I absolutely loved this book. It evoked the story of one of England's most celebrated twentieth century painters, Stanley Spencer, and the women in his life, including the sensible, cheerful live-in maid Elsie in a most vivid and involving way. Early twentieth century village life, an eccentric lifestyle, and the complicated lives of imperfect fractured people is brought to life in an entirely readable way. This is a story of love, obsession, the thought processes of a painter, the English countryside written in a way that demands to be read, compulsively. ( )

Two years ago, on a hot summer’s day, I went to Cookham in search of Stanley Spencer. Nestled around a high street, the village is small and probably rather peaceful under normal circumstances, but I’d managed to turn up on the weekend of Rock the Moor, a festival which had taken over the meadows down by the river. As I studied the pictures in the Stanley Spencer Gallery, a converted chapel at the far end of the village, my contemplation was underlaid by the distant, persistent throb of drums. It was all rather wonderful, in its own bizarre way. Stanley Spencer is an artist I don’t know well, but I like what I’ve seen of his work. It has the kind of robustness, the rounded simplicity and simplified geometric flair, that I find in the works of other British artists of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, and which always appeals to me (think Laura Knight; Augustus John; or, in a slightly later period, the young Lucian Freud). It was inevitable that this novel would capture my attention, but I came to it with caution: all too often, art-historical novels disappoint. But not this one. In simple but evocative prose, Upson unfolds the story of the Spencer family and their maid Elsie Munday, in a story that spans thirty years and offers an absorbing insight into one of the most tumultuous and bizarre artistic marriages of the 20th century. Fascinating and beautifully researched...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2020/04/24/stanley-and-elsie-2019-nicola-upson/ ( )

What a lovely, lovely story. Beautiful and melancholy. Based on the real painter, Sir Stanley Spencer and his wife, painter, Hilda. The story is narrated by Elsie who is hired to be their housekeeper, but ends up as friends with both. It covers the period of time when Stanley is painting the Sandham Memorial chapel, through his marriage with Hilda and his infatuation with another woman that will come between them all. Hearing and seeing through Elsie's thoughts and conversations, the reader gets a very intimate and real look at their lives.

The prose is gorgeous, the novel flows seamlessly. This is one of those quiet novels that brings the reader inside of the story. Stanley is a rather selfish, but kind man, who doesn't see anything wrong with his needs and wants. He is sometimes brutally but unknowingly cruel, but despite that it is hard to dislike the man. Nor any of these characters, who are just trying to find security in life. The descriptions of the various areas are also beautifully described. I wish I could post pictures of the chapel and other painting, but my computer knowledge doesn't stretch to that length.

The ending of the book is perfect, brings things nicely together. But of course thAt isn't the end of the story, as the authors note at books end will take the reality of the story is little further.

ARC from Netgalley. ( )

My knowledge of English artist Stanley Spencer was sketchy to say the least when I started reading ‘Stanley and Elsie’ by Nicola Upson. This is a biographical novel that walks a difficult line between true fact and imagined conversation and walks it with skill, delicacy and drama. Definitely a novel for anyone who loves art.
Upson takes us into the Spencer household at Chapel View, Burghclere after the Great War when Elsie Munday starts work as a housemaid. Stanley Spencer has been commissioned to paint the inside of a chapel; his wife Hilda, also a painter, minds their young daughter Shirin. Through Elsie’s eyes we see the lives of this family, their ups and downs, the artistic differences, the selfishnesses of Stanley and Hilda, smoothed by the tact, diplomacy and efficiency of Elsie. The title could make some people assume Stanley and Elsie were romantically attached but theirs is a master/servant relationship that deepened into mutual respect and friendship. Stanley, selfish, focussed, is a difficult master, a difficult husband, and Elsie finds herself caught in the middle of disputes between husband and wife. Often she is exasperated with both of them. Instead she becomes indispensable to the household.
Upson gives us an insight into the lives of this family, their daily tasks, the squabbles, the unexpected joys. She combines small inconsequential details of painting with, through Elsie’s growing appreciation of art, the big picture destruction, grief and lasting devastation of war on Stanley’s generation of men. Upson is excellent at portraying place; the Spencers move between Burghclere, Cookham and Hampstead Heath as their marriage disintegrates, a separation complicated by Stanley’s obsession with another woman. No one could have forseen the consequences of this obsession. Stanley is selfish and self-absorbed, Hilda also but to a lesser degree; both can be loving with their children one minute and dismissive the next. At times, neither are particularly likeable; Elsie is the one who picks up the pieces.
Elsie is the core of this story. As narrator we not only see the Spencers through her eyes, we also see her grow from young girl to competent, confident young woman.
The ending was under-whelming but I see it must have been difficult to know how and when to end the novel.
A delightful read. I particularly enjoyed picturing the paintings in my mind as I turned the pages. Reading ‘Stanley and Elsie’ makes me want to visit Sandham Memorial Chapel near Newbury, Hampshire, now a National Trust property, and also to explore Upson’s other novels.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ ( )

I do love a book set around real people or real life events and so I jumped at the chance to read Stanley and Elsie.

Stanley is Stanley Spencer, artist. Elsie is the woman employed by Stanley and his wife, Hilda, to be their maid. This is the 1920s, almost ten years after the First World War ended. Stanley is working on an epic project, paintings on the walls of a chapel commissioned in memory of his patron's late brother. This is where Elsie enters the life of the Spencer family and where she finds herself utterly entrenched in their lives.

I would guess that Nicola Upson has done an awful lot of research into the Spencers and so the bones of the story are factually correct, but also that she's obviously fictionalised conversations and day to day life. What I'm getting round to saying is that she's done a fantastic job at weaving together fact and fiction. Although I love 'faction' I do sometimes find that an author is restricted by the need to stick to the facts. Here though, Upson achieves something quite special: she uses the facts to draw me completely into the fiction.

Mind you, it's quite a story anyway. They do say the truth is stranger than fiction. I had never heard of Stanley Spencer and so it's been quite the journey of discovery for me. He was a bit odd, a bit self-absorbed and more than a little selfish. But the people around him put up with him because of who he was and what he was doing. I found myself getting quite annoyed with him a lot of the time, and then all of a sudden he would do something rather lovely that redeemed him (a little).

The fact that I had never heard of Stanley meant that I didn't have any preconceptions and the story of his life was all new to me. For that reason, I'm not going to go into any of the facts of his life here as you might want to approach it in the same way. What I did do, though, was constantly search on the internet throughout the whole book, looking up the people and the paintings - be careful if you do this as spoilers can occur! It just shows how interested I was in what I was reading though.

I haven't really mentioned Elsie so far and yet she was my favourite character by far. In fact, I liked the sections about her immensely and loved reading about her simply going about her job as maid. I think she was more than a maid really, more of a housekeeper, and she was well-respected. I particularly liked how she became quite the confidante for both Stanley and Hilda, almost a nanny to their children, and yet she also still knew her place as a servant. I liked her so much that, at the beginning of part two when it seemed as though the focus would move away from Elsie, I actually said out loud "oh no, Elsie". I didn't want to lose her.

Stanley and Elsie is just wonderful in every way. The settings are portrayed vividly and the characterisations are perfect. The writing is quite poetic, quite lyrical, quite beautiful, and this imagining of their lives is just lovely. ( )