The Uninvited Guests

Starred review from March 19, 2012
Sterne, the English country house at the center of this remarkable dark comedy, is home to the Torringtons—mother Charlotte, a widow now married to Edward Swift; children Emerald, Clovis, and “Smudge”; and an assortment of faithful staff. Set sometime in the early part of the 20th century, somewhere in the north of England (the ambiguity is telling), the novel takes place over a single day, April 30. A celebration is underway for Emerald’s 20th birthday, and what appears to be a Wodehouseian comedy with a touch of Dodie Smith is derailed when a local train jumps its track, soon filling Sterne with stranded, shocked passengers. The “uninvited guests” are decidedly lower class and deliberately indistinct, but for one notable exception: Charlie Traversham-Beechers, who seems to know a good deal about the family, particularly Charlotte. Jones’s (Small Wars) characters are delightfully eccentric, the wit delightfully droll, and the prose simply delightful. But for all its charm, this is a serious book; it’s no coincidence that the new day dawning at its close is May Day, or International Workers’ Day, though Jones’s theme is less class warfare than the seemingly absolute divide between the classes. Agent: Stephanie Cabot, the Gernert Company.

Starred review from April 15, 2012

Can there be anything more properly British than a weekend house party in the country? The down-on-their-luck Torrington siblings, who with their mother and stepfather make up the household, have great hopes for this weekend for many reasons; it would appear that the few invited guests have motives of their own for coming. It is the entirely unexpected and somehow unusual group of passengers from a railway accident, foisted on the household, who will provide a catalyst for true change by the end of the novel. VERDICT Excellent characterization combines with a plot sprinkled with hints of secrets to be revealed to produce a page-turning read that blurs the edges of the country house mystery. In her third novel (after the Costa First Novel Award-winning The Outcast and Small Wars), Jones demonstrates a talented writer's versatile imagination and originality. [See Prepub Alert, 11/21/11.]--Pamela O'Sullivan, SUNY at Brockport Lib.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2012
Strange goings-on at an Edwardian country house. Jones (Small Wars, 2010, etc.) quickly establishes a tension-riddled scenario. Charlotte Torrington Swift is in danger of losing Sterne, the grand manor bought for her by her adoring first husband, who couldn't afford it and died leaving a pile of debts. Second husband Edward is off to Manchester to try and save Sterne--not that this wins him any favor from petulant Clovis and Emerald, who have never liked their stepfather. Edward will miss Emerald's 20th birthday party, to which childhood friends Patience and Ernest Sutton have been invited; spoiled but good-natured Emerald worries that the clever, unfashionable siblings will be rudely treated by her ill-tempered brother and their status-obsessed mother. Circumstances become even more unpromising with the arrival of survivors of a terrible crash on the nearby branch line, whom the Great Central Railway informs Charlotte will have to be hosted overnight. There's something very odd about these passengers, and odder still about Charlie Traversham-Beechers, another survivor and an old acquaintance of Charlotte's, though she's clearly alarmed to see him. Traversham-Beechers is invited to the awkward birthday dinner, while housekeeper Florence Trieves struggles to find food for his increasingly rowdy fellow passengers. He uses a self-invented game, Hinds and Hounds, to encourage the airing of everyone's unpleasant opinions about each other, and the game ends with Traversham-Beechers' ugly revelations about Charlotte's past. At this point, what seemed to be a savage comedy of manners takes a 90-degree turn and becomes a supernatural confection. There's no question about Jones' skill--the novel is cleverly constructed and written in smooth prose. It's quite a step down in ambition and moral seriousness, however, from her two previous novels. The nasty climax to Hinds and Hounds, obviously intended to make a statement about the human capacity for evil, has its impact muffled by the deliberately implausible happy ending, modeled on a Shakespearean romance. A peculiar change of pace for this gifted author.

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