Penelope Shuttle is the author of several novels and of two collections of poems, the second of which, The Child Stealer, is due out later this year. The Wise Wound, a pioneering study of menstruation, was written with her husband, Peter Redgrove.
The twilight is like a fine rain forcing us home.
Under the trees glow the chalky threads of snowdrops
at which I stare. Who goes there, the sentry cries.
But how can I describe the mastery of flowers grazing the earth,
like translations done without dictionaries?
Whatever the women in these Weldon and Shuttle novels achieve, it is not through effort or desperation so much as by passive submission. Women’s minds and bodies are the scene of all the...
Read anywhere with the London Review of Books app, available now from the App Store for Apple devices, Google Play for Android devices and Amazon for your Kindle Fire.
For highlights from the latest issue, our archive and the blog, as well as news, events and exclusive promotions.