The Brontës Went to Woolworths found me, when I was browsing in a book shop about twenty years ago. That would never happen now, of course, in these days where little high street booksellers have gone the same way as the full-sized Curly Wurly, and online algorithms direct you inexorably to read more of the same, and more.
I didn’t realise at the time that I was visiting a “liminal” space, a threshold between worlds, but as I re-read The Brontës to write this review, I realise this was more than a coincidence.
The Brontës Went to Woolworths isn’t a long book. In many ways it’s a quirky, slight, whimsical bubble of delight. It’s also deceptively profound. I think your reaction to it depends on what kind of child you were. If, like me, you were an obsessive reader, the kind whose inner life was and will always be infinitely richer than the world “out there”, then you will love it. For me, it was shocking on its first read, to discover that there were other people like me, only deep, deep down in that place I never shared with anyone. So here’s a litmus test of whether or not The Brontës is for you, spoken by Deirdre, the narrator for most of the story:
“A woman at one of mother’s parties once said to me, “Do you like reading?” which smote us all to silence, for how could one tell her that books are like having a bath or sleeping, or eating bread—absolute necessities which one never thinks of in terms of appreciation. And we all sat waiting for her to say that she had so little time for reading, before ruling her right out for ever and ever.”
The Brontës is set in London in the years between the two World Wars. It’s a story about the Carne sisters, Deirdre, Katrine and Sheil. But it’s about so much more than that. It’s a liminal story, about the intersection between imagination and reality, the world of dreams and the weight of practical needs, insiders and outsiders, childhood and growing up, the material world and the supernatural, and the wonders and the dangers that can arise when you want something so much it actually becomes real.
I have a little daydream going on, that someone is going to read this review, and on the strength of it go and read The Brontës Went to Woolworths. I hope it finds them, the way it did me. I hope it brings them comfort, and wonder, and joy.
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