Interlude

by Rupert Smith

A compelling examination of how secrets can tear one family apart and reverberate down the generations. Helen has always known her grandfather was a famous author, but her parents had severed connections with him whilst she was still young. After embarking on a whirlwind affair she decides to visit her reclusive grandfather and sets in motion a change that will have devastating consequences and reveal long hidden mysteries. A look at not just the treachery of family secrets but of how truth can be buried within a text and how society imposes limits on love.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Gay, Historical, Queer

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2012

About the author

Rupert Smith was born in Washington DC in 1960, and grew up in Surrey. He has lived in London since 1978. After graduating with a BA in English, he continued his studies at the University of London and in 1986 completed his PhD in theatre history. He is the author of many novels, under his own name and as James Lear and Rupert James. As a journalist, he has contributed to The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Times, The Los Angeles Times, Radio Times, Time Out, Gay Times and probably some other publications with the word "time" in the title.

His latest book GRIM is his first foray into horror.

Reviews

[LenaRibka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update Mai 31, 2016

I don't know how you rate your books, and if likable characters together with a satisfying HEA belong to your most important criteria for a great book.

One of the most important criteria for me is an excellent writing and a story, that makes you live through the ocean of emotions while reading, that haunts you even days after you finished it (what doesn't necessarily mean a HEA with nice characters)

Interlude has THE STORY. And this story is brilliantly written.

I am not a re-read type, and I don't re-read my books, even the ones I loved a lot. But I couldn't not to join my GR buddies who read it the first time. And I am so glad I did.

Without giving a lot away:

1)The writing ---> superb
2)The story---->excellent
3)My feelings--->different this time. It is much more complicated....

Maybe I'll write more later...

Original review:

Poor poor book that will be my next read after this amazing novel by Rupert Smith.

In one of his interviews Rupert Smith said, "I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve ever written."

And I think that it is probably one of the best books I've read this year.

I feel myself totally incapable to give a proper review for this book, because all my blabbering can't do it justice.
Interlude has EVERYTHING that a great book can offer to readers: a rich and fantastic storyline, amazing characters portraying, and the fabulous, beautiful and memorable writing.

As I started this book and read the first sentence, "Everyone remembers the scene at the end of The Interlude(1959), when Laurence Oliveir takes Jayne Mansfield by the arm as the run down the quasyside at Southampton docks, the massive bulk of the Queen Mary looming behind them", you can imagine what I did next: I googled and googled and googled! Desperately trying to find EVERYTHING about this film. I couldn't. Because there is no film and there is no the book on which this film was based, The Interlude, and there is no "once-fashinable" Edward Barton, its author,one of the great living post-war English novelists in our real world.

It is a fiction work. But if you're acquainted with the works of Rupert Smith, you have to know that even if his characters are fictional, the time setting and historical events are well researched and accurately placed, and all his stories feel very real.

Interlude has two(or three?) main story lines. And every single one could make a nice book. A well-written book. But it wouldn't have been Interlude. The idea of the plot and how it's told, the intertwining of the destinies, a complicated tangle of circumstances, family secrets, decisions, past, present and future, emotions, feelings...This book is unique.


This compelling, beautifully written and excellent plotted novel makes you laugh, makes you cry and makes you think.

I can't recommend it highly enough.
I seldom have this kind of reaction - The moment I read the last page I wanted to start it from the very beginning.

That is one of my highlights in this book:

How can I describe my experience of Billy without descending into pornography or cliché? ‘We were locked in a passionate embrace’ is bad enough. I have no wish to describe the mechanics of who did what to whom; I am of the wrong generation, class and nationality for this. I can use four-letter words, have done in this very manuscript to describe our couplings – but not to describe the emotions that I felt in that apartment high above Fifth Avenue, reunited for the first time in seven years with the man whom I loved above all others. I felt lost, and I felt found. I wanted to live like this forever, and I wanted us both to die. I wanted to tear his throat out, to plunge my hand through his stomach and up to the heart, and yet I would have killed anyone who harmed a hair on his head. The little chip of ice that pierced my heart so long ago suddenly melted, and I was swept away, washed clean in a hot salty tide. It sounds so crass, so smutty when I try to write it down. But for those moments when I was with Billy, nothing else mattered. The world had constricted to one room, one bed, two bodies that had no limits of ‘him’ and ‘me’. We knew each other so well, and neither had forgotten a thing – knew exactly how to please the other, and in doing so please ourselves. There was no giving and taking, just sharing, just being.

