An utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel

This utterly charming, totally bonkers short novel is something from another age. There are elements of A Handful of Dust (the young girl trapped reading Dickens), of Rebecca (the undervalued companion of a cantankerous employer), of fable and fairy tale and even of Restoration comedy.

Victoria, young, pretty, big-bosomed, is the companion of a blind man of letters who lives in considerable style in a house in Italy. Her mother is drunk, her employer eats only eggs and dislikes women. Escape she must, and she does so via a vapid young man who falls swiftly in love with her, marries her and conveniently dies. Enter Lettice, a mother-in-law direct from Hades. On Lettice’s coat-tails comes an ageing academic and his ‘companion’, and the relationship between them all develops into a fine comedy of manners.

Johnston’s strength is in her ability to draw a character, sneer or laugh or just comment in the fewest number of words.