Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Posted by Ms K on January 2, 2024 in All | Leave a comment

Well happy 2024 Readheads. Let’s get to it. It is holiday time and if you are looking for a goodie to dive into, look no further.

This book might be called Small Pleasures but it was a humungous pleasure to read. It’s the sort of book you can’t wait to get home too and I loved every single page – except the last one because it meant Jean, Howard, Gretchen and Margaret wouldn’t be part of my day anymore.

Apparently Small Pleasures is a ‘word of mouth’ phenomena and I can see why – I haven’t stopped raving about it since I finished it. I too only grabbed it because a friend said it was her favourite book of the 2023. It’s probably mine too.

Set in the late 1950s in the suburbs of London, Jean Swinney is a journalist at the local paper, living a life of duty caring for her difficult mother. She’s trapped and unhappy and uninspired with her lot at work usually reporting on gardening shows, kitchen tips and mundane community musings.

And then Gretchen Tilbury contacts the paper claiming her daughter is the result of a virgin birth and Jean takes on the challenge to discover if it is a miracle or a lie. She becomes close to Gretchen’s family – her husband Howard and daughter Margaret arranging all the tests required to prove immaculate conception or not. She follows up every person who knew Gretchen during the time in question and throughout it all, even Jean remains unsure. All the clues lead to Gretchen telling the truth so could it actually be true?

It all becomes too confusing for Jean – the story, Gretchen, her relationship with Gretchen’s husband and her mother’s increasing needs. The more she investigates the more she becomes invested and the more she cares deeply for them all. They because friends and then they all become more.

There is a steadiness in Chamber’s storytelling which she interrupts with some really gut wrenching right-turns. Single lines that appear about of nowhere to stop you. Right there. Eyebrows up. Breath held. And the ending, well, some people say they saw it coming. I didn’t. I was too merrily caught up in the story but that last page…no no no no no. NO!

But really, having held on through the entire book, deeply entrenched in each of the characters and the story, it couldn’t end any other way I suppose.

I loved it. All of it. All of them. Immaculately.

And that is just my two cents worth.