In my last post I wrote about the value Clare Chambers grants suburban life in her 2020 novel Small Pleasures. Her protagonist, Jean Swinney, unmarried, in her early 40s and living in the suburbs of South East London with her widowed mother, leads a life of routine and duty, punctuated by ‘[s]mall pleasures – the first cigarette of the day; a glass of sherry before Sunday lunch; a bar of chocolate parcelled out to last a week; a newly published library book still pristine and untouched by other hands; the first hyacinths of spring; a neatly folded pile of ironing..’ Continue reading “A miracle in suburbia”