Uncle Paul: Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday

Product Information

Notice to Internet Explorer users Server security: Please note Internet Explorer users with versions 9 and 10 now need to enable TLS 1. Celia Fremlin (1914–2009) was born in Kent and spent her childhood in Hertfordshire, before studying at Oxford (whilst working as a charwoman). Fremlin is always wonderful for her acute observations and for the social history embedded in her books and, for the first half, the creepy element felt like an add on to me that rather distracted from all the delights of awkward children (Cedric, the boy who knows everything; Peter and 'sharkie' who lives under the caravan steps), squabbling with fellow guests at a nearby hotel over when to light a fire, and the inevitable colonel who wants to run everything. Windows users should also consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, or switching to Firefox or Chrome. For myself the entertainment rested on Fremlin's children - a classic 50s child, Cedric, who manages on most occasions to outsmart the adults, and Isabel's two small boys, doing precisely child-like things, with a vivid sense of children's self-focus.

With two sisters full of neuroses and issues, Meg sees no other option but to go and sort out their problems. The setting is slightly atypical as Fremlin usually specialises in suburban unease - here the families are just as dysfunctional but there is the added fun and hilarity of taking them out of their usual habitat and dumping them down at the seaside complete with 1950s inconveniences (the caravan door that won't open unless you hurl your body at it), unpredictable British weather (rain one minute, hot sunshine the next), sand in the sandwiches. It’s quite a short book and although not that much happens along the way I found myself really wanting to know what happens but it’s not till towards the end of the book does the pace quicken and everything falls into place. Nearly always, in the early stages, it seems more like a nuisance; just one more of those tiresome interruptions which come so provokingly just when life is going smoothly and pleasantly. And the doubts about Philip and Freddy are brilliantly handled, especially when it’s so difficult to guess how old they are!It’s like water running down a drain pipe - it couldn’t go any other way, But the Ugly Sisters - Ah, that’s the challenge! It all comes to a glorious climax which is, arguably, more 'psychological' than some of Fremlin's later books. Yes, this book is entertaining, there are some funny moments and it's clever, but still I ask myself - the point? Fremlin had been on my ‘must try’ list for years, so I’m very happy to have finally got around to her! Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today.

There's gentle humour too, with character types and scenarios you'd expect to see in any Fawlty Towers or Agatha Christie. Mildred is staying in a nearby clifftop cottage where she honeymooned years ago with her first husband Paul and is not enjoying the eerie atmosphere and lack of creature comforts.The descriptions as indeed all the asides the characters made were fascinating, like a painting made of words. Her observations are great and the sometimes unglamorous context of caravan parks to disappointing British seaside holidays are perfectly captured. In the belief that Mildred would be far better off virtually anywhere else than in an isolated cottage with no amenities, Meg persuades her half-sister to move into a local hotel, a delightfully old-fashioned place with an odd assortment of guests. Fifteen years ago, Mildred discovered that her husband, Meg and Isabel’s, ‘Uncle Paul,’ was not who he seemed and he went to prison. Meg has a sister, Isabel, plus an older, half-sister, Mildred, who looked after her, after her mother’s death.

There is an odd referral to - The Sleeping Beauty, in Fremlin's novel which happens to be a sort of peep-show on the pier - a sleeping snake! The tension managed to build almost imperceptibly as the characters go about their seaside holiday with trip to the beach, fairground and hotels, all the whole the sisters start to worry about the people they are spending time with, could one of them be Uncle Paul in disguise? Uncle Paul delivered on spine-chilling thrills but does not feel like a novel destined to live long in the memory.

It seems that Mildred has left Hubert and ended up at a nearby cottage – the very same cottage where she honeymooned with her first husband, Paul, some fifteen years earlier. All augmented by sinister happenings that might be real or imaginary: the sound of footsteps outside; the creaking of a wardrobe within; the brush of something unknown against the cheek.

First, Mildred had to change into an entirely new outfit, including a different shade of nail varnish which took a quarter of an hour to dry. Captain Cockerill was gallantly anxious that Mildred and her two sisters should accompany him for a walk along the promenade; and Meg could only hope that the poor little man was prepared for the way in which this simple proposal, in the hands of Mildred and Isabel, at once took on the character of a large-scale manoeuvre. She seems largely unknown, but maybe this will be another hit for Faber, and bring her some of the recognition she deserves. I loved the balance between tension and normality in this one, and the humour played a key role in diffusing some of that angst.The "twist" and the intensity doesn't really happen until the last 15 pages of the book, and until then, it is dragged out by pointless characters and scenarios. Surely, he’d be looking to start a new life elsewhere, keen to put the past behind him following his release from jail? It’s most effective as a satirical portrait of Brits at the seaside, with little tension to be found. With Paul possibly released from prison, could increasingly spooky happenings indicate his presence and increasing danger for the trio? In my mind, she is bracketed with Celia Dale, whose marvellously sinister domestic noir, A Helping Hand, was one of my favourite reads from last year .