Out of the Woodshed

Stella Gibbons is remembered for one book, the wildly funny Cold Comfort Farm, and otherwise largely forgotten. This biography by her playwright nephew gives a comprehensive and forgiving portrait of a rather ordinary life, in which writing took second place to her religious beliefs and the performance as good wife and mother that went with them. Stella Gibbons grew up with a domineering father and spent a brief period running with a fast bohemian set before settling into marriage with an unsuccessful singer who had snobbish relatives. A job on The Lady that involved reviewing contemporary fiction, and a strong sense of the ridiculous, produced her sublime parody of rural melodrama; Oliver is good on precisely what she had been reading and was parodying. He tries his hardest to make her 20 other novels sound interesting and appealing; this is at the very least a competent guide to the rest of her career. Part of the trouble was, simply, that she found massive public and critical acclaim with her first book and rather than live up to it, affected to play a different game. Oliver does his best to make this seem attractive. --Roz Kaveney