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Mrs. S
A sublime and sensual debut novel exploring the nature of queer love and attraction, the transformative power of desire, and the dissonance between self and place, by White Review Fiction Prize shortlisted writer K Patrick
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.
That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.
Seductive, stylish, and disarmingly wry, K Patrick’s bold and revelatory debut smolders with the heat of summer as it explores the queer experience and the force of forbidden love.
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.” Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.
That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.
Seductive, stylish, and disarmingly wry, K Patrick’s bold and revelatory debut smolders with the heat of summer as it explores the queer experience and the force of forbidden love.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 8, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 981 reviews
June 20, 2023
2.5 stars
On paper, Mrs. S sounded like it was written to appeal to every single one of my literary interests: queer love story! boarding school setting! exploration of desire!--I was ready to call it a new favourite, and the cover hadn't even been released yet.
Needless to say, it was a real reality check when I started this book and realized that it was not, in fact, going to be all the things I thought it would be. I'll cut to the chase: I didn't really enjoy Mrs. S, and it's because its writing was...not to my taste.
Mrs. S is a novel that is, at every turn, held back by its choppy, fragmented, stilted writing. The writing simply does not flow, and it actively hinders the reading experience in almost every way. Here's a passage from the novel as an example of the kind of writing I'm talking about:
I want you to imagine reading a whole novel--240 pages--of this. Every sentence. Like this. No literary flourishes. Of any kind. Just one thing happening. Then another. Then another.
I'll say it again because it bears repeating: I did not like the writing in this novel. I have nothing against sparse writing; many of my favourite novels--Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, Hot Milk by Deborah Levy--are sparsely written. But Mrs. S is not so much sparse as it is threadbare in its writing--and unbearably so. Unbearable because not only is the writing not evocative or descriptive in any way--at times it reads like an instruction manual--but on a practical level it just seriously impedes narrative engagement. When every sentence. Is lopped off. Like this. It's very hard to be immersed in the story. (Halfway through the novel I would've done anything for one singular complete sentence that was more than, like, 5 words.) And you'd think that stripped back writing would make for a faster or easier read, but in fact the writing here makes the novel such a slog to read. The reading experience is so stop-and-start, constantly interrupted by the novel's short, staccato sentences; trying to get through it was like trying to swim and repeatedly having your head dunked in and out of the water. In and out. In and out. In and out.
All the above is made even worse by the fact that the dialogue in this novel a) has no quotation marks, b) has almost no speech tags ("he said" "she said"), and c) has no line breaks. So not only could I not tell who was saying what, I also just couldn't figure out what was being said. Here's another passage as an example:
Why! is! the! dialogue! written! like! that! What purpose does this serve for the novel, aside from making the dialogue hard to read? It was so deeply frustrating. I don't care about the lack of quotation marks, I don't even care about the lack of speech tags, but no line breaks?? That's like the bare minimum requirement to distinguish which character is saying what.
When I say a novel is well-written, I don't just mean that the writing is, on a technical level, good (though that is part of it). What I also mean is that its writing helps it accomplish what it is trying to accomplish: to craft complex characters, evoke an atmospheric setting, construct a compelling plot. I didn't think Mrs. S was well-written, so it's no surprise that I also thought its story was ineffective. At the heart of this novel is a romance between the main character and Mrs. S, the wife of the boarding school's headmaster. But here's the thing: I didn't buy it. The dynamic between them is written in such an oblique, impressionistic way that it doesn't really give you a sense of anything of substance. (And the writing's choppiness makes it so that the novel feels like it's not really able to sustain anything that feels substantial or fleshed out in the first place.) More than that, the story is poorly paced and often feels aimless. The romance takes a while to get going, and in the meantime we have these boring scenes where the narrator doesn't really do much of anything. There's one chapter where she goes to the bar and has some drinks and...that's it? I struggled to latch on to anything in this novel, and the more I read, the less I found to latch on to.
There is such a huge gap between theory and execution, and though Mrs. S didn't really give me much to enjoy, it at least gave me an acute awareness of that. In theory, an amazing novel that sounded like it was written for me; in execution, a novel that underwhelmed and frustrated me by turns.
Thank you to Europa Editions for providing me with an eARC of this!
On paper, Mrs. S sounded like it was written to appeal to every single one of my literary interests: queer love story! boarding school setting! exploration of desire!--I was ready to call it a new favourite, and the cover hadn't even been released yet.
Needless to say, it was a real reality check when I started this book and realized that it was not, in fact, going to be all the things I thought it would be. I'll cut to the chase: I didn't really enjoy Mrs. S, and it's because its writing was...not to my taste.
