The Sugar House (VMC) - Tapa dura

Absorbing, fascinating . . . written with extraordinary brilliance (Elizabeth Bowen)

Antonia White evinces Clara's breakdown, particularly the isolation and emptiness she experiences, with extraordinary economy and insight (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY)

The year is 1920, Clara Batchelor, the heroine of Frost in May and The Lost Traveller, is an actress touring with a repertory company. Now of age, she has forgotten the benevolent tyranny with which her Catholic parents treated her relationship with the actor, Stephen Tye. Yet when Stephen betrays her, Clara marries Archie, the fiance she discarded four years ago. A friendship but not a love match, this marriage proves a desperate attempt by Clara to rekindle the safety of childhood. However neither party is a child, and their dream sugar house soon begins to dissolve as their fragile marriage proves hopeless.