Dame Penelope Lively was born Penelope Margaret Low in Cairo, Egypt, in 1933, to Roger Low, a bank manager, and Vera, nee Greer.

When her parents divorced in 1945, her father sent her to an English boarding school, from which she proceeded to St Anne’s College, Oxford, where she read modern history.

Shortly after graduating she married Jack Lively (1930-1998), later Professor of Politics at Warwick University. They had a daughter and a son.

After writing several children’s books, her first novel was published in 1977 and, a decade later, she won the Booker Prize for ‘Moon Tiger’.

Heat Wave was published in 1996 and, by 2011, had already been issued as a Penguin Modern Classic. Given this stamp of approval, and the fact that we were actually experiencing a heatwave, I decided to read it.

(In doing so, I seem to have extended my literary frame of reference to the end of the Twentieth Century, astonished to realise that the Millennium is already a quarter century distant.)

‘Heat Wave’ is a novel about adultery and female sexual jealousy, though there are sub-themes, including the realities of rural life, both past and present.

Pauline was once married to Harry Carter, a rising academic. But, following the birth of their daughter, Teresa, and a string of his affairs, she left him. She periodically recalls the intense pain of her acute sexual jealousy all those years ago, but can now successfully hold her former husband at arm’s length.

Teresa has just married Maurice, a rising historian and author, and they have a young son, Luke.

Pauline owns a pair of rural cottages in Middle England, in a location called ‘World’s End’. While she spends the summer undertaking her own editorial work from one cottage, the other is occupied by Teresa, Maurice and Luke. Maurice hopes that this quieter rural environment will help him complete the book he is writing.

Maurice is visited by his editor, James Saltash, who brings a partner, Carol. Maurice begins an affair with Carol, causing Teresa to feel much the same intense jealousy as her mother experienced a generation before.

Pauline, who is aware of the affair, blames herself for introducing Teresa to Maurice. She is driven to protect her daughter. She is the only person present when Maurice is killed – by falling down her steep staircase after a thunderstorm and while the worse for drink.

She may or may not have assisted his demise.

Pauline seems to regard sexual jealousy consequent upon a partner’s adultery as exclusively the province of women; sees successful married men as powerless to resist the temptation to sleep with other women; and holds that the women who sleep with such men are motivated by their fame (defining Carol as ‘a literary groupie’).

When James is cuckolded by Carol, Pauline’s not too concerned about the impact on him, regarding it as ‘a merciful disposition’ that will free him up for a more suitable partner.

Lively does nothing to distance herself from this rather warped perspective.

Stylistically, there is extensive repetition; frequent short, staccato sentences; and extended use of the present tense. Characters pass frequently to and fro, in and out of the cottages, into the garden, up and down the track outside, or else climb into their cars to drive to the village. This is rural monotony writ large.

Despite occasional descriptions of rural beauty, the prose seems rigidly controlled, held in check, as if all the joy had been squeezed out of proceedings.

The likely ending is signalled occasionally throughout the book, so there is no great element of surprise or shock. Pauline acts exactly as we anticipate she would, provoked by her justified rage. She serves as an instrument of justice, though we never learn whether Maurice fell or was murdered.

At the end of the book, Teresa says to Pauline:

‘I don’t know what happened and I don’t want to know.’

It’s a highly competent novel, but it lacks the spark that would make it truly outstanding.

TD

July 2025