A writer writes

She’s already thinking about her next novel, the 84-year-old Penelope Lively recently told a New York Times interviewer.

“I wouldn’t know what to do if I wasn’t writing,” she said. “I’d feel very restless. I know if I start something new, I may never finish it, but it’s what you do. A writer writes.”

And, boy, can she write. Prolific and critically praised, Lively has published 24 novels and short story collections, 24 children’s books, and several books of nonfiction. She captured the Booker Prize in 1987 for Moon Tiger and won the Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature (the equivalent of our Newbery award). With such an impressive body of work, the British author could be forgiven if she decided to give it a rest.

But no. The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories appeared in May and shows Lively at the top of her game.

The title story shows off Lively’s imaginative daring. Set in 79 AD, the tale is told in the voice of the purple swamp hen, Porphyrio porphyrio, an inhabitant of a fabulous tiled garden in Pompeii. In the mild climate, the wealthy householder and his friends liked to be outdoors, and the swamp hen saw it all, heard it all: “fornication, incest, rape, child abuse, grievous bodily harm.” As the swamp hen recounts scenes of Bacchanalian excess and cruelty, a volcanic eruption changes everything. The swamp hen calls to its mate to flee. And they flew “Far, far. Away from the mountain until there was no more falling stuff, and that terrible black cloud was distant…(We found)… a good marshy place, where there was no garden, no fountain…but water, reeds, the kind of habitat appropriate to Porphyrio porphryrio.”

After this exotic beginning, the following 14 stories focus on contemporary, middle-class English people.  But don’t expect warm and cozy tales. Lively gives us sharply observed portraits of women and men in moments that reveal their vanity, venality, or humanity. Or, usually, all three. And sly wit is a constant.

Several stories explore couples grappling with the fraying bonds of love and constancy. “The Third Wife” shows Lively’s penchant for dark humor. A husband with a pattern of disappearing on his wives—usually with a substantial amount of their money—gets his comeuppance in a most satisfactory way, as wife # 3 beats him at his own game.

In “The Row,” the humor is gentler as the wife, post-argument, summons her memories of all the men she could have chosen. The wife muses, “The world is full of men—men of every size, shape, persuasion, clever men, funny men, charming, potentially devoted men…Several of the men she had missed out on gleamed at her, almost perceptible—a smile of invitation, conspiratorial glances….All those…any of those.. And she had him.” However, through the morning, her reflections subtly shift to an appreciation of him, his kindnesses, their shared memories.

Lively shows a deft touch in portraying older people, especially women. Two stories show that “old dears” are in perfect possession of their wit and observational acuity. In “Old as the Hills,” two rivals in their 80s pretend to make nice over lunch, but soon spar over the recently buried Hugh, husband, at different times, to both Jane and Celia. “Forty-two years ago, you helped yourself to my husband,” Jane accuses Celia. “Absolutely. I can’t deny that,” Celia responds. This has been a long time coming, Jane muses. “Forty-two years. I have plenty to say. So has she. We get down to it. At last—“

And get down to it they do. But as the restaurant empties and people pass their table with an indulgent glance, Jane imagines them seeing two elderly ladies happily chatting about old times.

Pauline, the 86-year-old protagonist in “A License to Kill,” realizes that her caretaker Cally also thinks of her as an “old dear” as they go about their shopping routine. As they pause for a tea break, Cally comments, “I expect you were a teacher, Pauline, weren’t you?”

Pauline replies mildly, “No, dear, I was a spy.”

Well, that shuts down the conversation! But only briefly. “A license to kill?” asks Cally, recalibrating her view of the old lady.

Pauline thinks, “Like onions…A person is. Layers. And you haven’t a clue. You just look at the top. An old person ls just an old person, you think.”

As a complaining customer causes the check-out line to back up, Pauline thinks of her training days with MI5 and MI6: “You learned how to strangle a person with the bare hands. I think I am about to exercise the skill for only the second time.”

Almost every story captures a moment that reveals, or at least hints at, a deeper, broader tale. All are a pleasure to savor, offering wit and observation that feel absolutely true.