Mrs. S is a novel that is, at every turn, held back by its choppy, fragmented, stilted writing. The writing simply does not flow, and it actively hinders the reading experience in almost every way. Here's a passage from the novel as an example of the kind of writing I'm talking about:
"Inside it is cool. The man working behind the bar rings his bell and announces last orders. There is no one else here. He looks directly at me. You work at the school? Yes. Not a student? No. I ask for a lager and he pauses. A lager? Yes. Tap? If possible, yes. He is a big man, his cream shirt puckered across his chest. I want him to like me. For there to be a mutual respect. A woman comes in from outside. Sunburn shines across her chest. She shivers. One strap of a floral vest top slips down her arm. Another please. Hope you’re not driving. She winks. He puts down the pint glass he was yet to pour into. Turns his back to me and unscrews a bottle of white wine. He fills her glass comically high, all the way to the rim. One for the road. She looks at me now. Eyes soft with alcohol. Hi there you. I am taller than she is, in her flip-flops, a handbag in the crease of her arm, a pair of sunglasses balanced on her head. She reaches out and pulls on the waistband of my jeans. The man puts my beer down heavily. Thank you, thanks so much. At the sound of my voice she pulls back. Fucking hell I am drunk fuck. White wine spills onto my t-shirt. She flaps her hands. Sorry fuck. In the doorway she takes one last look at me and shakes her head. Fuck. More wine spills."
I want you to imagine reading a whole novel--240 pages--of this. Every sentence. Like this. No literary flourishes. Of any kind. Just one thing happening. Then another. Then another.
I'll say it again because it bears repeating: I did not like the writing in this novel. I have nothing against sparse writing; many of my favourite novels--Trespasses by Louise Kennedy, Hot Milk by Deborah Levy--are sparsely written. But Mrs. S is not so much sparse as it is threadbare in its writing--and unbearably so. Unbearable because not only is the writing not evocative or descriptive in any way--at times it reads like an instruction manual--but on a practical level it just seriously impedes narrative engagement. When every sentence. Is lopped off. Like this. It's very hard to be immersed in the story. (Halfway through the novel I would've done anything for one singular complete sentence that was more than, like, 5 words.) And you'd think that stripped back writing would make for a faster or easier read, but in fact the writing here makes the novel such a slog to read. The reading experience is so stop-and-start, constantly interrupted by the novel's short, staccato sentences; trying to get through it was like trying to swim and repeatedly having your head dunked in and out of the water. In and out. In and out. In and out.
All the above is made even worse by the fact that the dialogue in this novel a) has no quotation marks, b) has almost no speech tags ("he said" "she said"), and c) has no line breaks. So not only could I not tell who was saying what, I also just couldn't figure out what was being said. Here's another passage as an example:
"Already she has on the chain she loaned me last night. A black vest, loose across her chest. Tattoos cover her shoulders. Don’t tell anyone about these yeh. She winks and touches what I think is the head of a thick snake. No, I say, unable to commit to a sentence. No? No. You’re hilarious this morning. She has on boxers. Plaid, baggy. A pair of socks. No. Is that all you can say? No. Using all my energy I open my throat to finish the beer. Don’t throw up. I don’t throw up. That’s it! Fucking hell, O.K. In solidarity she finishes hers too. Tequila next? Fuck off. Ah, she lives! Not quite. I close my eyes and turn onto my back. Better? Maybe. Maybe works for me, O.K., phase two. Two? Yes, dress, let’s go get a bacon sarnie. Where? I know a place. She taps the side of her nose. She wears her clichés so well. The beer is helping."
Why! is! the! dialogue! written! like! that! What purpose does this serve for the novel, aside from making the dialogue hard to read? It was so deeply frustrating. I don't care about the lack of quotation marks, I don't even care about the lack of speech tags, but no line breaks?? That's like the bare minimum requirement to distinguish which character is saying what.
When I say a novel is well-written, I don't just mean that the writing is, on a technical level, good (though that is part of it). What I also mean is that its writing helps it accomplish what it is trying to accomplish: to craft complex characters, evoke an atmospheric setting, construct a compelling plot. I didn't think Mrs. S was well-written, so it's no surprise that I also thought its story was ineffective. At the heart of this novel is a romance between the main character and Mrs. S, the wife of the boarding school's headmaster. But here's the thing: I didn't buy it. The dynamic between them is written in such an oblique, impressionistic way that it doesn't really give you a sense of anything of substance. (And the writing's choppiness makes it so that the novel feels like it's not really able to sustain anything that feels substantial or fleshed out in the first place.) More than that, the story is poorly paced and often feels aimless. The romance takes a while to get going, and in the meantime we have these boring scenes where the narrator doesn't really do much of anything. There's one chapter where she goes to the bar and has some drinks and...that's it? I struggled to latch on to anything in this novel, and the more I read, the less I found to latch on to.