This book is....magnificent!

***This review has been crossed posted to Gay Book Reviews

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think Smith did a superb job with this one. It's an intricate tangle of love, lust, greed, ambition, deceit, betrayal, pretence, secrets. As the Bard says

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

William Shakespeare

This is certainly so for this story with the players playing their many different parts, sometimes loving, sometimes lying, sometimes greedy, sometimes selfish, always human.

Smith does not give us a linear story, oh no that would be too easy, wouldn't it? Instead he gives us different perceptions of the story, we get bits from diaries, bits from hearsay, bits from actual living, bits from stories. And we the poor, happy readers have to piece everything together, and form a picture. I loved doing this, reading Smith is no hardship, just a pleasure.

Read with Irina, Lena and Nick.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we first meet Helen Barton, she is a bored housewife, with two children and a largely absent husband. Her parents are also distant –both from her and her children and also from her grandfather, Edward Barton. Her grandfather is best known for his 1955 novel, “Interlude,” which was made into a famous film. Helen decides to embark on a creative writing course and, through the writing workshop at Milton College, also embarks on an affair with her teacher, Harry Ross. Harry seems fascinated by her relationship with the reclusive Edward Barton and a desire that Helen had to rediscover her grandfather’s work takes root. She sets out to discover what caused the rift in her family, which mean her parents no longer speak to her grandfather, and eventually meets up with the delightful, elderly man that her parents have suggested is everything from a drunk to mentally incapable.

This novel weaves together several strands of storyline seamlessly. There is Helen’s life in the present, with her marital problems and her own relationships. Then there is the story of Edward Barton, which is told both through his diaries and through segments of his novel; which, as we learn, is based very much upon real life. I found this novel extremely poignant and very moving. Much of the story takes place during WWII, when Edward Barton is a young man, who finds himself giving up his life as a student and becoming an actor in a touring theatre company, run by Eleonora and William. Through them the rather mundane path that his life had been taken changes and we learn of the family secrets which still reverberate through Helen’s family. I have never read anything by Rupert Smith before, but I am glad that I have discovered him as an author. An intelligent and thought provoking read, which would be ideal for book groups, with much to discuss.

[KatieMc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes I think that I should just read Lena's favorites, cause they usually work well for me. Filled with surprises till the very end, this was a great read.

[Cleopatra Pullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wonderful book opens with the voice of Helen, a somewhat bored mother of two, married to Richard who works away as a data analyst, a mother who has reached the point in her life when she wants to do something for her. Helen decides to join an evening class in writing and meets a tutor Henry Ross who sees something he likes, something he wants. Is it because she has inherited her talent from her Grandfather, the post-war writer Edward Barton? Could the literary genetics which meant that his book, Interlude was turned into a film be her inheritance?

Helen remembers Edward Barton from her early childhood but there was a family split in her early teens and she hasn’t seen him since. She embarks on a journey to find out more about him, and boy she certainly does that. Helen’s voice is perfectly pitched, you may not admire her actions, but they are certainly both recognisable and understandable from her narrative.

I was momentarily confused when the book switched from Helen to excerpts from Edward Barton’s most famous book, Interlude which tells the story of Derek who joins a theatre in the run up to World War II, historically intriguing with tales of illicit passions and a strong survival instinct to make enough money to keep a roof over his head and some morsels of food to keep him going. These are clues to Edward but the bulk of his narrative appears after his death, when Helen who was given his literary works in his will, discovers diaries and manuscripts which tell a story that twists and turns through lost and found love.

