The Heir by V. Sackville-West (1922)

This is Sackville-West's first compilation of short fiction, and represents a departure in more than just form. Her first two novels were 'Hardyesque'; the tone here is a lot more intimately immediate, closer to home. I'm not sure whom she has been influenced by, but the intention is clear - she wishes to find a truer, more revealing homecoming in her development as a writer. This works...and it doesn't. The longer pieces, The Heir itself, The Christmas Party and Her Son, are strong on detail and narrative; the intention early on in them is clearly one of sensual explication of a close scene. But The Heir hinges on an impossibility - an owner bidding on their own property at auction; The Christmas Party builds and builds and then sputters to a disappointing nothing; Her Son also ends slightly drably, but here that is more appropriate to the sad misunderstanding which is the centre of the piece. The shorter pieces, the sketchlike and elegiac Patience, and the fabular and elegiac The Parrot, are much more soundly effective as works of art. This volume is Sackville-West branching out and exploring new territory; the experiment is typically involving, and expectedly mixed in its results. I'm waiting for her to hit her mark more absolutely.