LOVE IN IDLENESS
Anna stands in the doorway, waiting. There Stella sits, legs drawn up beneath her on the sofa, a cigarette wanly smoking between her fingers. She smiles at Anna, eyes almost closed, and pats the sofa beside her.
‘So. How lovely. Just us two together.’
Love in Idleness [2001] is set in London, where Anna, its young protagonist, has always wanted to live. But she knows no one there except Stella, her mother’s excitingly reckless younger sister, and soon Anna’s loneliness begins to fester. Is it wise to be thinking quite so much about Stella? And what, exactly, does Stella want?
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Praise for love in idleness
‘With her gift for light humour, Mendelson seems to be skipping across the surface. Then she’ll suddenly dive into a world of obsession’
—Josie Barnard, Independent on Sunday
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‘I loved it. The evocation of ennui and loneliness rings very true...great unexpected observations...very funny’
Lesley Glaister
‘Love in Idleness is an elegant and assured debut, both a neat comedy of London manners and a poignant journey to self-discovery’
Michael Arditti, Daily Mail
‘Charlotte Mendelson displays enough zest and flair to convince in a branch of fiction that is often slackly written...she deserves credit for her authentic – even sympathetic – portrayal of solitude’
Nathalie Fraser, Times Literary Supplement
‘There is something almost fin-de-siècle about Mendelson’s debut novel – it reads like a late 19th-century exploration of a young woman’s development, an echo of a period when young women were stepping out into the world for the first time, independent “bachelor girls” and modern women all...Mendelson is assessing both the value and shame of a young woman facing a new age’ Lesley McDowell, Scotsman
‘This is a gripping coming-of-age novel that depicts the often turbulent relationship between mother and daughter’ Shine
‘Charlotte Mendelson’s debut novel is an exploration of the pursuit of passion...a well-crafted work of literary fiction with a subtle Sapphic undercurrent...if you subscribe to the notion that less is often more, you’ll find Love in Idleness an intelligent and gripping first novel with a pleasurable ripple of sexual tension’ Diva
‘A strange, stealthy, headily scented seethe of a book’
—Ali Smith