Company Parade by Storm Jameson (Virago Modern Classics, 1982, originally published by Cassell in 1934)

 

This novel, which was intended to be the first of a five- or six-book series that turned out to be a trilogy, is an ambitious and impressive achievement.  I was engrossed by it and impressed by its scope and intelligence and the high quality of the writing and thinking that sustains it.

It's the story mainly of Hervey Russell, a young woman who comes to London soon after Armistice Day in 1918 to pursue fame and fortune as a novelist.  She is disastrously married to a selfish, immature, and incompetent man named Penn who is still serving in thte army as the book begins.  They have a son, Richard, who Hervey has left behind in another woman's (paid) care in her Yorkshire coastal hometown, so that Hervey is alone and independent in the city, qualities that make her an unusual female character from this period.

She's a unique and interesting character: kind, thoughtful, but socially-awkward and hampered by her wasted love for her husband and her estrangement from her son.  She gets a job working for an advertising agency and later as an assistant editor at a radical newspaper, and moves about  London's literary and publishing circles, which gives Jameson the opportunity to introduce and develop many interesting characters, which the narrative flexibly -- and sometimes messily -- embraces.  I look forward to reading the next book in the trilogy, Love in Winter, which is followed by None Turn Back.