There is such a huge gap between theory and execution, and though Mrs. S didn't really give me much to enjoy, it at least gave me an acute awareness of that. In theory, an amazing novel that sounded like it was written for me; in execution, a novel that underwhelmed and frustrated me by turns.
Thank you to Europa Editions for providing me with an eARC of this!
February 3, 2023
Set in an unspecified time (there are no references to the internet or cell phones) in an elite English boarding school for girls, our unnamed Australian narrator, a 22-year-old butch lesbian who just took the job as a "matron", falls for the wife of the headmaster and starts an affair with her. The only person the main character can confide in is her queer mentor, the housemistress. The girls at the school appear as an amorphous, mostly homophobic mass that's frequently up to no good - the protagonist tends to catch them with alcohol, drugs, and involved in other teenage behavior -, so in opposition to other classic or boarding school novels, the personnel of the institution is the main focus, not the kids a.k.a. The Girls (and they are really only referred to as such).
The protagonist is constantly othered, struggles with her queer identity and tries to find her place, and so does the wife of the headmaster - it never becomes entirely clear whether she is bisexual or in the closet. While the novel is marketed as "sensual" and "horny" and the publishers compare this debut to Garth Greenwell, a real master when it comes to writing about sex, I honestly wasn't impressed, because while the parallel to Greenwell actually is that the language is the real star of the text, I, frankly, didn't like K Patrick's short, stark sentences. I see how they have created a particular aesthetic that is all their own, an unruly sound that defies complacent, easy to grasp ideas of beauty, but alas, I didn't enjoy reading it at all. I never got into this text.
I also think that the book is too long for what it has to say, it should have been a novella. And then there's the continued reference to the dead poet who used to attend the boarding school, an Aemilia Lanyer type of character (Lanyer, as the text indicates, did actually work with pathetic fallacies, you can also check out this article that shows parallels between Lanyer and Patrick) - as in some instances regarding this novel, I wondered whether the whole "watch out, I now do literary stuff" plays out here. I just wasn't hooked. Of course, there are also paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe repeatedly mentioned (come on), and there is a staging of La casa de Bernarda Alba / The House of Bernarda Alba, a play in which men are largely absent and that also revolves around an affair.
So all in all, I can admire K Patrick's idea from a theoretical standpoint, but as I found the main device, the language, so off-putting, I'm unfortunately not a fan.
The protagonist is constantly othered, struggles with her queer identity and tries to find her place, and so does the wife of the headmaster - it never becomes entirely clear whether she is bisexual or in the closet. While the novel is marketed as "sensual" and "horny" and the publishers compare this debut to Garth Greenwell, a real master when it comes to writing about sex, I honestly wasn't impressed, because while the parallel to Greenwell actually is that the language is the real star of the text, I, frankly, didn't like K Patrick's short, stark sentences. I see how they have created a particular aesthetic that is all their own, an unruly sound that defies complacent, easy to grasp ideas of beauty, but alas, I didn't enjoy reading it at all. I never got into this text.
I also think that the book is too long for what it has to say, it should have been a novella. And then there's the continued reference to the dead poet who used to attend the boarding school, an Aemilia Lanyer type of character (Lanyer, as the text indicates, did actually work with pathetic fallacies, you can also check out this article that shows parallels between Lanyer and Patrick) - as in some instances regarding this novel, I wondered whether the whole "watch out, I now do literary stuff" plays out here. I just wasn't hooked. Of course, there are also paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe repeatedly mentioned (come on), and there is a staging of La casa de Bernarda Alba / The House of Bernarda Alba, a play in which men are largely absent and that also revolves around an affair.
So all in all, I can admire K Patrick's idea from a theoretical standpoint, but as I found the main device, the language, so off-putting, I'm unfortunately not a fan.
April 21, 2023
People are going to call this novel "understated" but they're mistaken. Rather than being understated it is a story of tremendously powerful, and yet nearly entirely suppressed desire. Not just desire for sex, but also desire for so many other things. Desire for human connection. Desire to be understood. Desire to be loved. And most of all: desire to understand oneself.
It's a novel about a person trying to define her identity in a time when the words have yet to be invented. If the novel had been set in contemporary times then the protagonist might have been comfortable reaching for words like "trans" or "trans-masc" or "nonbinary" to describe herself. Although in a way these words might have flattened the uniqueness of this protagonist, who is still searching for how to be in the world.
The novel seems to hover in a time period when transness isn't yet definable or knowable or in the air as a concept, even--the early sixties, maybe*--and it's almost as if this protagonist is paradoxically freed from the need to label herself, or to bow to the limitations of any given word.
