Product Description

In the summer of 1909, seventeen-year-old Nell Golightly is the new maid at the Orchard Tea Gardens in Cambridgeshire when Rupert Brooke moves in as a lodger. Famed for his looks and flouting of convention, the young poet captures the hearts of men and women alike, yet his own seems to stay intact. Even Nell, despite her good sense, begins to fall for him. What is his secret?

This captivating novel gives voice to Rupert Brooke himself in a tale of mutual fascination and inner turmoil, set at a time of great social unrest. Revealing a man far more complex and radical than legend suggests, it powerfully conveys the allure – and curse – of charisma.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7262 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'Moving, intelligent, beautifully written and hugely enjoyable' (Sunday Times )

'Dawson brilliantly evokes Brooke's volatility, his inner dissolution and ultimate breakdown.' (Independent )

'Strong, satisfying and memorable' (Helen Dunmore, The Times )

'Not only engaging and seductive, it is also clever, witty and artfully designed' (Times Literary Supplement )

'An exceptional book even from the prize-winning Dawson – clever, moving, sexy and with a mesmerising feel for that magical, optimistic, but doomed time just before the Great War' (Daily Mail )

'Nell is a wonderful creation: resilient, intelligent and heart-breakingly innocent . . . [Dawson]manages not only an impressive evocation of Brooke’s milieu but a compelling reassessment of a poet often dismissed by modern readers . . . most of all, her novel digs Brooke out of that corner of a foreign field that is forever cliché' (Time Out )

'Jill Dawson has created a convincing world of huge pathos; a subtle, evocative anti-fairy-tale of doomed youth by one of Britain’s most subtle and accomplished writers' (Liz Jensen, Waterstone’s Books Quarterly )

'The Great Lover has many wonderful scenes . . . But it is remarkable principally for its Rupert Brooke, glorious in all his agony and shame, particularly as he sees his sanity slipping away from him . . . this novel shows a rare mastery of materials. Dawson has worked the imaginary character of Nell so seamlessly into the narrative of Brooke’s life that Nell seems to belong there. It is difficult to see where the many direct quotations from letters and memories end and Dawson’s imagination begins.' (Daily Telegraph )

About the Author
Jill Dawson is the author of TRICK OF THE LIGHT, MAGPIE, FRED AND EDIE, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize, WILD BOY, WATCH ME DISAPPEAR, which was longlisted for the Orange Prize, and THE GREAT LOVER. In addition she has edited six anthologies of short stories and poetry.

She has held many Fellowships, including the Creative Writing Fellowship at the University of East Anglia, where she taught on the MA in Creative Writing course. She lives in the Fens with her husband and two sons.

Customer Reviews

Didn't work for me
There's a lot that is good in this novel, but somehow it didn't really engage me although I picked it up intrigued to know more about Rupert Brooke's sojourn in the South Seas. (A biographical detail that was new to me.)
But somehow the biographical details weigh too heavily and crush this as a novel. Nevertheless, I loved the spirited character of Nell, the beekeeper/kitchenmaid ... and Jill Dawson brings vividly alive the Orchard tearooms and the Old Vicarage (still there, I believe) where there is honey still for tea. She also conveys vividly her love of the Fens, Nell's childhood home.
But I found the character of Rupert, and his interminable adolescent preoccupation with losing his virginity to one gender or another, deeply tiresome (though it does give an insight into the thwarted sexuality of respectable young Edwardians). And the drip-drip-drip of constant Bloomsbury-ish name-dropping is likewise rather boring.
I plodded on and finished it ... but it was plodding and at the half-way point, I came very near to abandoning this book.

Not just upstairs/downstairs
I was at first surprised by how different this book was to 'Watch me Disappear' which, though I enjoyed it, seemed pedestrian in comparison to The Great Lover. Greatly researched, it brilliantly gives a feeling for England on the brink of a war which would change it socially forever. It shows the upper and lower class network which exists on the verge of disappearing while always underlining the innocence of the characters in the novel; they see neither what they are nor how what is to come will leave them altered.

I enjoyed the change in narrative voice from Nellie to Brooke, though I was more involved in her tale than his, probably because she was more self aware than he. Though at times I sympathised with him I did not find him a totally likeable character; Nellie though I admired in her fortitude. Her hopeless desire for him was so potent I could feel her longing each time they met.

Two parts of the book I found hard to read; the first was the gay sex interlude, the second the abuse of the altar boy. I felt the book did nothing to further the cause of homosexuality as it seemed Brooke only took part in it as it was more easily secured than straight sex and easily understood and allowed by public schoolboys.

