Thoughts 
by Mollie Panter-Downes, Virago 2003 (orig 1947), 179 pages
Month/Day Category
Genre: Post WW2
Type/Source: Tradeback, purchased online
Why I read this now: Classics Club 50! and one more for this WiaN category.
MOTIVATION for READING: I might have put this on my Classics Club 50 list because it happens in a single day. I have an informal personal challenge to read such stories. Blame Mrs. Dalloway.
WHAT’s it ABOUT: Copied from the goodreads.com description: It’s a summer’s day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall and their daughter Victoria are forced to manage without “those anonymous caps and aprons who lived out of sight and pulled the strings.” Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see what it would have meant if the war had been lost, and looks to the future with a new hope and optimism. First published in 1947, this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, and the gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.
THOUGHTS: So much goes right with this book. I can’t do it justice; will only say IN MY OPINION, this is flawless in construction, in pacing, in tone, in style, in characterization, everything. An utter delight.
And it had pie.
Page 55: “How sadly, thought Laura, odours of Mrs. Vyner’s frozen-cod pie clung to the rep curtains which should have shut out the night on porty stuffiness and spilled candlelight.”
Five slices of pie.
Care's Books and Pie 
You’ve made this sound like a must read!
Yay!
Sounds like one I’d love!
On Monday, book will be enroute.
Isn’t this book JUST PERFECT!?!? I loved it too.
I am reading Ducks, Newburyport and it is so full of PIE, I am thinking of you constantly. Also I am working on a letter response to A Handful of Dust.
Happy Thanksgiving! 😀
Oh MAN! I really gave some thought to buying it. Am going to ask Santa.
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Sounds like this is right up my alley. Thanks for featuring it.
I think you’d love it.