42. Tyler's Row by 'Miss Read'

There must already be an existing genre for this kind of book, quite well-known among a certain generation.  It's a cozy cozy.  Or just a cozy.  I mean look at the cover!  I read after that it is the middle of a 20+ series of books about an English village called Fairacre and all the people and goings-on that happen in and around it in the second half of the 20th century.  I suspect that other than that they are in post-war England, the actual decades do not matter that much, as the interactions that go on among the townsfolks and visitors are mostly timeless.

Tyler's Row is specifically about a small property with four little cottages on it. The owner is getting old and decides to sell it.  After some back and forth, it is purchased by a middle-aged couple whose grown children have left home.  The story is basically about them inspecting the property, their decision behind buying it, fixing it up and dealing with their two difficult tenants.  Interspersed with their story, in the third person, is the first person narrative of Miss Read herself, the local primary school principal, who also hears the village scuttlebutt about goings-on a Tyler's Row.

It's like a plate of digestive cookies at tea, very easy to eat and satisfying.  The worst tension is a possible cat poisoning, but the cat survives and you are quite sure it will (and animal death was not such a big deal in rural England in those times as it is today).  Otherwise, the pleasures in this book are the pleasant exchanges of the various people and the revelations of their character.  There are some barbs in the dialogue and not everyone is so pleasant themselves, but underlying it all is an appreciation of the British character.  You can see why she was much loved and earned the Order of Britain.

It's funny because my sister just told me after reading a lot of British books that maybe deep down, the reality is that the British are just awful people.  This was further reinforced by listening to this great radio show where Henry Rollins and Ian Mackaye recount their first tour of England with Black Flag and what an utter shitshow it was. They were not paid, not fed, only sheltered by the kindness of punk strangers and spit upon by the crowd.  I get the resentment of Americans at that time, but just the general cheapness and squalor did bring home to me that despite all these idyllic fictons, England has a very brutal, nasty side that we should not forget. 

You will forget it reading any of Miss Read's books and if that interests you, I recommend that you do. Very enjoyable.