September - Rosamunde Pilcher

...daughter Katy's 21st birthday in September that year, and wants to know what Violet thinks.

The entire book then revolves around the focus of this dance, featuring some of the people who will be attending. Verena herself plays only a very small part, and Katy doesn't appear at all until towards the end of the book when the dance takes place. But they're always in the back of our minds, providing links with the other characters who ...
...far more significant character. She often takes a passive part, watching her children and grandchildren and their friends. She does what she can to help, she worries for them, and yet she keeps her own counsel most of the time. She's a delightful person: wise, loving and rather ascerbic. Rosamunde Pilcher has a great gift for writing about the elderly, partly because she took up writing when she was past middle age herself.

She also ... more

This book is set in Scotland over four months. It opens in May when Verena Steynton drops in to see the elderly Violet Aird, to ask her advice. Verena is planning a huge party - a ball with country dancing to live music - for her daughter Katy's 21st birthday in September that year, and wants to know what Violet thinks.

The entire book then revolves around the focus of this dance, featuring some of the people who will be attending. Verena herself plays only a very small part, and Katy doesn't appear at all until towards the end of the book when the dance takes place. But they're always in the back of our minds, providing links with the other characters who take the main roles.

Violet is a far more significant character. She often takes a passive part, watching her children and grandchildren and their friends. She does what she can to help, she worries for them, and yet she keeps her own counsel most of the time. She's a delightful person: wise, loving and rather ascerbic. Rosamunde Pilcher has a great gift for writing about the elderly, partly because she took up writing when she was past middle age herself.

She also has a gift for writing about children. I found Violet's youngest grandson, eight-year-old Henry, to be one of the most lovable people in this book. He's extremely bright, but sometimes has trouble when he misunderstands things that other children seem to know automatically. Practical and sensitive, he generally worries too much. But he has something to worry about: his father, an old-fashioned upper-class type, is determined that Henry shall go to boarding school now he is eight. Henry's mother, however, is totally against it, despite the proposed school being well-equipped for helping small children. The growing tension between Henry's parents plays a central part in the novel.

As well as the old and the young, there are many characters in between all invited to Katy's ball. There's Alexa, Henry's grown-up half-sister, who lives on her own in London and begins a new relationship. There's Archie, who used to be Henry's father's best friend, and who suffers from post-war traumas. There's Isabel, Archie's wife, who works far too hard enteraining American visitors on tour in Scotland. And there's Pandora, Archie's wayward younger sister who eloped at the age of eighteen and is Majorca; she has not returned to Scotland for twenty years.

That's not all. But although the cast is fairly large, I didn't find it overwhelmingly so. The characters were distinct,all with their own voices and mannerisms so clearly drawn that I felt as if I would recognise them all, should I find myself suddenly in their village. I did find myself slightly confused about the various relationships early in the book, once or twice, but it didn't really matter.

Of course it's pure escapism. Most of us don't live in the upper and upper-middle class society that Rosamunde Pilcher appears to know so well, and will never have to worry about keeping up costly family mansions or sending our children to prep school at a young age. But despite my unfamiliarity with the kind of people this book deals with, I found them believable and realistic, and felt deeply for almost all of them.

I've read 'September' four times now, and I enjoy it afresh each time. There are parts where I smile, and a few sections where I have tears in my eyes. The first time I read it, I felt some suspense towards the end of the book; I worried that something terrible was going to happen. The event I worried about didn't happen; instead there was a different climax, shocking and yet almost a relief after the previous build-up. Re-reading, I don't feel the same sense of tension, but then I don't like suspense, so that's a plus point. The first time I read it, I could barely put it down by the time I was half-way through.

Anyone who has read and liked 'The Shell Seekers' by the same author would probably love this novel. It has the added bonus of one character from that book (Noel Keeling, Penelope's middle son: older and more mature) but there's no need to have read it first. 'September' stands alone as an evocative and very moving novel. I would recommend to to anyone - teenager or adult - who has time to relax, to enjoy the Scottish countryside and the people who populate it, to feel their pain and share their worries. Some problems are resolved, others are not; the ending is somewhat bittersweet, but reassuring at the same time.

It's not a short book, and it's certainly not shallow, but not heavy either. For my tastes it's the best kind of character-based writing, with sufficient plot to keep it moving and plenty of subplots to keep it interesting. In my view, it's the perfect book to take on holiday.

'September' was written in 1990 and has remained continually in print: the paperback edition is published by Coronet and is available in most good bookshops for £6.99 or at Amazon for £5.59. There's an audio version of this available too, £9.99 in shops or £6.99 at Amazon. In addition Amazon have plenty of second-hand editions in their Marketplace, and it's the kind of book frequently found in charity shops. I certainly won't be getting rid of my copy, however; I shall probably continue to re-read it every two or three years until it falls to pieces.  

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