Angell, Pearl and Little God by Winston Graham ~ 1970. This edition: Fontana, 1972. Paperback. 414 pages.
First off: this is likely to be right up near the top of my list for “most memorable reads of 2018”.
Wilfred Angell, 47, large and undeniably fat, avoids emotional complications in his personal life by refusing to dally with women. He’s a successful solicitor, rather wealthy, in fact, who dabbles in deals shading on illegal. His hobbies are attaining art and antiques, and gormandizing.
Pearl Friedel, 20, tall and beautiful, avoids emotional complications in her personal life by refusing to go all the way with the young working-class men who squire her about to dinners and dances. She’s a perfume salesgirl in a large department store. Her hobbies are keeping herself looking nice, and looking forward to her one holiday a year, which she spends with a group of friends at a cut-rate continental holiday resort.
Godfrey Brown, 22, small in stature but perfectly proportioned, avoids emotional complications in his personal life by taking what he wants from women without committing anything at all. He’s an up and coming flyweight boxer, billed under the name “Little God”, working as a chauffeur to pay the bills. His hobbies are sparring and keeping in fighting fit form, and sex.
Wilfred meets Pearl on an airplane. Godfrey meets Pearl at a dance. Both want her, but what does Pearl want? Love? Or merely a better life than she foresees for herself in the social strata into which she was born?
Wilfred cannily courts Pearl, object: marriage.
Godfrey takes her out, and tries to rape her on their first date.
Pearl is terrified of Godfrey, and rightly so.
Wilfred ultimately looks like a safer bet, with his offering of a companionate, sexless marriage and a cash settlement to spend or invest as she wishes.
But Godfrey has developed an unhealthy obsession regarding Pearl…
“Gold, love and death.” An apt title for this French translation.
These three not particularly sympathetic characters, flawed through and through, meander along through this richly detailed novel, which builds and builds in an increasingly tense atmosphere of impending emotional drama. Violence is always there in the shadows, and from time to time it erupts, as Angell, Pearl and Little God pursue their hidden desires.
It’s hard to categorize this brilliantly black and frequently darkly humorous novel. It’s full of masterfully written set scenes: in the audience and in the ring at a boxing match; in a dying aristocrat’s bedroom; watching from fly-on-the-wall perspective shady property deals and the complex mechanics of legal-on-paper backroom bargains; a husband going through his absent wife’s bedroom, looking for something he’s not sure he’ll recognize; four laps in a racecar; a brutal seduction scene.
We don’t really like any of the titular characters and it’s doubtful that we’re meant to, though we certainly get inside their heads. Irony abounds, as their individual decisions result to a great extent in what they each deserve.
My rating: 9.5/10
The .5 reduction because Graham sometimes indulges in letting himself go on just a bit too long here and there. (And the sex scenes are cringe-inducing here and there. But hey. Sex scenes. Writers’ downfalls, pretty well universally. So I give these a conditional pass.)
But my goodness, that man was a writer.
Leaves & Pages 
I’ve so often seen Graham’s books on dollar carts and the like, but have never once been tempted. Your post has me wondering why. I’ll pick up the next one I spot. Here’s hoping it’s Angell, Pearl and Little God… because, well, you’ve got me wondering what happens to Angell, and Pearl, and Little God.
As is so often the case, I read your rating before the piece itself. I noted your comment about sex scenes, and so was a bit mystified when I read this:
It’s full of masterfully written sex scenes: in the audience and in the ring at a boxing match; in a dying aristocrat’s bedroom…
Going back, I saw you’d written “set scenes.” Sadly, my eyes aren’t what they once were.
Your high rating reminded me of the 10/10 you gave John Buell’s Playground. As I think you know, I succeeded recently in returning the author’s Four Days to print. I wonder whether you’d be interested in receiving a copy. If so, please write me with your mailing address at brianjohnbusby[at]gmail.com.
You might well find Winston Graham worthy of exploration. I’ve read a half dozen or so of his 40+ novels (but none of his Poldark books) and have found them very readable. This is the best so far.
Fortune is a Woman is also very good, and Marnie (which I read quite recently) impressed me.
https://leavesandpages.com/2018/10/20/a-collection-of-damaged-people-marnie-by-winston-graham/
Graham apparently doesn’t feel obliged to award his characters happy endings, but these novels aren’t exactly gloomy despite their frequent grittiness. Just highly engaging, and often sardonically humorous.
I picked up quite a stack of Graham’s novels a few months ago (paperbacks, $2 each, so the gamble was a modest one) and am finding them surprisingly good.
I would be exceedingly pleased to get my hands on a copy of Buell’s Four Days. Thank you for thinking of me. I’ll email you my mailing address.
I find all your reviews so entertaining, but here’s another one I think I’ll just pass on by.
Fair enough! 🙂
Here’s a tidbit for you, Susan, for what it’s worth. Some years ago, at a small secondhand book store in Hope, BC, I scored a whole stack of D.E. Stevenson paperbacks, all marked with the same name: Loa Green.
A few months ago I was in the same bookstore, browsing about for things suitable for my husband to pack in his lunchbox to read during breaks at work (he’s the only one on his work crew without a cell phone, so he’s taken to reading because he says no one chats any more), and I noticed a bunch of Winston Grahams. They are all from Loa Green as well. Obviously we share (shared? because sadly findly such large numbers of “personal library” books often means someone is no longer around to read them) the same literary tastes.
Made me smile, and silently salute my fellow reader, wherever she may now be.
Did you Google her name? I’ve sometimes done a search on names I’ve found in books I’ve bought, with intriguing results.
Thanks for a splendid review, Here are some other Winston Graham titles you might enjoy:
The Merciless Ladies (the 1944 edition is slightly better than the 1979)
Poldarks I-IV (i.e. Ross Poldark / Demelza / Jeremy Poldark / Warleggan, read sequentially, as one. The first four Poldark novels are arguably Graham’s finest achievement; the later ones are good, but not as good)
The Sleeping Partner (1956)
The Tumbled House (1959)
After The Act (1965)
The Walking Stick (1967)
The Ugly Sister (1997)
and if you want to discover much more about Graham’s life and work, look here:
http://winstongraham.yolasite.com/
Jim