I loved this book, the tale told is fascinating, the time period as expertly described as the emotions and motives that assault the reader as each character’s lack of morals is raised from seediness by the affection Rupert Smith creates, this isn’t a book of black and white, there is always just enough room for doubt that like those sinned against I had an inkling of hope that the emotions were real and this time everything really would be ok for the whole cast of characters, well maybe not Henry Ross, but at the same time knowing that such was the tangled lives that were carefully hidden beneath layers of deception, that this was an impossible outcome.

This is a truly fantastic find, a read quite unlike any other this year that marries my love of past actions having consequences on the present, family secrets, and these are explosive, and beautiful language that meant I knew I would enjoy the book for the writing alone from the very first page. This book is one of those where I’ve closed the page but I know that Helen, Edward, Billy and Geraldine will linger on for a long time, in my mind they are real people and there is enough uncertainty that I can conjure up an ending for Helen.

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still not clear to me who was telling the truth, and who was taking a view of the truth.

Great story, interesting characters and well written, what more could you want?

Loved it.

[Maya Panika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helen is bored. Mother of two young children, wife to Richard, daughter of cold and unconcerned parents. She is unfulfilled. She wants more - and finds it, in the arms of a manipulative, self-serving lover and an unexpected and divisive legacy from her once-famous, once-feted, now mostly forgotten novelist grandfather, Edward Barton. Helen's forays into her grandfather's past through his letters and diaries and a novelised account of his life (his most famous novel Interlude; the book of the film starring Laurence Olivier and Jayne Mansfield) are so cleverly meshed - with each other, and with Helen's own story; her self-judgement; her surprise and concern at her sudden moral lapse - as to seem almost seamless.
Weaving in and out of her Grandfather's rags to riches story - of love lost and found and lost again - and Helen's own sudden, tainted switches of fortune; this was easily one of THE best books I've read all year.
The characters are the heart and soul of the novel and they are tremendous: the lead characters Edward and Helen; Edward's old-retainer Samuel; the grotesque old theatricals Terence and Leonie and their son, Billy, the secret beating heart of the tale; Helen's icy parents - ALL the characters, great and small, are beautifully portrayed, and everyone has a purpose, a place in the story; there's no excess fat on this tale. The plot is so tight: fantastical and surprising, but always real and very believable. It is just an absolute corker of a tale, gorgeously written, brilliantly told.
The only thing that spoiled it for me was the ending. The ending - the last five pages; the last chapter - is feeble. After such a flinty, hard-hearted, grimly realistic account of the selfishness at the heart of human nature, the end was soft and sweetly insipid as baked custard. It was like something from Mills and Boon, but not as strong. Not an ending at all, in fact, the narrative merely stopped. I appreciate the concept of leave 'em wanting more; clearly, we are meant to be left thinking, to decide on our own ending. There's nothing wrong with that in principle, but this ending didn't really feel like that, it just felt unfinished. It needed - deserved - something stronger, more definite than this. After such a strong and vital novel, that last chapter was deeply disappointing.
But don't let my gripe about it put you off reading this extraordinary novel. Disappointment with the last few paragraphs can't mar the glory of the preceding three hundred and twenty pages which are magnificent.Almost a masterpiece.

[Robbie Haigh-mclane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gasp! Beautiful book. Would have loved some more of the old diaries but Helens interjection was sometimes a relief. Poor Harry got nothing and Richard - well should have worked from home more! A result with her family after the reunion would have finished this off nicely. I hope this isn't a spoiler?

[Nick Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know that feeling of sadness and loss when you reach the end of a really gripping novel? That! Interlude is a really good read.

