Queen of the Tambourine

 

The Queen of the Tambourine / Jane Gardam 
London: Europa, 2007, c1991.
256 p.

I've meant to read this for ages! And I found a nice Europa edition recently, so I dug right in. This is an epistolary novel, one of my favourite techniques. In this story, Eliza Peabody begins writing letters to her neighbour Joan, who has suddenly left her husband and grown children to travel the continent alone. None of these letters are ever answered. 

Eliza reveals herself in these letters; she's bossy and opinionated, and we realize that the neighbours often avoid her for it. She just doesn't fit in. She's isolated in the suburbs and very unhappy. Then her diplomat husband Henry leaves her. And this is the moment that tips her over the edge. As the letters continue, she becomes more and more unbalanced, until we aren't sure if what she's saying is true or something she's imagined. Are the people she talks about even real? Does she really have two dogs? And what is she going to do about it all? 

People in her community seem concerned about her, they try to talk to her but her understanding of things is not always on the level. The book spirals down, but then up again. The reader's journey alongside Eliza can be confusing - I lost the plot a few times - but by the end it's been made much clearer. This is fragmentary at times, and a bit frenzied. But Eliza is a great character, acerbic and observant, and there are some very funny bits. Her descriptions of the neighbours and other locals are not tempered by social niceties, and her one-liners can be hilarious. 

While I didn't absolutely love it, there were touching parts as well as humour, and you can tell that Gardam is in full control of her narrative. It's a powerful look at women's lives as they age and try to find their place. Here's another woman who has no children or husband, but unlike my last read, Eliza doesn't despair. She may lose touch with reality for a while, but she is firmly ensconsced in a community and comes out the other side alright. I'll remember her acid commentary for a while.