Book description
On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Toby Roberts has very good
prospects, boundless confidence and few commitments. Behind him
stretches a life which has flowed almost undisturbed in its smooth
course. In front of him lies a meeting with Ann Thorold. She is
beautiful, a widow, and ten years his elder. At first he is surprised to
find himself more fascinated, and then involved, with her than he
customarily allows himself to be. But as the relationship progresses he
finds that he has invited and won from her a dependence and a
vulnerability that is still more astonishing - and more difficult to
come to terms with. It is only after more than one backward look, in the
direction of an earlier love, that he finally accepts his new role, and
reaches something like maturity.
The Good Husband
is that rare thing - an exciting novel whose tension does not flow from
high adventure, crime or espionage, but arises because the reader wants
to know how the characters will decide to live their lives. With its
range of characters, its richly detailed social background, and its
constant awareness of the passage of the times as the world moves
through the suspenseful sixties, this book is not only a triumphant
sequel to The Good Listener
; it is another compelling and rounded novel from a justly celebrated writer.
Pamela Hansford Johnson wrote 27 novels across genres as diverse as
romance, comedy and tragedy. An incredibly readable and literary author,
who deserves to be rediscovered by a new generation, Bello has brought
18 of Johnson's books back into print. Pamela Hansford Johnson was
born in 1912 and gained recognition with her first novel, This Bed Thy
Centre, published in 1935. She wrote 27 novels. Her themes centred on
the moral responsibility of the individual in their personal and social
relations. The fictional genres she used ranged from romantic comedy
(Night and Silence, Who Is Here) and high comedy (The Unspeakable
Skipton) to tragedy (The Holiday Friend) and the psychological study of
cruelty (An Error of Judgement). Her last novel, A Bonfire, was
published in the year of her death, 1981. She was a critic as well as a
novelist and wrote books on Thomas Wolfe and Ivy Compton-Burnett; Six
Proust Reconstructions (1958) confirmed her reputation as a leading
Proustian scholar. She also wrote a play, Corinth House (1954), a work
of social criticism arising out of the Moors Trial, On Iniquity (1967),
and a book of essays, Important to Me (1974). She received honorary
degrees from six universities and was a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Literature. She was awarded the C. B.E. in 1975. Pamela Hansford
Johnson, who had two children by her first marriage with journalist
Gordon Neil Stewart, later married C. P. Snow. Their son Philip was born
in 1952.
