1915: Kay Dick - Resources and General Discussion
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1edwinbcn
1915 - 2001)Kay Dick was a novelist, journalist and editor. She was the first woman director in English publishing. She sometimes published under the pen name Edward Lane.
Between 1949 and 1962, she publsihed five novels, including An Affair of Love (1953) and Solitaire (1958). She also researched and wrote biographies about Colette and Thomas Carlyle. Kay Dick also edited several anthologies of stories and interviews with writers, including Ivy and Stevie: Conversations with Ivy Compton-Burnett and Stevie Smith (1971) and Friends & friendship: Conversations and reflections (1974). Interviews with authors such as Bellow, Ginsberg, and Forster, selected from from the "Paris Review" were collected and publsihed by Penguin Books in Writers at work. Selections from the "Paris Review".
Kay Dick was a remarkable woman with an eye glass, a cigarette always to hand. For 22 years she lived with her partner the novelist Kathleen Farrell in Great Missenden and Hampstead, before moving to Brighton in her fifties, where she became a well-known figure walking her dogs along the seafront.
An Affair of Love (1953)
Solitaire (1958)
Sunday (1962)
They (1977)
The Shelf (1984)
Pierrot (1960)
Ivy & Stevie (1971)
Friends & Friendship (1974)
2edwinbcn
010. The shelf
Finished reading: 28 January 2016
The shelf is a short novel by by the British novelist Kay Dick. Published in 1984, the novel looks back at a time in the 1960s, a retrospective look full of nostalgia and regret. The beginning of the novel is a bit difficult, as many characters are introduced, but after a few pages the main characters and their relations become quite clear. Cassandra, Cass, is in love with Anne, and tells Sophia how this relationship came about and developed. Anne has had an unhappy marriage before, and is married to Maurice, who has no sexual interest in her. Much of the tension in the novel arises from Cass's misreading of the relationships around her, or the inability of Anne to see what other things are possible. It is not entirely clear whether Anne is bisexual. Towards the end of the novel she elopes with a man, and the final part of the novel consists in piecing together how Anne spent her last hours. "The shelf" in the title refers to the repository in the coroner’s office where two of Cassandra’s letters to Anne and an unposted letter found in Anne’s handbag are lodged.
Finished reading: 28 January 2016
The shelf is a short novel by by the British novelist Kay Dick. Published in 1984, the novel looks back at a time in the 1960s, a retrospective look full of nostalgia and regret. The beginning of the novel is a bit difficult, as many characters are introduced, but after a few pages the main characters and their relations become quite clear. Cassandra, Cass, is in love with Anne, and tells Sophia how this relationship came about and developed. Anne has had an unhappy marriage before, and is married to Maurice, who has no sexual interest in her. Much of the tension in the novel arises from Cass's misreading of the relationships around her, or the inability of Anne to see what other things are possible. It is not entirely clear whether Anne is bisexual. Towards the end of the novel she elopes with a man, and the final part of the novel consists in piecing together how Anne spent her last hours. "The shelf" in the title refers to the repository in the coroner’s office where two of Cassandra’s letters to Anne and an unposted letter found in Anne’s handbag are lodged.
3baswood
>2 edwinbcn: Not quite an undiscovered gem?
4edwinbcn
No literary gem. The novel seems a hybrid between a romance and a detective novel, more romance though. The romantic part is (melo-) dramatic and somewhat overdone by having three gay characters, Cassandra (lesbian), Maurice (gay) and Anne (bisexual or lesbian). Several characters are portrayed as being mean or selfish, and the purity or goodness of the main character, Cass, is only recognized, really, by the constable, at the end of the book. Their friendship or sympathy is also somewhat unreal.
I think for a readership interested in gay-themed novel The shelf is interesting, and Kay Dick seems to be forgotten author.
Mind you, my edition was published by "The Gay Men's Press", which existed for about 30 years and folded in 2000.
I think for a readership interested in gay-themed novel The shelf is interesting, and Kay Dick seems to be forgotten author.
Mind you, my edition was published by "The Gay Men's Press", which existed for about 30 years and folded in 2000.
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