I have been a huge fan of Kate Atkinson since reading Behind the Scenes at the Museum in 1995 and I have consumed everything she has written since. Her latest, Shrines of Gaiety is, as I had expected, another literary masterpiece!
London in 1926 is is teeming with survivors of the Great War. Its many nightclubs cater to the almost frantic search for gaiety and good times while the cold light of day reveals poverty, hunger and vulnerability, girls hoping to become stars of the stage and screen, criminals and corrupt policemen.
Kate Atkinson’s technique of revealing the outcome of an event and then going back to what happened and how it happened always works, as it does in this book. She presents all of her characters objectively while at the same time getting to the essence of each one. They are always honest at least with themselves, no matter how they present to the world outside. This is Kate Atkinson’s trademark approach which makes her novels so identifiable as hers alone.
The shadow of World War I and its ghastly outcome of the depletion of the young male population as well as the post traumatic effects on survivors hovers over the story, but for all the harm some are willing to inflict to try and make it to the top of what is left there is kindness and compassion shown by others, hopefully evening up the score somewhat in an effort to get the world back on kilter (before it will all come crashing down again, of course).
Nelly Coker with her nightclubs and her family; Gwendolyn who has come to London looking for two lost girls; Frobisher the good policeman and Maddox the bad policeman; the Bright Young Things and many other characters make this one of Kate Atkinson’s best novels, and that is saying something!
Published by Penguin Random House UK.
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