{"product_id":"memento-mori-the-girls-of-slender-means-a-far-cry-from-kensington","title":"Memento Mori; The Girls of Slender Means; A Far Cry From Kensington","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere, in one volume, are three elegant and satirical novels by Muriel Spark, Memento Mori and The Girls of Slender Means, two of her earliest, and A Far Cry From Kensington, her latest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMemento Mori is a unique tour de force. Most of the leading characters, a captious and capricious lot who no longer pretend to be otherwise, are at least 70 years old. Godfrey Colston, age 87, confines his interest in women to the area of their garter tips. Alec Warner, age 79, an amateure geriatrician, rushes to the scene when his friends get bafd news so that he can record any change in their temperature. Mrs. Pettigrew, age 73, picks locks and does a lively business in blackmail. And Dame Lettie Colston, age 79, is the first to receive the phone call stating \"Remember you must die.\" While their futures are behind them, these people do have today, and their greed for life is sharpened by the palpable sense of death, as one by one each receives that startling message.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Girls of Slender Means is set, for the most part, in London during the Spring and summer months of 1945 between V-E Day and V-J Day, when all the nice people in England were poor. The girls of the title, some plump and some slender, are all especially nice, and live in the May of Teck Club, \"three times window shattered since 1940 but never directly hit.\" Beneath the farce of girls sliding through a slit-window in the club bathroom onto the roof, lurks something more serious-death. Ad in a part ludicrous, part wholly realistic climax, Spark ties together the threads of gaiety and grimness, of practiced poise and hidden anxieties, of giddy dormitory conversations and silent religious convictions. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMrs\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e. Hawkins, the majestic narrator of\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003eA Far Cry from Kensington\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'San Francisco', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif; font-size: 0.875rem;\"\u003e, takes us well in hand and leads us back to her threadbare years in postwar London. There, as a fat and much admired young war widow, she spent her days working for a mad, near-bankrupt publisher (“of very good books”) and her nights dispensing advice at her small South Kensington rooming house. At work and at home Mrs. Hawkins soon uncovered evil: shady literary doings and a deadly enemy; anonymous letters, blackmail, and suicide. With aplomb, however, Mrs. Hawkins confidently set about putting things to order, little imagining the mayhem that would ensue.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"truncated-text js-truncated-text expanded\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"text-content rte js-overview-body two-columns\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"product__overview-column\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow decades older, thin, successful, and delighted with life in Italy—quite a far cry from Kensington—Mrs. Hawkins looks back to all those dark doings and recounts how her own life changed forever. She still, however, loves to give advice: “It’s easy to get thin. You eat and drink the same as always, only half…I offer this advice without fee; it is included in the price of this book.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Muriel Sparks","offers":[{"title":"Hardback \/ Classics","offer_id":54298299203808,"sku":null,"price":25.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0330\/3125\/8248\/files\/DA511635-84A3-4351-90E6-F8C6218E3E64.jpg?v=1787246015","url":"https:\/\/agricola-street-books.myshopify.com\/products\/memento-mori-the-girls-of-slender-means-a-far-cry-from-kensington","provider":"Agricola Street Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}