The Catherine Wheel

First published in Australia in 1960, Harrower’s (In Certain Circles) novel now comes to the U.S. for the first time. Clemency, a young Australian law student living in a London bedsit, moves through her life with great control. She feels a measured passion for Christian, a failed actor whom Clemency tutors in French—which spurs the jealousy of Olive, the older woman Christian has taken up with. Thus begins the central tension of the novel, a cat and mouse game of relenting and withholding. Clemency, a self-described “student of human nature,” feels a “sweet ferocious calm,” which is also an apt description of Harrower’s writing—it’s consistently restrained, even when describing love, deception, and failure. Though the narrative offers some suspenseful questions—whether or not Christian is really in love with her plays out within a hundred dreary French lessons, as Clemency drinks tea and quietly wavers in her moral resolve—Harrower is most concerned in the psychological peculiarities of her small cast of characters. Indeed, the action rarely moves to Clemency’s bedroom, and the reader is led to believe that the bleakness of the room is a protracted metaphor for the bleakness of 1950s London. At times, Clemency’s emotional distance can be witty, as when she dryly observes of Christian, “This must be what they called personality.” Other times, however, the adjective-drunk quality of Harrower’s writing makes it difficult to maintain a real interest in her self-destructive characters. [em](July) [/em]