FRIENDLY YOUNG LADIES

Set in 1937, this is a romantic comedy of off-Bloomsbury bohemia. Sheltered, naïve and just 18 years old, Elsie leaves the stifling environment of her parents' home in Cornwall to seek out her sister Leo who had run away nine years earlier. She found Leo sharing a houseboat and a bed with the beautiful, fair-haired Helen. While Elsie's arrival seems innocent enough, it is the first of a series of events that will turn Helen and Leo's contented life inside out. Soon a randy young doctor is chasing after all three women at once, a neighbourly friendship begins to show an erotic tinge, and long-quiet ghosts from Leo's past begin to surface. Before long, no one is sure just who feels what for whom. Mary Renault wrote this delightfully provocative novel in the early 1940s, creating characters that are light-hearted, charming and free-spirited. Leo writes Westerns for a living on her Thames houseboat in this witty and stylish story with an insight into the world of upcoming writers and artists in 1930s London, the rejection of society's established sexual mores, and the heroic pursuit of arts and life. 336pp, paperback. Tiny remainder mark, facsimile reprint of the 1944 original. US import.