Some times I wonder if I should bluff more when I blog, but then I think…nah. Honesty is far and away the best policy.
So, the truth of the matter is that I was casting around for something to read, and pulled a book off my bookshelf.
“Beauty Story”.
Nice hardback, bought in Johannesburg several years ago.
Languished unread ever since. And I have no reason why. Stupid oversight.
What a revelation Luke Jennings is. What a writer. I have subsequently googled him (as one does to correct one’s ignorance), and discovered that he is a writer of note, a journalist and, how fabulous, a dance critic.
None of this I knew as I devoured “Beauty Story”, which is as luscious a piece of mystery writing as you could hope to read.
The book is replete with gorgeous descriptions, that are so lush and so tactile that you can close your eyes and imagine yourself in the wonderful setting of Darne, a jewel of an Elizabethan house in Warwickshire, that is being used for a film commercial. Of course, now that I know that Mr. Jennings is a dance critic, and therefore a man who clearly spends hours in theatres, the theatricality that is at the heart of the book makes total sense, as do all the beautiful, detailed descriptions of the costumes and the settings for the filming.
The story is told in the first person, and we see everything through the eyes of Alison MacAteer, a fashion journalist who is commissioned to cover an elaborate ad campaign for a new perfume, “Eternal Summer.” The commercial is filmed in the house and garden of Darne, as a homage to one of the ancestors of the Duboys family that still lives in Darne, a beautiful young woman who disappeared without trace some 400 years ago. The commercial is filmed as an elaborate Elizabethan masque, and one of the joys of this book is the wealth of literary and artistic references. Mr. Jennings wears his scholarship lightly, and I loved reading about Shakespeare and Elizabethan imagery and painting.
At the heart of the Duboys family history is the unexplained disappearance of Eleanor, and when the young American actress who stars in the commercial also disappears, there are obvious parallels. Alison, in order to understand the present, must delve into the past, and as she does so, she must confront her own demons. For Alison has her own dark history with which she must come to terms.
This is a dazzling book, and this review simply does not do it justice.
Read it for the story which is fascinating and very clever. Read it for the descriptions which are fabulous. Read it for enchantment.
Goodness knows why my own copy of “Beauty Story” was neglected for so long.
Highly recommended.
Published in 1998 by Hutchinson, my (old) hardback cost £17.99