Short Story Salon

Welcome to A Narrative of their Own, a weekly publication exploring the lives and literature of women.

This essay forms part of my Short Story Salon feature. At the end of the essay, I will suggest some stories to read this month. Upgrade to a paid subscription below to join the end of month discussion thread!

Margaret Drabble is probably best known for her extensive range of novels, starting with her 1963 A Summer Birdcage, to her 2016 The Dark Flood Rises. In particular, many readers may have come to her, as I did, with her seminal 1965 novel The Millstone, a novel ahead of its time, portraying a young, single, female PhD student who falls pregnant after a casual one-night stand and chooses to have the baby alone.

Drabble has never been one to shy away from the big issues, nor of challenging accepted stereotypes, and documenting the state of women’s lives. Her books and stories have been described as ‘skillfully modulated variations on the theme of a girl’s development toward maturity through her experiences of love, marriage, and motherhood.’

Born in 1939 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, Drabble began writing after graduating from University of Cambridge. She utilises her writing to portray situations of tension and stress for her characters, her chief concern often showing the individual’s attempt to define the self, but she also touches on social change within her work.

Drabble has also contributed to journals, written screenplays, and works of nonfiction, including editing the Oxford Companion to English Literature. She is the sister of the late A S Byatt, author of Possession, and with whom she reportedly shared a long-standing family feud. I wrote about this in my essay ‘Sibling Rivalry’ some time ago.

I came to Drabble’s short stories much later, and I’m not alone. In the introduction to her collection A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman (1966), the editor of my edition, Jose Francisco, states that:

‘Drabble had published more than a dozen stories in journals, magazines and anthologies. There’s often a general lack of awareness surrounding the author’s short fiction’.

The collection here contains some fine examples of well-constructed short stories, focusing on various points in different women’s lives. There is often a hint of moral dilemma about the stories; a point of change and stasis, decisions to be made or times when no decisions can be found.

The stories are set out in the edition to run chronologically as to when they were first published, and illustrate the development and ageing process of Drabble herself, with young women climbing career ladders, thirty-something mothers, and meditations on ageing. Though none of the stories are strictly autobiographical, many are based on Drabble’s own experiences; places she visited and people she encountered.

The stories begin in the 1960s, and end as far reaching as the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, the later stories mainly portraying middle-aged women escaping mundane burdens and obligations, seeking peace and solitude.

Something I observed about these stories are that they are very ‘English’; they encapsulate values and ideas associated with England, yet Drabble pulls this off both with affection and wit. The stories here are imbued with Drabble’s characteristic themes of class conflict and a cautious feminism. There are uses of metafictional devices which work seamlessly, and there is generally a more subdued feel to the issues raised, making less room for global concerns than in her longer works, and more for intimate portraits of the individual.

Written in the 1970’s, the title story ‘A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman’ introduces the idea of the brisk, busy, highly efficient and professional woman emerging in the workplace.

Similar to other characters in the collection, such as Kathie Jones in ‘A Success Story’, and the unnamed TV presenter and mother of four in ‘Homework’, the character in ‘A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman’ is representative of the successful career woman who must divide her time between work and family demands.

The stories of this period feel like Drabble’s attempt to reconcile the idea of the modern woman juggling the demands placed on her, as well as trying to maintain an independent voice. For me, definite influences of Doris Lessing appear within these stories. But I find Drabble’s writing to focus more on the personal than the political.

In ‘A Success Story,’ we see Kathie Jones, a highly successful young woman who attends a party. She recognises the men’s ego’s and the attempts to diminish her success.

‘Homework’ examines the ideas around single parenting as well as the expectations of others’ on womens’ time. Told from the point of view of a needy friend, it shows the ways in which women are expected to be all to everyone, even when it means letting themselves down.

Whilst in stories like ‘The Merry Widow’ we see the ways in which older women attempt to begin again. This story sees a newly widowed woman, recovering after the protracted illness and subsequent death of a bullying husband.

I am planning to concentrate in my end of the month post on the title story ‘A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman’, because for me, it pulls together the strands of the collection, but also, in a more personal way, I feel it signifies how little has fundamentally changed in the life of women aiming to combine successful careers and raising a family.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate any free online short stories from Drabble to share this month - if anyone comes across any, please share! Hopefully I have whetted your appetite into purchasing the book; there are many second hand copies available, of which mine is one, or you may be able to find in your local library.

I hope you enjoy joining me in a month of Margaret!