This 1931 novel by the British author and playwright R.C. Sherriff was recommended by the guide on our architectural tour of the City of London.  Given the fact that I have a notebook with at least one hundred book recommendations from friends and book reviews and given the fact that I had loaded at least five novels onto my Kindle in anticipation of this trip, I’m not sure why I spent days searching this book out in various wonderful bookshops in London and then chose to push it to the front of the queue and read it.

I finally found the volume at Blackwells, an extraordinarily large and attractive book seller in the midst of the Oxford colleges and across from the Bodleian Library.  It was in a special section for Persephone Books, a Bath UK publisher whose books come in a distinctive gray, solid paper—a thing of beauty.

Well, on to the book, one which has been described as ‘nothing happens and everything happens.’ The first part of that quote was evident in the early chapters as we meet the Stevens family–the father, Ernie in his late ’50’s, mother Flossie, 20 year old Mary, 18 year old Dick, and 10 year old Eddie—as they make preparations for their annual two week stay in the English coastal resort of Bognor.  My interest began to flag as they worked through the Marching Orders for leaving, e.g. Mary had to take Joe, the canary next door to poor Mrs. Haykin and they needed to leave the cat with Mrs. Bullevant—well, you can see that this is not exactly a compelling plot, but don’t despair, more is coming.

The family trains to Clapham Junction and changes for Bognor.  We settle in with them at Seaview, an increasingly shabby B&B operated by the widowed Mrs. Huggins, where they’ve spent their fortnight vacation for 20 years.  We spend time with each of the family members as Ernie looks back on his two major life disappointments, Flossie faces her fear of the sea that she must hide from the family, Dick decides to chuck his career as a clerk and pursue architecture, and Mary has her first romantic fling.  Along the way we are faced with the ‘quiet desperation of man’ described by Thoreau.  The family members are all quietly courageous but trapped in the life that the class system, meager wealth, and social customs has built around them.

By early in the book, the boring tale of an English family heading to the shore had become a page turner, and by its end, the book left me with a feeling of sadness for the struggles that most of the world faces and a feeling of admiration for their ‘soldiering on.’

Sherriff is a rather fascinating guy.  Wounded in WWI, he wrote Journey End, a play which was first performed with the 21 year old Laurence Olivier in the starring role and had a two year run in London in 1929.  This book was nominated by Kazuo Ishiguro as a book to ‘inspire, uplift and offer escape’ in a list compiled by The Guardian during the COVID-19 pandemic, describing it as “just about the most uplifting, life-affirming novel I can think of right now”.

Thanks to Antony for the recommendation.  This volume will travel back to the U.S. with me and I’m sure I will recollect this read with quiet pleasure when I see it on my shelves.