The writers I love: Elizabeth Jane Howard

There is something immensely satisfying about seeing the reputation of a writer you have loved for years steadily rise. Ten years after her death, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s stock has never been higher. Like many women creators, critics have for years defined her by her relationships with famous men; now finally she is being lauded for her superb books.

Elizabeth Jane Howard was born to an aristocratic family, the daughter of a hypercritical ballerina mother and a predatory father, in the 1920s. Following early ambitions to act, she turned to writing fiction instead. In addition to well-publicised romances with Laurie Lee, Romain Gary, Cyril Connolly, Cecil Day-Lewis, Kenneth Tynan, Arthur Koestler and Robert Aickman, her three husbands included painter Peter Scott and novelist Kingsley Amis. It’s easy to get sidetracked by the fact that she was incredibly well-connected and stunningly beautiful, but her books stand as some of the best of the twentieth century.

Success came early to Howard. Her first novel, The Beautiful Visit, won the John Llewellyn Rhys award. She went on to write a string of well-received contemporary novels, including The Long View, an ambitious story of a marital breakdown told in reverse; After Julius, in which the family of a man who died at Dunkirk grapple with the legacy of his heroic self-sacrifice, Something Wicked This Way Comes, in which a humourless colonel proves to be no laughing matter, and the magisterial social history of the five Cazalet chronicles, the semi-autobiographical story of how the Second World War affects the lives of a large upper-middle-class Sussex family. Adapted for television as The Cazalets, the adaptation failed to do justice to the sheer feat of engineering that is multiple protagonists over a significant number of years.

Her best book is without a doubt Falling, the unsettling story of Henry Kent, a sexual abuser and psychopath who preys on lonely women and, in doing so, nearly kills playwright Daisy Langrish. Based on her own near-escape from just such a man, Howard’s book is incisive, subtle, and chilling, marrying the best of her ability to work within the uncanny and contemporary genres simultaneously.

Not all Howard’s books hit the mark. Getting It Right failed to bring to life Gavin, its autodidact hairdresser protagonist, although it contains a superb evocation of bulimia in the character of Minerva. Odd Girl Out, the story of a happy middle-class marriage disrupted by the beautiful but naive Arabella, similarly fails to make you care about the marriage she disrupts. But even Howard’s lesser books are thought-provoking, subtle and incredibly detailed; she is never less than worth a re-read.

So why was she so overlooked for so long? Partly, at least, owing to her long association with Kingsley Amis. When they met, Amis was at the peak of his fame, but his alcohol dependency and difficult teenage children required significant investment from Howard, who also ran the house, cooked, and managed their extensive social life. They shared a literary agent, but the sheer volume of Amis’ sales meant that he was perceived as the agent’s priority, while Howard consistently felt sidelined and ignored.

Times have happily changed, and bumptious, misogynistic novels like Stanley and the Women (which contains a blistering attack on a barely-disguised Howard) have dated badly and seen Amis’ reputation slide, while Howard’s has continued to grow, helped by the public endorsement of high-profile fans like Hilary Mantel, whose favourite author she was. Howard’s incisive eye for character and poetic, precise prose style cannot date; it is timeless. Reading her can only ever be an education, a masterclass in novel writing, and, more importantly, a joy.