Bright Young Things?

Writing nearly a century after the publication of Josephine Tey’s Kif, (last blog), Kate Atkinson shifts the focus in her recent novel Shrines of Gaiety (2022). Although the war that shadowed Kif still haunts the ensemble of characters who people the pages of this whirlwind tour through the seedier side of London in 1926, its impact has shifted. The veterans, who this time include a former VAD nurse, are all aware of the ways in which the war has shaped them, but for the most part seem able to use it to good effect. Gwendolen Kelling experiences a lust for life following a recent release, that is fed by the death she has witnessed. The darker, brooding, Niven Coker, followed always by his loyal Alsatian dog, while clearly not a man to be messed with, is more multi-dimensional than we might expect.

The plot revolves around Nellie Coker, the owner of a string of very successful Soho nightclubs and is loosely based on the real-life Kate Mayrick. Nellie and her large family, she has six children all connected to the business, are threatened by attempts to bring them down from both sides of the law. Add to this a new detective on the case and a spate of missing girls, as well as all the sex, drugs and jazz we might expect from the period, and we get a multi-dimensional novel that has great appeal.

It’s a great read. The characters are all compelling, entertaining and often unpredictable. Many of them are too young to remember the war, but old enough to know that they don’t want to become ‘lost’ like their elder siblings. This is a novel of Bright Young Things, all those vile bodies, as Evelyn Waugh put it in his novel of the same name. In her afterword Atkinson notes her indebtedness to interwar literature as a key element of her research. It’s very effective. She really captures the lightness of tone of the period, while still ensuring that the reader does not miss the vicious underbelly.

The events of Shrines of Gaiety take place in 1926. Although the most significant political/cultural event of that year was the General Strike in May, Atkinson cleverly avoids engaging with it. London was transformed for that week, with the army on the streets of the city producing scenes reminiscent of the war. It is explored elsewhere in literature. Storm Jameson’s 1936 novel None Turn Back, provides a detailed account of the impact of the strike on London from the sides of both the victors and the defeated workers. But despite Atkinson’s avoidance of this direct confrontation, evidence of the social problems that, by the mid-1920s, were overtaking the legacy of the war are woven throughout her pages.

Shrines of Gaiety is an exuberant novel, lots of fun and delightfully written. Although a period piece, it still speaks to our contemporary world in many ways as well as linking back to the dark and challenging world that overwhelmed Josephine Ty’s Kif.