The Visitors by Mary McMinnies ~ 1958. This edition: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1958. Hardcover. 576 pages.
Breaking my recent life-is-stupid-busy silence to give a resoundingly positive shout-out to like-minded vintage novel aficionados regarding this stellar 1958 novel, a hidden gem if there ever was one.
10-carat diamond quality, people, 24-carat gold. This is very good stuff indeed.
It took me a good ten days to work my way through The Visitors, which is mostly a reflection of my very limited reading time, but I dove into it every chance I had, five minutes here, ten minutes there, not wanting to miss a sentence. It was positively addictive.
Nothing much actually happens in this novel. It’s a slow, intense, smouldering sort of thing, and the characters are allowed ample time to display their unique characteristics; we know them very well indeed by our journey’s end.
Publisher’s flyleaf blurbs generally err on the side of overenthusiasm for the contents within; not so in this case. Every word is true. My next step this morning after posting this will be to scour ABE for The Flying Fox, McMinnies’s first novel. She only seems to have published the two. What a disappointment.
Anyone else familiar with this writer? Why haven’t I heard of her before? Maybe it’s the only-two-books thing. This sort of find gives me such pleasure, for who knows what else I may stumble upon in my journey through the immense and rewarding forest of vintage reading!
My rating: 10/10. (That was easy.)
And oh, yes, that rather funky, green-tinted cover illustration.
When I picked this up from the jumbled heap of old hardcovers at a recent charity book sale, I had an instant vision of this perhaps being one of those over-written 1960s drug-culture dramas, obviously concerning hallucinogenic mushrooms: the woman’s half-closed eyes and rather addled expression, the focus on the prize (as it were), the sinister lurker in the shadows.
It turned out to be much more innocent (?) than that. The mushroom incident is a wonderfully metaphoric excursion into an Eastern European forest, the fungi providing the purpose for the excursion being the strictly culinary kind. And the lurker is not as sinister as he appears to be.
While life is slowing down just a bit, time is still in short supply, even on a peaceful Mother’s Day Sunday morning, so I’ll cheat on the personal review aspect and instead give you the flyleaf scans and the back cover author biography to be going on with.
I should really include some excerpts from the book. I’ve earmarked a few particularly stellar passages, places where I stopped and backed up and re-read with ever-increasing joy at how McMinnies handled her words. I might return to this post and add those in future. Perhaps the next time I read this novel? For it is decidedly a keeper.
Leaves & Pages 
Thank you for this recommendation! I collect diplomatic autobiographies and this fits in nicely as a fictional accompaniment!
Anne Holland ~ pls forgive typos, this is my iPad
>
Oh, yes, this would fit in nicely. Not too hard to find, either, as it was a Book-of-the-Month club selection and there are a lot of copies still floating around.
The Flying Fox is available on Abe.com, FYI
Ordered it! 🙂
“A hard jewel of a novel that would make Graham Greene envious.” How is it that we’ve not heard of Mary McMinnies? The John Metcalf who praised the novel in the Sunday Times can’t be the Canadian John Metcalf (by way of Carlisle, England), can he? Surely not. He would’ve been nineteen or twenty at the time. On the other hand, John has impeccable taste.
This is very exciting!
Exciting, yes indeed! A “dusty bookcase” sort of writer; the best sort, too. And yes, “our” John Metcalf would have been 19 or 20 (and still in university) when that review was published (1958), so I’m wondering, too. I poked around a bit, looking for another literary type of the same name active in 1950’s England, but so far have not found anything. It could be possible – student moonlighting as a book reviewer? Wasn’t the now-Canadian John Metcalf something of a literary prodigy right from the get-go?
I know, John, so will ask. As he doesn’t use email, the answer will be a touch slow in coming, I expect.
It would be interesting to know. Satisfying our ever-curious minds, dotting all the “i”s, crossing all the “t”s. 😉
By the way, I have a complaint for you, Brian. CNC comes much too infrequently. A monthly would be utter heaven… Dream on, right? 🙂
I’m certainly intrigued! And thankfully it’s easy to get this through the inter-library loan system so I should be reading it soon.
I vaguely think I’ve come across a mention of The Flying Fox before.
I used to read a lot about British rule in the East and I think I came across a mention of it that way. But I’ve never read it or heard anything else about McMinnies.
