Currently reading
Alex
The Glass Room
Peter the Great: His Life and World
If I Can't Have You: Susan Powell, Her Mysterious Disappearance, and the Murder of Her Children
Skin Deep
The Good Daughter
A Boy in Winter
The Tie That Binds
The Idiot (Everyman's Library, #254)
The Velvet Hours
The Vet's Daughter (New York Review Books Classics)
The Vets Daughter by Barbara Comyns was published in 1959.I came across this novel in an interesting article in a women's magazine in the book section. The writer of the article had chosen a popular female author from the 1920s, 1930s and 40s and 50s and recommended a couple of books by each of these authors as fiction worth reading today. I thought it was an interesting idea and picked a novel by each author and The vet's daughter is my first one.
A short book consisting of 133 pages so not too taxing. The story is about Alice who lives with her brutal and strange veterinary father and bedridden mother in a sinister suburb of London.
The Vet's daughter is a harrowing and haunting tale of family life with a little magic realism thrown in and a lot of strange behaviour on the parts of the characters. I enjoyed the writing and the story progressed slowly however some of the characters actions were difficult to understand. The ending left me baffled and therefore probably reflects my low rating on this novel.
An interesting read but not a book I will be recommending.
 - 'Barbara Comyns', 'Kathryn Davis (Introduction)')