a sensible life

A Sensible Life by Mary Wesley (Viking, 1990)

Odd, because of its uncanny similarity to The Camomile Lawn in terms of tone, character, and plot.  Although the world of the book spans decades and continents, it seems comprised of only a dozen people who consistently re-encounter one another by coincidence.  But, like CL, charmingly readable and engaging, and the characters are vivid and sympathetic.  There’s something crude about Wesley’s novels, an authorial directness and lack of subtlety that gives them a slightly cartoonish vibrancy a la Tin Tin.  And the pleasures thereof.