The Unknown Bridesmaid
Margaret Forster, 2014
Europa Editions
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781609452223
Summary
Margaret Forster's twenty-sixth work of fiction is a subtle, psychologically probing of personal history, guilt, and redemption.
Julia, a troubled and isolated child with few friends, is tormented by the irreperable damage she believes she has caused her family during a seemingly innocuous outing with her cousin's newborn hild.
Haunted by guilt and anxiety, she becomes a child psychologst and, later, a magistrate. Yet as The Guardian (UK) notes, "It's a gripping read without being a thriller because we are drawn ineluctably into something darker that we sense is always floating just beneath the surface of what Julia chooses to tell us."
Executed with razor-sharp control and remarkable confidence, Forster's novel is a powerful case study on the consequences of self-deception and the unforeseen effects it can have on he rest of our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 25, 1938
• Where—Carlisle, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Margaret Forster s an English author. She was born in Carlisle, England, where she attended Carlisle and County High School for Girls (1949–1956). She won an Open Scholarship to read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford,from where she graduated in 1960.
After a short period as a teacher at Barnsbury Girls' School in Islington, north London (1961–1963), she has worked as a novelist, biographer and freelance literary critic, contributing regularly to book programs on television, to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers and magazines. She was a member of the BBC Advisory Committee on the Social Effects of Television (1975–1977), the Arts Council Literary Panel (1978–1981), and chief reviewer for non-fiction in the Evening Standard (1977–1980). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975.
Forster is married to the writer, journalist and broadcaster Hunter Davies. They live in London and in the Lake District.
Works
She is the author of many successful novels, including Georgy Girl (1965) (filmed in 1966 and adapted for a short-lived 1970 Broadway musical), Lady's Maid (1990), Diary of an Ordinary Woman (2003), Have the Men Had Enough? (1989) and The Memory Box (1999), two memoirs, Hidden Lives (1995) and Precious Lives (1998), and several acclaimed biographies, most recently Good Wives (2001) and a fictionalised biography of the artist Gwen John, Keeping the world away (2006). She wrote Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin (1997), an account of the Carr's biscuit factory in Carlisle.
Awards
She has won awards for both her fiction and non-fiction works : Elizabeth Barrett Browning: a biography (Heinemann Award, 1989); Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller (Writers' Guild Award for Best Non-Fiction, 1993 – Fawcett Society Book Prize, 1994); Rich Desserts and Captain's Thin: a Family and Their Times 1831–1931 (Lex Prize of The Global Business Book Award, 1997); Precious Lives (J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography, 1999). (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/20/2014.)
Book Reviews
Forster does a stunning job of shaping each layer of Julia’s psychological perspective into a dark, prismatic whole, but if there’s one disappointment in this book, it’s the abrupt ending. The novel has gathered such tension, and our experience of Julia is so intimate, that the closing passages seem poised to open one final door. But the conclusion fails to offer new insight. Then again, perhaps that’s Forster’s point, given how well she has explored her characters’ penchants for rationalization and self-deception.... [A] mesmerizing, unsettling novel.
Michelle Wildgen - New York Times Book Review
Makes such uncomfortable reading that at times you can barely turn the page, but it's so compelling that you have to.
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Nobody is better than Margaret Forster, with her clear calm prose, at delineating the fault lines of the ordinary, unexceptional and hidden lives.
Jennifer Selway - Daily Express (UK)
Margaret Forster is a brilliant and prolific writer... her latest novel is one of her best. It's a gripping read.
Observer (UK)
There is no one to match [Forster] for the way her assured, subtle and careful prose can detail the insecurities, torments and problems of what are, to all surface appearances, just nondescript, unremarkable and often half-lived lives.
The Lady (UK)
Margaret Forster has a deft and idiosyncratic touch.
Penelope Lively - Spectator (UK)
A brilliantly uncomfortable read about the art of forgetfulness.
Emma Hagestadt - Independent (UK)
Brilliant... You won't put this book down until its emotional end.
Siraj Patel Daily Express (UK)
[D]ark, disquieting.... [R]eaches deep to explore hidden truths and raises issues about resolving past conflicts, but...somewhat heavy-handedly, she doesn't cover much territory. Thin on plot, the book may be best regarded as a...carefully considered character study that digs deep to explore the ways the past can shade and shape the present.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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