , Jem explains, "It makes sense in the way that a dream makes sense." The same is true of this novel. It has a surrealistic quality, and the flow of events and transitions in time and space are dreamlike. A delightful reading experience.
- Rita Ciresi, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.