"Mothering Sunday" by Graham Swift

“Mothering Sunday” is about a young maidservant’s coming-of-age. A clever orphan named Jane Fairchild--a name given by the orphanage --who is “put into service” at the age of 14 has a prolonged affair with the son of a neighbouring family; makes her way to work in a bookshop in Oxford; and eventually becomes a celebrated author. (In one review it has been speculated that the novel is really a story made up by Jane Fairchild herself in her old age.)

Mothering Sunday—in the book, March 30, 1924—is a day on which girls in service were traditionally given the day off to visit their mothers, and the head of the household in which Jane works gives her a half-a-crown and tells her the day is hers. The family with whom she works and the neighbouring family to which her lover belongs are going to have lunch together, although her lover will not take part but will meet and lunch with the girl he will shortly marry. But a phone call from the lover tells her to come to his house, which will be completely empty of family and domestic staff, so that they can make love in his bed. Which they do, and then he slowly dresses, watched by the naked Jane, and leaves in his car to meet his fiancee. Jane wanders naked around the empty house. The rest you must read.

This is the sort of novel that gets the cliché “a gem” and I would agree with that. It is really a novella. It can almost be read in one sitting. Beautifully written.

It has been published in the U.S. and very well reviewed.