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Shy Creatures

A Novel

ebook
0 of 2 copies available
0 of 2 copies available

"A beautiful story of unfolding secrets and unforeseen consequences, filled with moments that are somehow restrained and astute and gorgeously written all at the same time."—Holly Gramazio, bestselling author of The Husbands

"Infinitely moving, quirky, acutely observed and beautifully written...Confirms Clare Chambers as one of our most talented writers."—The Guardian

An alluring literary mystery full of secrets and lies, when an art teacher at a psychiatric hospital in 1960s England finds her life turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious patient who has spent decades living in complete isolation with his elderly aunts in a decrepit Victorian house. Perfect for fans of Ann Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, and Tessa Hadley.

In all failed relationships there is a tipping point. It goes unnoticed at the time but can later be identified as the beginning of the decline. For Helen it was the weekend that the Hidden Man came to Westbury Park...

The London suburb of Croydon,1964: Helen Hansford is unmarried and in her thirties. Something of a disappointment to her middle-class parents, she's an art therapist at the Westbury Park psychiatric hospital, where she has been having a rebellious love affair with her colleague Gil, a dashing but married doctor.

One spring afternoon they receive a call about a disturbance at a derelict, vine-covered Victorian house a few miles up the road. There the police find a mute, thirty-seven-year-old man called William Tapping, his hair and beard down to his waist. It appears he lives in the old house with his elderly, frail aunt, who expires as soon as she's admitted to the hospital. No one knows why William has been shut away for decades, unseen by neighbors, with only his two now-deceased aunts for company. Westbury Park becomes his refuge.

When it emerges that William is not only sane but a talented artist, Helen comes to see him as something of a personal project. But as she tries to solve the puzzle of the Hidden Man's past, Helen's own carefully constructed life of secrets begins to unravel...

A gorgeously written and life-affirming novel about life's delicate layers of experience and connection, Shy Creatures reveals all the different ways we can be confined...and liberated.

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    • Library Journal

      June 1, 2024

      Chambers (Small Pleasures, longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction) offers a touch of the gothic in this novel set in postwar Britain, where Helen, an art therapist working in a psychiatric hospital, is having an affair with a married colleague. When a mysterious man is discovered living in a derelict Victorian house and becomes Helen's patient, her life begins to unravel. Prepub Alert.

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Kirkus

      November 1, 2024
      The arrival of a mysterious recluse at a British psychiatric hospital unlocks secrets from the past and sets in motion possibilities for the future. In 1964, Britain has not yet been reinvigorated by the youth revolution or the "Beatles phenomenon," and many of its people are still marked by their World War II experiences; this is a stifling world of good manners, bad food, and limited opportunities for women. Thirty-four-year-old Helen Hansford, however, has cracked the mold by choosing to work as an art therapist in Westbury Park, a psychiatric hospital, where she has met and begun a consuming affair with charismatic, married doctor Gil Rudden. An unusual patient, William Tapping, 37, arrives at the hospital; he doesn't speak and hasn't left his house in decades. His last living relative having died, Westbury Park becomes William's home, a refuge where he can practice his considerable creative skills in Helen's art class. At this point, the narration opens up to intersperse Helen's story with chapters from William's perspective, slowly revealing the reasons for his isolation, withdrawal, and silence. In fastidious prose well suited to the novel's period setting, Chambers traces William's story back in time while advancing Helen's growing difficulties with Gil and efforts to aid her struggling niece, Lorraine, now also a patient. While evocative of a buttoned-up time, the novel's consciously understated tone (bad things are referred to as "unpleasantness") muffles the few dramatic moments. More persuasive is the mood, redolent of post-war adjustments, and Chambers' quiet but precise observations of circumstance (often drab), options, and individuals. Despite some two-dimensional minor characters, this is a finely detailed and modulated work, based on true events, that looks benignly on its characters and their trajectories. A composed period piece that pays sharp attention to the little things.

      COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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  • English

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