An aging con man sets his sights on a twice-burned, sixtyish woman in this suspenseful novel from the author of the bestselling Cazalet Chronicles. Harry Kent is the caretaker of a houseboat on the English canal where he lives, subsisting on a nightly dinner of tinned steak and kidney pudding. Although love has been the single most important influence in his life and he believes he knows what … believes he knows what the other sex wants, he is separated from his wife and has left behind a string of other failed relationships.
Playwright Daisy Langrish has just bought a weekend cottage in the country. She has an estranged adult daughter, Katya, from her first marriage, and a grandchild. Her second marriage, to a handsome actor seven years younger, recently ended in a painful divorce. When Harry shows up looking for work, Daisy, needy and vulnerable, hires him first as a gardener and then, while she’s away in America, as caretaker. But when she returns to England, she begins to fall for her charming employee. Slowly and with masterly skill, Harry seduces Daisy, drawing her in to his spiraling web of lies and deception.
Told in the alternating voices of Harry and Daisy, Falling builds tension as it winds its way toward a thrilling climax. Both a story of romantic yearning and a cautionary tale inspired by the author’s own experiences, this intimate and dispassionate exploration of the many facets of love is among Elizabeth Jane Howard’s finest literary accomplishments.
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Daisy Langrish is a sixty-year-old, successful playwright who has known much pain and loneliness in her life; the loss of the beloved aunt who brought her up, betrayal by two husbands. When she buys a country cottage as a retreat, she meets Henry Kent, a gardener who lives on a boat. Slowly, slowly, he inveigles his way into her life. They become close, and she is happy to be granted another chance for love and companionship. On the surface he seems like the perfect man, in so many ways… but he has been less than honest about his history, and his motivations.
The story is written in alternate viewpoints—Henry in the first person and Daisy in the third, and some of the story is conveyed by way of letters and diary entries. All of this worked beautifully; I was completely engrossed in this novel all the way through. That Elizabeth Jane Howard is a master of the human drama goes without saying, but what I liked most about it was the unravelling of Henry’s hidden self, which is done so subtly. There is enough information for us to realise that he has an alcohol problem, and that he has a short temper and reacts violently when events do not go the way he wants them to, but this is never lain out in black and white; it is suggested, as the picture of him slowly builds.
When I started to read the book I already knew about the true story, but knowing what sort of outcome it must have didn’t spoil it; indeed, it opens with Henry saying that Daisy has told him their affair is over, and a fair indication of the sort of man he is, so this review is no ‘spoiler’; the beauty of the book is in the gradual seduction of Daisy, the uncovering of Henry’s past life, and the question it left with me: did Henry actually love her, as much as he was capable of loving anyone?
By today’s standards this is a ‘slow’ book, and, although set in the mid 1980s, seems a little dated, more as if it is set in the 1960s or early 1970s; also, there were some elements I questioned. For instance, Henry’s most recent wife, Hazel, is supposed to be a fair bit older than him. He is sixty-five. Yet she is working as a physiotherapist; if she is nearing or possibly over seventy, wouldn’t she have retired? Also, when the truth about Henry’s past life is revealed, it seems a little muddled and rushed, with Daisy’s friends having conversations with complete strangers that are then reported back to Daisy; I was disappointed by this, as I was so looking forward to it; although the way it was wrapped up was realistic, it felt a little anti-climactic. I wondered if it was just me, but I looked at other reviews and some of them said the same.
However! I still give this book five stars because I loved it, generally, and looked forward to getting back to it at every moment I could.