After The Party

Cressida Connolly Viking €18.10

In the summer of 1938, Phyllis Forrester returns to England from the Continent with her husband and three children. The family take up residence in Sussex and, before you can blink, Phyllis is a paid-up member of the British Union of Fascists, mixing with some very unsavoury types and sending her children to Oswald Mosley’s infamous summer camps. You would think she would be a hard heroine to warm to, but Connolly gives an object lesson in how to tell a strong story in a non-judgmental way. The result is a brave, engrossing and unexpectedly moving novel.