First published in 1954, this is a story of the end of a marriage. Evelyn, a distinguished barrister, has a beautiful wife 15 years his junior called Imogen. She is submissive and passive to the point that she almost has no character of her own, and becomes more so the longer the novel goes on.

Their plain neighbour, Blanche, is two years older than Evelyn. She’s presented as unremarkable in every respect, but becomes an object of fascination for Evelyn, and also an 11-year-old boy, in a weird narrative choice. The fascination is attributable to the fact that she actually has a character of her own, some opinions, and can converse reasonably.

Evelyn and Blanche start an affair; it takes forever for Imogen to realise what’s going on, and she just sort of subserviently leaves.

I did not enjoy this. The characters are all thoroughly unlikable, and are living in unthinkable social straitjackets. Almost everything they did or said made me want to fling the book across the room—though I didn’t because it was a rather lovely original from the London Library.

But mostly, this book is slow. It’s not slow in the sense of contemplative and reflective, it’s just stuffed with loquacious description and scene-setting.

This was absolutely not for me.