[Plumpka · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 gwiazdki

[Andrew Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling and page turning, everything you want from a holiday read. It's becomes fashionable to set period books against a contemporary setting and in this case we have Helen a bored housewife who enrols in a creative writing class and decides to meet her estranged grandfather who was a literary superstar after the second world war (but his books have gone out of fashion). So we alternate between modern day London (and the pressures of the school run) and a young man struggling to make his way through the blitz. No surprises for guessing who is the more interesting! Sadly at times, Helen reads as a stock character and I didn't really believe in lots of her decisions. However, Edward Barton (the writer) and his time has been well researched and he leaps into life. His great love interest is equally interesting (although it seems ever writer who tackles this era comes up with the same ambitions sexually manipulative bi sexual / gay anti-hero). Towards the end, the plot twists were so broadly flagged that I knew all the revelations from about half way and several characters turn out to be purely functional. All of these problems could probably have been solved if Smith had just focused on the historical story and given himself space to explore all his characters in depth - rather than report their choices through old confessions to minor characters from today. Having said all that, I will definitely be reading more from Smith and looking out for his future books.

[Damaskcat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this well written story of past and present colliding and influencing each other. In the present day is Helen - mother of two - slightly bored who starts to get interested in her grandfather who wrote a book which was turned into a successful film. Helen enrols in a writing class run by Harry who encourages her to look into her grandfather's writing career. Against her parents' wishes she visits her grandfather and they got on well. When he dies there are surprises in store for the whole family.

I thought the author really brought Helen to life and I felt as though I would instantly recognise her if I met her. The background of family secrets and scandal was well done too as it showed the corrosive effects such secrets can have in later years. I did feel that perhaps some of it was a little underwritten and that maybe the book should have been longer but I did enjoy reading it and I shall be looking out for more books by this talented author.

[Eddie Clarke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining read; very adroitly plotted and written. A bored housewife researches her family history, and gets far more than she bargained for. I like the way the two plots (historical and present) intermesh and enhance each other; and how the author keeps the suspense up until virtually the very last sentence.

[carelessdestiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very enjoyable thing to read. The way he creates characters that are pretty nasty but somehow fascinating because of their glossy glamour is admirable.

[KsiazkiNaszaPasja Maa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Antrakt- książka niesamowita.Rozpędza się powoli, delikatnie, a potem jest torpeda, lewy sierpowy, nokaut. I najważniejsze dla mnie odczucie- żal, że książka już się skończyła.Dużo o niej myślałam,o jej bohaterach,o sytuacjach w, w jakich się znaleźli. Przyznam szczerze, że rzadkie ostatnio to u mnie odczucie. Nie ma zbyt wielu książek, które łapią mnie za serce. Ta mnie złapała i nadal trzyma. Jest to powieść bardzo odważna.

Nie jest to książka łatwa, szczególnie w tak nietolerancyjnym kraju jakim jest Polska.
Powieść o miłości, zdradzie, karierze, gdzie pisarstwo przeplata się z życiem. Połączono dwa światy-przedwojenny,wojenny,powojenny i współczesny, i ten stary świat jest najciekawszy, jego jest najwięcej. Na rozdziały o głównym bohaterze czeka się z bijącym sercem. Jest to narracja wnuczki i dziadka, bardzo ciekawa perspektywa. Bohaterowie z bogatym rysem psychologicznym, mocno rozbudowani.
Książkę polecam ludziom otwartym i tolerancyjnym, bo tylko dla takich ona jest przeznaczona.

[Enrico Varrone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Salaciously predictable

[Boomie Czyta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Piękne zakończenie,które nie powinno mieć miejsca. Główna bohaterka jest nie do polubienia i nie zasłużyła na nic co dostała

[madziula · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 bo kiedyś przeczytałam i nawet spoko było

[Steven Benson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pedestrian but readable. Mediocre style.

[Jo Bennie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helen is bored, her husband is often working away and her children at school. She decides to watch The Interlude: a 1959 film starring Laurence Olivier and Jayne Mansfield based on the book of the same name written by her grandfather Edward.

