The Friendly Young Ladies

By Mary Renault

Book Overview

Set in 1937, The Friendly Young Ladies is a romantic comedy of off-Bloomsbury bohemia. Sheltered, naive, and just eighteen, Elsie leaves the stifling environment of her parents' home in Cornwall to seek out her sister, Leo, who had run away nine years earlier. She finds Leo sharing a houseboat, and a bed, with the beautiful, fair-haired Helen. While Elsie's arrival seems innocent enough, it is the first of a series of events that will turn Helen and Leo's contented life inside out. Soon a randy young doctor is chasing after all three women at once, a neighborly friendship begins to show an erotic tinge, and long-quiet ghosts from Leo's past begin to surface. Before long, no one is sure just who feels what for whom. Mary Renault wrote this delightfully provocative novel in the early 1940s, creating characters that are lighthearted, charming, and free-spirited partly in answer to the despair characteristic of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness or Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. The result is a witty and stylish story that offers exceptional insight into the world of upcoming writers and artists of in 1930s London, chronicling their rejection of society's established sexual mores and their heroic pursuits of art and life.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375714219
• ISBN13: 9780375714214
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Suprising Fun -- if you just go with it

I read this book after being told Sarah Waters pilfered the charachters of Helen and Julia from "The Night Watch" from it. (To which I say, sort of, but with Waters, it's always more complex.) The book starts slow. The first time I read it I skimmed the first 50 pages, covering a sweet, dull teen named Elsie. The book hits its stride when she runs away from home and to her sister Leo's home on the Thames. Leo's a 28 (?) year-old tomboy who writes cowboy novels under the pen name Tex O'Hara. Easygoing and cool, she whiles away her days with her girlfriend (take note, Night Watch readers - named Helen) on their little houseboat. The book is striking for its casual portrayal of the couple's lesbianism. It possesses a freedom and assurance that has not been doubled since. Nobody (thankfully) seems to give much of a damn about it - least of all the women themselves. Renault throws in a twist with the sudden attraction between Leo and her male writing friend of many years, Joe. (She doesn't say it in the afterword but I suspect she did it to escape the censors banning her book like Radclyffe Hall's). But considering this book came out ONLY 15 YEARS after the soppish Well of Loneliness, it feels effervescent and postmodern. The ending is "silly," as Renault herself admitted, but this is still a cool, chill glass of the future. The afterword itself is worth the price of admission.

Very Satisfying Read

This book is a favorite of mine. Its charm comes from youthful energy and emotional excess. The autobiographical element may account for the vivid setting on the river and the behavior of some of the characters. They seem like real people whom the author cannot control. They may confuse or annoy her (and the reader), but they are alive. And then there is the love story. The friendship of two very likeable people unexpectedly intensifies, overwhelming both them and the reader. Very satisfying. Mary Renault surely polished her craft over a long successful career, but this youthful effort has a spirit and immediacy that has held up remarkably well and still gives me a great deal of pleasure.