I'm always interested in epigraphs, and that of Sadie Jones's delicious Edwardian comedy of manners The Uninvited Guests is from Byron's Don Juan: "Their table was a board to tempt even ghosts / To pass the Styx for more substantial feasts".
The events of the book do indeed take place before, during and after a feast - a twentieth birthday party for Emerald Torrington at her family's country house, Sterne.
The house is large and rambling, but also crumbling, costing money which the family has not got, so Emerald's stepfather goes off on one last attempt to raise funds to save it, leaving his wife and her children to entertain the guests arriving for the birthday party. But just as events are about to get underway, a group of strangers turns up at the door. Survivors of a train derailment nearby, they have been sent to take shelter at Sterne until such time as the railway company can make further arrangements for them, and shocked and dazed by their ordeal they seem barely aware of where they are let alone what's to become of them.
So the evening progresses, the family and their friends beginning the birthday celebrations while in another part of the house the uninvited guests drink tea and quietly wait. But all is not as it seems ....
I'll give you no more plot than that, but what I will say is that this is full of threaticality and eccentric set-pieces and uses its exaggerated edge to great effect. It is vivid and mad and funny - with its gothic overtones from 'the insubstantial' to that most useful and atmospheric of devices the dark and stormy night, its villain and unlikely heroes - and it's beautifully written, every sentence just so. I caught something of the rhythm of Rosalind Belben's Our Horses in Egypt in the narrative, but it's its own book: stylishly satirical and arch as you like, a caricature of drawing room comedies and melodramatic romances, a ghost story as farce. It's very well done and great fun!
I have this to read (very soon I hope!). Thank you for whetting my appetite so perfectly!
Posted by: litlove | 13 April 2013 at 09:28 PM
I do hope you'll enjoy it - its roots are in a lot of books/genres, and understated it is certainly not, but I found it over the top in a wonderful way!
Posted by: Cornflower | 14 April 2013 at 03:37 PM
I did enjoy this when I read it last year but I did have to re-read the final bit to work out what had actually happened and make sure I hadn't missed a bit.
Certainly a change from her previous books!
(didn't make it far enough into Our Horses in Egypt to be able to judge - far too upsetting for someone as sentimental as I am!)
Posted by: LizF | 17 April 2013 at 09:38 AM
Yes, the pace is quite fast and you do have to keep your wits about you!
Posted by: Cornflower | 17 April 2013 at 02:26 PM