Novel
The Heat of the Day
Elizabeth Bowen · 1949
Synopsis
In wartime London, Stella Rodney, a divorcée in her forties, has been having an affair for two years with Robert Kelway, who was wounded at Dunkirk. A stranger, Harrison, who works for counter-espionage, tells her that Robert is passing information to the enemy and offers to keep quiet if she leaves her lover for him. Meanwhile Roderick, Stella's son, a young soldier, inherits an Irish estate, Mount Morris.
Context
The novel appeared in February 1949 from Jonathan Cape, and from Knopf in the United States. Its author says she wanted to show in it the inextricable knotting together of the individual and the national, the personal and the political. Anthony Burgess writes that no novel has better captured the atmosphere of the British capital under the bombs. In 1989 Harold Pinter drew a television film from it, with Patricia Hodge, Michael York and Michael Gambon.
Who it is for
A novel of medium length, in a finely chiselled prose; two French translations, the second published in 2002.
Prizes and reception
Counted among the most important books by its author and regarded as the finest portrait of London at war.
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