In the Dark

Eithne Clay is an alluring wife and mother whose husband is away fighting in the trenches. She runs a shabby boarding house in Southwark where her lodgers, like herself, lead lives of barely respectable desperation. The War casts a long shadow over ordinary lives; times are hard while the men are away being slaughtered. Food is short and the old certainties are disintegrating around them. Eithne’s adolescent so Ralph tries to be the man of the house, while the homely young maid, Winnie, barely manages to keep it all together.

Then along comes Neville Turk, the butcher, a handsome bull of a man, who falls for Eithne and throws her life into turmoil. He woos her with choice cuts and soon the erotic voltage of their affair wakes up the house like the newly-installed electricity. Ralph’s jealousy of this interloper grows out of control, while Winnie’s strange liaison with Alwyne Flyte, the blind lodger, has startling consequences. Meanwhile, in this house of whispers and secrets, the butcher has plans of his own, which lead to a tragic and dramatic climax. This sensual, tantalizing and often very funny novel throws an uncanny light on the tragicomedy of life on the home front.

Deborah Moggach

is the author of many successful novels including, most recently, These Foolish Things and Tulip Fever. Her screenplays include the film of Pride and Prejudice, which was nominated for a BAFTA. She lives in North London.

Deborah Moggach's q & a

What sparked In the Dark?
Two things triggered it. The fact that we’re at a pivotal moment when the First World War is slipping from memory into history. And my grandmother’s story – she lost her young husband, only brother and eleven cousins in the war, and I wanted to write about the devastating effect of the conflict on ordinary, domestic lives. A story where the war leaks in through cracks in the doors, so to speak.

Where and when is the novel set?
It’s set in deepest Southwark in 1916-18.

Do you have a favourite character in the novel?
My favourite character is Winnie, the very plain maid-of-all-work who has a good heart and a lantern jaw.

What's your favourite children's book and why
Just William books, of course. What else?