I am really getting into this writer big time. This book is apparently semi-autobiographical and if so: wow. It tells about a family of sisters growing up in a crumbling mansion who are left pretty much to their own devices. Try this story of how their parents got together:
. . . he thought she looked very nice so he said ‘When you grow up I will marry you ask your Mother to teach you how to cook’ He bought her a goat and a white kitten to remember him by, but the goat burst and the kitten was run over by a train . .
The book is full of strange, fanciful stuff, a weird evocation of childhood, where you don’t know quite what is real and what is not. And when you accept what is happening around you is normal:
Once when Beatrix was a baby he (their father) got so furious because of her crying her threw her down the stairs, fortunately a cook called Harriat caught her . . after that Harriat kept her in her bedroom at night so that he couldn’t hear her crying which was a good thing in case there hadn’t been anyone to catch her the next time, but Harriat had to leave soon after because her feet smelt.
I mean: ?!? Comyns went on to have an inspirationally varied life: lived everywhere, worked multiple jobs (many of them bizarre), struggled with the rent, failed as a painter, succeeded as a writer. What a woman, what an example to us all.
I am reading it now and enjoying it !!