The present day introduction and the ending of the novel with the poem 'The Great Lover' held the story together, filled in the missing years and finally lead me in understanding and sympathy for Brooke, his nihilism and legacy as well as that of the wider human condition.

'somewhere, I shall wake, And give what's left of love'
A convincing narrative voice is a challenge for any writer and doubly so when that voice belongs to a real person. Whilst poems, letters and other material might appear initially to give a writer a head start on rendering them, it can be those same pieces which gradually restrict your ability to write confidently yourself. But as the pages flew by in this engrossing, atmospheric and beautifully crafted novel I could feel my shoulders relaxing.

Dawson begins things with a letter from Arlice Rapoto, a Tahitian woman who claims to be Brooke's daughter. This letter is received by Nellie Golightly who served as a maid at The Old Vicarage, Grantchester at the time when Brooke stayed in a room there. Arlice asks the same question that I began with:

'I have read two poems by him but I would like to hear his voice. I would like to read his letters but mostly hear his living voice, to know what he smelled like and sounded like.'

This allows Nellie to plunder her memories of that time and her thoughts alternate with the letters and journal entries of Brooke himself. I'm not a huge fan of that kind of structure to a novel but when it's done well as in Julian Barnes' Arthur and George you almost don't notice the convention and Dawson skilfully builds a rhythm to these exchanges which adds to the overall impact of the narrative.

Nellie is able to answer Arlice's question almost immediately with one of her early encounters with the poet. Late one evening in the garden she is startled to be met by a completely naked Brooke.

'Glorious evening, Nell- '
I opened my eyes then, thinking he had passed, and his hand flew down to his private parts and, widening his legs comically, he said: '"Down, little bounder, down!" as Edmund Gosse said to his heart,' and then he laughed, rudely and very loudly. He passed so close that I could smell the scent of the muddy river that wrapped his skin.'

Nellie reels away from this encounter, finding it stirs up memories of her recent past, reminding her first of her brothers swimming in the summer back home and then of the 'poor stiff body' of her father that she had to lay out and bathe when he died. This bereavement, which has led Nellie away from home in order to support the rest of the family, has a lingering impact on her and her time at The Old Vicarage is one of personal, social, political and sexual awakening. One of the joys of this book is that none of these things are dealt with in a heavy handed manner. During this period, the height of the Suffragette movement, Nell is naturally exposed to the politics, both domestic and national, that dominate the country at this time. As a woman in service she is well aware of her place and indeed happy with it and Dawson illustrates this brilliantly by making Nell the daughter of a bee-keeper. As such she knows about the order of the hive- 'Bees have morals! They're loyal. They're devoted to their queen and they work so hard! There's no shame in service...Bees live only to serve!' It is through her own tending of the hives in Grantchester that Dawson creates one of the books most memorable scenes. The power structure is turned on its head when Nell takes Rupert to the hives, the bees themselves sensitive to the energy between them and Nell alive to the danger that this places Rupert in as his flirtations grow. When he lifts his veil to kiss her the bees sense their opportunity.

'Now he is mine to rescue..One bee is on his chin, edging up towards his mouth.The terror in his eyes is quite real. I see by the wildness in his look that he wants to flap and scream and run about but puts his trust in me, like a small boy, like one of my brothers. It is this, finally, that is my undoing. I could have held off, I reckon, if it weren't for this. His teasing, his naughtiness, his insults, his demands, his flirting. Even the sight of him naked as the day he was born. I could resist them all, but not that one small thing. A glimpse of the boy.'

Until this point Nell has perceptively identified Rupert as someone who 'has spent too much time in the classroom with other boys, giving the same boys too great an importance, with their secret games and private names', which cuts right to the heart of his emotional immaturity. A man still behaving like a schoolboy, having moved from one institution to another and indulged by those around him, the big surprise about Brooke is that at this point in his life 'the handsomest young man in England' is in fact a virgin. More than that, he is wrestling with his sexuality and Dawson again uses great subtlety and skill in depicting the clumsiness and shame of his various forays into sexual maturity.

The relationship between Nell and Rupert, like the rhythm of their alternating voices, is filled with echoes. As Nell awakens to the world around her, so too does Rupert through his Fabian Society tour of the country and visit to the continent. There are moments when they can drop the class barrier that separates them and when Brooke loses his father it is Nell he thinks of first, finding comfort from what she had said to him of her own loss.

When he leaves for the South Seas there is a danger that the energy built up between them will dissipate but Dawson cleverly counters it by altering the synchronicity of their respective voices; whilst Rupert is away, Nell remembers an event before his leaving and we learn of that as we see how Brooke ends his days, bringing everything full circle with a very satisfying close.