Product Description

On a rainy Sunday in January, the recently widowed Mrs Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel, where she will spend the rest of her days. Her fellow residents, magnificently eccentric and endlessly curious, live off crumbs of affection and an obsessive interest in the relentless round of hotel meals. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper.

And then one day Mrs Palfrey encounters the handsome young writer, Ludo, and learns that even the old can fall in love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24657 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Paul Bailey
'Taylor had the keenest eye and ear for the pain lurking behind a genteel demeanour'

Rebecca Abrams, New Statesman
'The unsung heroine of British twentieth-century fiction'

Anne Tyler
`Jane Austen, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Bowen - soul-sisters all'

Customer Reviews

"Welcome to the Claremont. I hope you have a strong stomach.",
When Mrs. Palfrey, a genteel, elderly widow, arrives with her possessions at the formerly elegant Claremont Hotel in London, she expects "something quite different." Planning to stay at least a month, possibly permanently, she prefers her independence in this aging London hotel to living in Scotland near her daughter, who begrudges the attention she pays her. A variety of elderly eccentrics call the Claremont home--an aging "actress," a ditzy busybody, a haughty observer of the social niceties, a woman who fancies herself an ingénue. The residents put up a good front, but their loneliness and boredom are obvious--no one visits them, they rarely leave the hotel, and nothing in their lives changes very much.

When she falls while walking one day, Mrs. Palfrey is rescued by Ludovic Meyer, a struggling young writer. Because of his kindness and her pleasure in his attention, she invites him to dinner, where the residents assume he is her grandson Desmond. Ludo/Desmond is everything that the other residents of the hotel long for--he genuinely cares for Mrs. Palfrey, he listens to her, and he recognizes her value. Having never known a normal family life, Ludo needs Mrs. Palfrey as much as she needs him, and she happily becomes his much-needed "grandmother."

As the two develop a relationship, Mrs. Palfrey reminisces about her married life, teaching Ludo about the many kinds of love and all its pleasures, and he, having failed in past relationships, begins to understand what love means, blossoming under her attention. He takes notes as Mrs. Palfrey shares her past for a story he plans to write about her life and her experiences at the Claremont, where the informal motto is "We Aren't Allowed to Die Here." As time passes and life becomes more complicated for both of them, their relationship is tested.

Filled with hilariously eccentric characters who respond to aging in different ways, this 1975 novel shows a feisty Mrs. Palfrey challenging convention by reveling in her relationship Ludo. With an unerring eye for the telling detail and the perfectly revealing comment, the author brings universal themes to vibrant life--the passage of time, the aging process, the compromises we make, and our continuing need to be accepted. The author never resorts to caricature as she makes her wry observations, respecting her characters even when presenting them in sometimes hilarious scenes. In this sweetly romantic comic masterpiece, old age is shown as a stage in life, not its conclusion. Mary Whipple

waiting for the next stage
I haven't finished the book yet, but it is quite fantastic. Thje heroine is a genteel widow who has ended up in one of those residential hotels that are preliminary staging posts for the ultimate end. One of the other guests, Mrs Arbuthnot, is obliged to move on to the next stage half way through. The hotel Claremont is utterly naturalistic, but gathers to itself very powerful symbolisms. The whole book (as far as I've got) is like that: the people are real and uniquely individual, but they are all of us too. The atmosphere of respectable London, Harrods, ... all brilliantly caught.

The dusk of their days
This is the story of the eponymous heroine lving out the dusk of her days in the Claremont Hotel on Cromwell Road in postcolonial London. Her fellow long-term residents are other old people who have fallen on hard times, but remain just about affluent enough to avoid a care home. The novel centres on the interactions between them, trying to keep up appearances and maintaining a stiff upper lip until the end. The loneliness and boundless monotony of their lives forms the backdrop to Mrs. Palfrey's astute and witty observations and we share her thrill in a secret kept from fellow guests: the man she addresses as her grandson is in fact a young writer she met in a chance encounter. Ludo, unlike her real grandson, is a delightful, attentive and interesting young man. He is preparing a novel -"We aren't allowed to die here"- and first draws on their encounters as a form of research, but their friendship grows on the basis of mutual respect and beautiful conversations.
I would not have picked this up if it had not been for a personal recommendation and I was delighted by it.