Sally in a Service Flat

Sally Blake, 30 years old and single, wins fifteen thousand pounds in the Irish Sweep and shocks her much older parents and sisters by declaring her intentions of leaving their uncongenial company, moving to London, and living independently. "Sally in a Service Flat" follows her adventures establishing her own household while trying to resist the blandishments of her best friend and would-be fiance, Bobbie, a handsome, charming chartered accountant. "The Saturday Review" (7 Jul 1934) listed it as one of Hutchinson's three "admirable new books" and described it as "a highly diverting comedy with an element of pathos, all in the true Barnes-Grundy vein."

Jean Buchanan starts her entry in Vinson's "Twentieth Century Romance and Gothic Writers" (Gale, 1982) with: "A novel by Mabel Barnes Grundy reads like a breath of fresh air" and goes on to regret that "they are so difficult to come by" today. I couldn't agree more! Her books, especially of the first-person variety, sparkle with their cheerfulness, their good writing, and their heroines, who, not by any means paragons, are, instead, personalities, which is way more fun. And Sally is this in spades. Quirky male leads are hard enough to come by in vintage light reading, but quirky female? Hens' teeth. Sally, though! She describes herself as bad-tempered, impatient, incurably honest, independent, unsentimental, and more than slightly misanthropic but coming from a neurodiverse background, I have to say, what Sally strikes me as is delightfully divergent. And her forthrightness and prioritizing of her own needs are so refreshing to read. She does experience growth in the story: she improves her empathy skills and comes to a better understanding of her own emotions, but it's a very believable arc: there is no swing into Grand Romance for Sally, and she's as honest as ever. I love that Bobbie, her friend/lover/foil, is the ultimate neurotypical -- laid-back, charming, "extremely good-looking", universally popular -- and that he adores Sally for exactly who she is.

Like several of Barnes-Grundy books, the final chapters here are unexpectedly darker (the Review's "element of pathos") and the ending is somewhat abrupt. I'm not sure what motivates the tone change -- sometimes I think she just gets tired & runs out of sparkle. But the rest is so good it's forgivable. Lots of interesting detail about the process of renting, and experience of living in, a "service flat" which seems to be a kind of cross between apartment/residential hotel/boarding house. And descriptions of her excursions to various London shops and landmarks. Find it. Read it. These need to be reprinted and more widely enjoyed.