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The Office of The Dead, third in the Roth trilogy (The Four Last Things and The Judgement of Strangers), links the histories of two families, the Appleyards and the Byfields. It's England circa 1958 and Wendy Appleyard is in deep trouble. She's facing divorce with no money or work experience, so she looks to her oldest friend, Janet Byfield, for assistance. Unlike Wendy, Janet appears to be enjoying everything that life can offer: a good-looking husband, a loving daughter and an exquisite home in the Cathedral Close of Rosington. Her husband is an ambitious young clergyman, on the verge of promotion.
But there is the worm in the rosy bud: sins of the past begin to make a devastating claim on the present, and death comes to the Close, along with a mystery that reaches back to the previous century involving an ill-fated poet priest and opium addict called Francis Youlgreave. Wendy, as the outsider in this close-knit community, begins to suspect the truth about the dark secrets around her, and finds herself having to unlock a double mystery.
Taylor's theme, as in so much serious literature, is the inexorable hold that the past has over the present--and this is rendered in language of the most thoughtful and exuberant kind:
My mother thought Hillgard House would make me a lady. My father thought it would get me out of the way for most of the year. He was right and she was wrong. We didn't learn to be young ladies at Hillgard House--we learnt to be little savages in a jungle presided over by remote predators.--Barry Forshaw
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