ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans

Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans was published by Doubleday on 5th September in hardcover, eBook and audiobook. My thanks to the publishers for the proof copy of the book.

When I first saw Lissa Evans mention Small Bomb at Dimperley on social media I was sold on the idea and it turned out to be just the book to follow on from my epic Downton Abbey re-watch, illustrating a marked difference between the pre-war opulence and post-war doldrums for so many country houses.

It’s 1945, and Corporal Valentine Vere-Thissett, aged 23, is on his way home.

But ‘home’ is Dimperley, built in the 1500s, vast and dilapidated, up to its eaves in debt and half-full of fly-blown taxidermy and dependent relatives, the latter clinging to a way of life that has gone forever.

And worst of all – following the death of his heroic older brother – Valentine is now Sir Valentine, and is responsible for the whole bloody place. To Valentine, it’s a millstone; to Zena Baxter, who has never really had a home before being evacuated there with her small daughter, it’s a place of wonder and sentiment, somewhere that she can’t bear to leave.

But Zena has been living with a secret, and the end of the war means she has to face a reckoning of her own…

Funny, sharp and touching, Small Bomb at Dimperley is both a love story and a bittersweet portrait of an era of profound loss, and renewal.

Small Bomb at Dimperley is set in 1945 as the war ends and Valentine Vere-Thissett is returning home to Dimperley Manor. Like other aristocratic returning war heroes, he didn’t expect to be the one taking up the title but the loss of his older brother means that he must now step up to the mark. Unfortunately, Dimperley is rather dilapidated and death duties might mean the loss of the estate.

This book is simply superb. First of all there’s Dimperley itself, its faded grandeur and bizarre taxidermy providing the perfect backdrop to Valentine’s return. Whilst it’s clearly rundown, the reader is invited to see it through the eyes of both those who genuinely love it and those who love the importance that the title and estate give them. The book is populated by characters who just leap right off the page. I thought Valentine was a dream, down to earth and new to such responsibility, but determined to do his best. I loved Zena Baxter too, a young woman who came to Dimperley when it was a maternity home and stayed on as secretary to Valentine’s uncle. Valentine’s mother, Irene (Lady Vere-Thissett if you please), is a little harder to like, but a wonderfully drawn character nevertheless. I had the softest spot for Miss Hersey too, a lady’s maid who now finds herself doing everything.

Ultimately, Small Bomb at Dimperley is an ode to the country house, to the loss of so many of them, and to the resourceful cohort who found new ways to live and ensure that some of the estates could endure (one of my local country estates at Chatsworth has achieved this so well). What I love about Evans’ writing is that the humour makes me laugh out loud one minute and the next minute the moving observations are like a punch to the gut. I thought this was a magnificent book with a fascinating setting, wonderful characters, and a lovely story with a charming ending.

Lissa Evans has written books for both adults and children, including the bestselling Old Baggage, Their Finest Hour and a Half, longlisted for the Orange Prize, Small Change for Stuart, shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Costa Book Awards amongst others, and Crooked Heart, longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.