Review”The inheritance of a mansion in Bristol sparks Stephen Benatar’s rediscovered classic Wish Her Safe at Home, in which a cheerfully unbalanced young striver finds her energetic attempts to hug the finer things in life (and seduce the vicar) thwarted.” –Vogue
“This is a most primary and surprising novel, and one difficult to forget: it stays in the mind.” –Dorris Lessing
“I genuinely loved this book…such a marvelous work…” –Emma Thompson
“A masterpiece…matchlessly clever…wholly original.” –John Carey
“The story is simple, the significations are complex. Rachel is one of the outstanding English female characters. . . . She is Scarlett O’Hara, Blanche DuBois, Snow White and Miss Havisham all rolled into one.” —S.J. Newman, The Times Literary Supplement
“A genuinely noteworthy novel, distinguishable and of a world all it is own, the best work I’ve read for a long time. . . . I took it slowly, so some pages a day. I’m never one to spoil enjoyment when into something so extraordinary.” —Alan Sillitoe
“Benatar brilliantly imagines himself into a tragically compassionate mind for which wild imagination is the only, and proper, antidote to despair.” —The Guardian
“A neglected masterpiece…Brilliant…” –Joan Bakewell, The Times (London)
“This horrifying exploration of madness at least deserves to be called a cult classic.” –The Independent
“A outstandingly odd and chilling story.” –The Observer (London)
“There is something with regards to Rachel Waring—something which is instantaneously evident when you read the book—that makes the reader care deeply for her…Wish her Safe at Home is spooky, odd and brilliant.” –Camden New Journal
“The atmosphere of encroaching cobwebs, decreasing funds and withering reality is well done…a nice grey sense of eccentricity shading into madness.” –The Guardian (London)
“Rachel’s affect on the world is only glimpsed in snatches, but they’re sufficient to suggest that her self-view is woefully at odds with society at large. It’s a brilliantly clever technique, with an affect in particular unsettling for those who choose to live alone.” –The Observer (London)
“This is one of those satisfying stories that is told in the initial person by one who does not comprehend the import of what she’s revealing–very much like Molly Keane’s ‘Good Behavior,’ in fact. Rachel goes exclusively mad, but in a way that perfectly reveals a grim world of predatory aim and callousness all around her. It is a black comedy, exuberantly grotesque, but sad and poignant as well.” –Katherine A. Powers, Boston Globe
About the AuthorStephen Benatar was born in London in 1937. He has taught English at the University of Bordeaux, lived in Southern California, been a schoolteacher, an umbrella salesman, a hotel porter, and an employee of the Forestry Commission. He started out writing as a child, but did not publish his original book, The Man on the Bridge, until he was forty-four. Subsequent works include Wish Her Safe at Home, When I Was Otherwise, Recovery, Letters for a Spy, and Two on a Tiger and Stars, a book for young readers. Benatar has four grown children and presently lives in West Hampstead, London, with his partner, John.
John Carey is Arts Emeritus Merton Professor of English at Oxford University. He has appeared as a host and commentator on a great deal of television and radio programs in England and is the former chief book reviewer for The Sunday Times. Among his books are The Intellectuals and the Masses, What Good Are the Arts?, Pure Pleasure: A Guide to the Twenieth Century’s Most Enjoyable Books, and a biography of William Golding. He has chaired the Booker Prize committee twice and in 2005 was the chair of the original global Booker Prize committee.
Wish Her Safe at Home
Wish Her Safe At Home