The Odyssey of Lily Page

I kept wondering after I finished Jude Hayland’s “The Odyssey of Lily Page” if she and her editor might have gone round a bit over the novel’s to-me superfluous postscript in which a character shows something of a change of heart which I found improbable.
It was the only possibly false note I found – well, other than perhaps a bit too optimistic an ending preceding the postscript – in a novel otherwise scrupulously true-to-life in its depiction of its protagonist, Lily Page, who is looking to her future after having just turned the half-century mark in Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 England.
Not that Lily is necessarily looking for any significant change in her daily regimen or has any misapprehensions about her lot in life. A woman of routine, she describes herself as, conforming to a prescribed, contained life – “the only one, after all, she had ever known.”
A bit disingenuous, though, that characterization of herself, with how she has had an affair with a married man and a brief assignation with another man, which, with the personal upset the two liaisons created for her, have left her if not exactly content at least reasonably satisfied with a placid existence which includes an administrative job at a school and involvement with a play-reading society and relationships with her octogenarian aunt and a friend, Agnes, from the reading group. And there is the hope that she might yet again visit Greece as she did earlier in her life with her now-deceased classics-scholar father.
A satisfying, if not exactly content existence, as I say, whose mundaneness is rendered engagingly enough, in the manner of, say, Edith Wharton, to keep a reader turning pages.
About to introduce some mayhem, though, into that now-ordered existence is one Hugh Murray, an actor who presents himself as having just stumbled upon her reading group (he claims he was looking for an Italian class) but who will come to be a staple of the group as well as an unsettling presence in Lily’s life. As will a young woman Lily first sees in the novel’s opening pages, Stella Fox, who will come to be as disruptive a presence in Lily's life as Hugh. A couple of grifters, an observant reader will recognize the two as, with the only question for me being whether they were working individually or in concert to do their numbers on Lily, who isn’t as quick to recognize the two for what they are.
Not that she is completely oblivious to what the two are up to, particularly when an apparent old acquaintance of Hugh’s suggests that Hugh hasn’t been entirely honest about his past and a woman presenting herself as Stella’s mother suggests the same about her. And if those aren’t signals enough of trouble to a reader, the author isn’t subtle about foreshadowing trouble when literal wasps circle Lily and Hugh as the two share a drink and the suggestion is first made that he move in with her – something Stella accomplishes as well.
A couple of Patricia HIghsmith sorts, in short, the two, with their schemes all the more unsettling for how they’re in such marked contrast to the quiet ordinariness of Lily’s life, just as awful events in the outside world, when they’re cited (Dresden, Guernica, Saigon and Dachau among them) seem almost part of some other universe. Which makes it all the more devastating when one such event, the Harrods car bombing, literally comes crashing into Lily’s life.
Through it all, though, Lily keeps her chin up and proves herself quite the sympathetic character whom a reader will wish the best for as she makes her way toward an ending which, as I say, I found perhaps a bit too optimistic and, regardless, sufficient unto itself without need for that postscript.

As I closed the book on Lily Page's story, I felt the weight of her suffocating life in Islington lifting off my own shoulders. The author's masterful strokes painted a portrait of a woman trapped in a lifetime of obligation, her dreams and desires buried beneath the expectations of others. The abortive love affair whispered hints of a fiercer, more passionate soul yearning to break free. Then, like a breath of fresh air, Stella and Hugh burst into Lily's life, carrying the scent of change and possibility. I felt Lily's conflict like a knot in my own chest: the longing for security and familiarity wrestling with the thrill of the unknown. As she tentatively reaches out to these new companions, I found myself urging her on, craving the oxygen of adventure and self-discovery. A poignant, thought-provoking tale that lingers like a whisper in the mind long after the final page is turned.

Thank you to NetGalley and Matador Publishing for the opportunity to read and review an advanced copy of this book.
My opinions are my own.

Lily Page Has always tried to fit in, be helpful not make a fuss. Her mother died shortly after giving birth to her leaving her to be brought up by her academic father and stern spinster aunt resulting in a truncated childhood. It was. always understood that her place was to help her father with his work on Ancient Greece, providing secretarial support. However on the death of her father shortly before her fiftieth birthday leaves her feeling untethered. She feels lucky that she has been provided for including the family home in Islington

Her life is turned upside down after meeting Stella Fox, and a middle-aged actor, Hugh Murray, who both end up being helped by Lilys generosity. She grasps the chance to become more engaged with life. But as time passes she becomes more uneasy about their relationships. We’ll told if somewhat predictable story.

Loved watching the revitalization of Lily, despite interacting with selfish using scoundrels, making the right decisions when confronted with the truths. And fulfilling her dream life.