Helen is inspired to pick up the book itself for the first time. The lead is a boy called Derek who escapes a provincial life to attend University College London. He drops out after an appalling production of Ibsen's Ghosts brings him into collision with the actors; the larger than life husband and wife Terence and Leonie. Leonie takes Derek to her bed, his first lover, and he gets a thorough education from the school of life. Derek becomes an active part of the couple's company and bohemian lifestyle.

Helen is curious, she knows that Edward is estranged from her parents and wants to know just how autobiographical his book is.

As Helen begins a predictable sordid affair with her writing tutor she manages to get Edward's address from her cold distant parents and goes to visit him, a frail old man in a crumbling stone house. She gets some answers, and a lot more than she has bargained for when he dies and leaves almost everything to her, including a request to be his literary executor. Helen's lover helps her heave boxes of paper out of the attic, among the decades of hoarded ephemera are Edward's diaries.

From here on we alternate between a rather lacklustre present day and a wartime London packed with colourful characters backed by an end of days atmosphere as the Blitz rips the city apart.

I must admit, I nearly gave up on this book because Helen felt like such a sad unlikeable character, but the book really improves when it is interspersed and contrasted with Edward's narrative and the twists and turns of an extraordinary life. The Interlude surprises right until the end.

[Graeme Aitken · Rating 3 out of 5]

This new novel from the author of the very popular and award-winning 'Man’s World' (2010) follows a similar structure to that earlier novel. Once again we have contrasting dual narratives set in London – a modern day story and another set primarily in the late 1930s and 1940s. It is this story set in the past that is going to resonant most with gay readers as it explores a gay relationship complicated by the closet and the need to be covert. Handsome, strapping young Edward Barton falls in with a small theatrical company and is promptly seduced by Eleanora, the blowsy middle-aged leading lady. Her husband Terence is also part of the company but it’s an unconventional marriage – they both have a taste for young men. Edward finds his niche on stage and also writing sketches for the company, but also quickly learns how much certain men appreciate his physical assets. During the early years of the war, Edward is seduced by on older, well-to-do man and begins to appreciate the comfort and security that is offered. But it is when Eleanora and Ted’s beloved son Billy returns injured from the war and joins the household that a new dynamic comes into play. Once again Rupert Smith has delivered a novel that is highly readable and entertaining but which also has some depth and substance behind it. The characters are finely developed, their flaws carefully calibrated; the rather complicated plot is deftly handled; and the historic detail and setting is fascinating, in particular the realities of 1940s gay life. It takes more than 100 pages for the gay storyline to kick in but once it does, it basically hijacks the novel.

[Alistair · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a novel of powerful emotions, with more than a few rabbits pulled from the hat as the story evolves. Edward Barton was one of the 20th century’s most famous writers, but failed to publish another book after his biggest success “The Interlude”. Now in his 90s, his granddaughter, Helen tracks him down to ask “why”? The answers prove not what Helen expected and have explosive ramifications for the family. Helen’s relationship with both parents is fraught, her husband spends a lot of time away from home, and she’s just stated an affair with her creative writing tutor. After Edward’s death, Helen trawls through box after box of Edward’s writings, but it’s not until she discovers the diaries that she hits pay dirt. This is a fascinatingly complex novel about love that I found compelling reading.

[Adam Dunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith is great at pace and the story clips along nicely. That being said I don't think he's written a likeable character and this book is really no exception. It would be funny if in real life he were overly warm and gregarious.
It's hard to get overly invested in unlikable characters.
I found it a little weird reading a gay male love story from primarily a woman's perspective. Also found it annoying that although the book itself mentions Amazon.com, the kindle version can't be ordered from there, only from the UK subsidiary.
I keep reading Smith as I really liked Man's World and his books have great pace and move along nicely. It's like a trick though, as every time you finish the book something's missing.

[Paul Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good entertaining story.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great read - really draws you in with the gripping story and interestingly flawed but loveable characters!

[Korcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://korcimnieczytanie.blogspot.com...

[Mark Ludmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable, well-paced novel about family secrets, with a fascinating picture of gay life in the mid 20th century.