I treasure these books so much that I can remember where I was while reading each of them. I read this on my breaks during my first month as a waiter in a corporate chain restaurant a few years ago. This is, second to On the Yard, one of my favorite NYRB editions. Escapism is a beautiful thing.
The story takes place during the summer at a rich estate in the British countryside. The narrator has no money to live properly amongst the class he can just barely keep up belonging to. He spends the summer with a school mate’s family and becomes intoxicated with the life they can be so careless with. A life he has to study to make sure his presentation is just right. He is the letter-deliverer in a romance he doesn’t understand, but plays a large hand in destroying. This book could be many things, many other manor home intrigues if it wasn’t for Hartley’s handling of both memory and adolescence. The premise is that this secret is finally being let out and we get both the clarity of retrospect and the preciousness of a child playing as an adult.
I wish I could remember more clearly what it was that captured me so strongly, there are many scenes that still stand out. You knew these people and heard them speak and felt more than anything the wonder and struggle and pain and joy of this boy trying to be perfect and mature.