It’s a slow-moving sort of a book, but it builds and builds. I found it quite mezmerizing. I’ve ordered ‘The Flying Fox’. Rather devastated that she (apparently) didn’t write any more. Wondering why? Could be any of many reasons, and though I looked her up online I couldn’t find much about McInnies other than what my book’s dj had to say.
Looked at a review of it and it sounds marvellous.
It’s pretty darned good. Marvelous writing.
OFF TOPIC–did you ever read and review Noel Streatfeild–grass in piccadilly?
Hi Tina,
I did read it, and I think I started a review which never got completed – let me take a look. I may well read it next, now that you’ve nudged me – just finishing up Helen MacInnes’s ‘North from Rome’. ‘Grass in Piccadilly’ is one of Streatfeild’s more sombre novels, in my memory. I just ordered another rather obscure Streatfeild “adult” novel yesterday, ‘Aunt Clara’. Also Elizabeth Cambridge’s ‘Portrait of Angela’, which was rather costly so fingers crossed it’s “worth it”! 🙂
i am really jealous as PORTRAIT OF ANGELA is £60 plus online.
I think you have all 6 of Cambridge’s work?I only have 4 of them.The other missing one is SPRING ALWAYS COMES which i think you reviewed?
Yes, with this one I will have all six. Some of these were rather expensive, but I like to think the “bargain” books I pick up for a dollar or two balance it all out. 🙂
I have this very edition in my (slightly overwhelming) tbr pile. Same lurid green cover. It sounds very interesting. I’ll have to move it up in the pile.
Such a beguiling amount of enthusiasm! I’m going to have to hunt this out. The 576 pages gives me pause, but the enthusiasm will win me over…
…and it’s now on its way to me 🙂
Yes, that gave me pause, too. Even during “normal” times of the year I hesitate with anything Great Big Tome-ish, and during the spring busy season (I have a plant nursery) these sorts of things are absolutely off the radar. But for some reason this called to me, and I answered, and it was good. Took me a good ten days to read, though. I do hope you will enjoy it as much as I did, Simon.
could you “big this book up” so it becomes the next GUARD YOUR DAUGHTERS please?
Thats a memo to Simon –big the book up please.
I haven’t heard the author name at all, and yet…somehow the book has a vaguely familiar ring to it. Some other review in past years?
May have to poke around the net a bit.
Shouldn’t be too hard to come across – there do seemn to be a fair number floating around. The first book is a bit more scarce, but neither is what I would consider “rare”. I wonder if they are still in the Ontario library system? I think you have had good luck sourcing others out that way?
I have asked my local bookseller to keep the first edition of this for me.I thought i remembered the distinctive cover from ages ago.And lucky he still has it.Many thanks for the tip off “Barb”.Not always keen to buy online unless i have to.I see it as helping the local economy.Harhar
OK, you’ve sold it to me! On the hunt for it now. I have just read Aunt Clara, btw, and loved it. It’s about to be reprinted in the UK.
Oh, I think you’ll find it has lots of scope for your blog! Hope you locate it and like it. Some wonderful writing here. 🙂
GRASS IN PICCADILLY and MOTHERING SUNDAY both reprinted too.
What a lovely post! Never heard of this, and I love the cover, the reviews, and excerpt. It’s on my list now.
[…] The Visitors by Mary McMinnies – Barb’s enthusiasm for this had me placing a library hold even before I finished reading her review. […]
I borrowed this in the end and did not enjoy it.
So sorry to hear this, Tina, but so it goes. Plot aside, what did you think of McMinnies’ writing? I thought it extremely good.
Yes i thought her writing very good and then two thirds in i disliked it–the old lady who kept breaking into French and too many similar characters.And the heroines “iccy” decision at the end.
I have just read this on your recommendation and got thoroughly hooked. I enjoyed it, especially the realistic descriptions of everyday life in a communist state by someone who was there. I also thought it had vague echoes of Gone with the Wind, as that also deals with a self-centred woman, and an aristocracy that had come down in the world, some coping with changed circumstances better than others.
By the way, I recently read Aunt Clara, a typical fairly cosy 1950s read, which I also enjoyed.
It’s been too long since I checked out your blog, but when I read this review I hopped straight online and ordered a copy. In that wonderful bookish serendipity way, that very day I was browsing our local charity shop and there was a copy there! So, I’ve now read it and LOVED it! I’m pretty exhausted though! I found her writing was amazing, but required lots of concentration. I spend most of my online time on Instagram and I’ve given this book a great shoutout there. Hopefully to bring on a Mary McMinnies revival!