She loves the word "lesbian," for instance. She loves the sound of the word itself, and loves calling herself a lesbian, even as she is exploring a way to redefine the word, and have it express an identity that encompasses a gender that she identifies as "masculine."
The scene in which her lover asks her why she wears a binder is so good for how it captures the challenge of explaining to someone who hasn't yet thought past a gender binary--even if she is your lover--what it's like to live inside a self that doesn't fit into the old paradigms.
It's hard to explain. Please try, do try. I use it to flatten my chest...Flatten it? Yes. What, so, to be more like a man? Here is another word that doesn't work. Man. I don't know if it's 'like a man,' it's more about masculinity. Same thing. I don't think it is.
Well I'm absolutely bowled over, by the beauty of the language, by the subtlety of the relationships and how they unfold, and by the way K Patrick just lets this story be and lets it breathe on the page without feeling the need to sensationalize any part of it. This is a very human story.
*My friend Gumble's Yard has pointed out to me that Mrs. S has time-markers throughout that definitively set the action in the 1980's or later. This time frame feels so out of whack with the way I have read the novel that I had to wonder if my brain deliberately glossed over any references as I read along. I'll need to reread and rethink. While I was reading it, the novel screamed 'mid-20th-century' to me.
It's a novel about a person trying to define her identity in a time when the words have yet to be invented. If the novel had been set in contemporary times then the protagonist might have been comfortable reaching for words like "trans" or "trans-masc" or "nonbinary" to describe herself. Although in a way these words might have flattened the uniqueness of this protagonist, who is still searching for how to be in the world.
The novel seems to hover in a time period when transness isn't yet definable or knowable or in the air as a concept, even--the early sixties, maybe*--and it's almost as if this protagonist is paradoxically freed from the need to label herself, or to bow to the limitations of any given word.
She loves the word "lesbian," for instance. She loves the sound of the word itself, and loves calling herself a lesbian, even as she is exploring a way to redefine the word, and have it express an identity that encompasses a gender that she identifies as "masculine."
The scene in which her lover asks her why she wears a binder is so good for how it captures the challenge of explaining to someone who hasn't yet thought past a gender binary--even if she is your lover--what it's like to live inside a self that doesn't fit into the old paradigms.
It's hard to explain. Please try, do try. I use it to flatten my chest...Flatten it? Yes. What, so, to be more like a man? Here is another word that doesn't work. Man. I don't know if it's 'like a man,' it's more about masculinity. Same thing. I don't think it is.
Well I'm absolutely bowled over, by the beauty of the language, by the subtlety of the relationships and how they unfold, and by the way K Patrick just lets this story be and lets it breathe on the page without feeling the need to sensationalize any part of it. This is a very human story.
*My friend Gumble's Yard has pointed out to me that Mrs. S has time-markers throughout that definitively set the action in the 1980's or later. This time frame feels so out of whack with the way I have read the novel that I had to wonder if my brain deliberately glossed over any references as I read along. I'll need to reread and rethink. While I was reading it, the novel screamed 'mid-20th-century' to me.
January 28, 2023
When she is not around, I invent her. When she is around, I invent her. It is not her fault. Hasn’t she made me feel this deserving? Please. Her please, riding her breath, its power. Please. I love you. The ring, that dead eye. I take her hand, the hand with its ring, and kiss it gently. She will not change, it is not her fault. I am changing, I have always been changing. This is not a state she can understand. She moves only towards what she has already seen. I could hit my own chest. Not me, not me. I will have a different life. Yes. I will leave. Her eyes. Oh, I will leave and she does not know it yet.
This is all about the dazzling writing for me. Patrick has made this style their own and tells a not unfamiliar story in an alluring, characterful voice that colours this book.
There's an intimacy about the writing which takes some leads from Woolfian stream of consciousness but which collapses distinctions between interior and exterior, and also, at points, erases the differences between 'she' and 'I': a syntactical disintegration or queering that both echoes and stands in for the relationship between the narrator and Mrs S.
By turns moody, sensual, and emotional, this also manages to maintain a sense of humour, a lack of earnestness and preciousness that can often mar this kind of postmodern styling.
Smart, entertaining, impressive, seductive - K Patrick is an author to watch.
Thanks to 4th Estate for an ARC via NetGalley
August 4, 2023
mrs s is a very slow-burn, atmospheric novel - a great example of a ‘no plot just vibes’ book done well. the setting of an all-girls boarding school in the english countryside aids the dark academia aesthetic, which feels like the perfect choice for this story.
the writing is stunning, poetic and melancholic, and the novel is laced with a vague sense of claustrophobia which keeps it compelling despite the fact that nothing much happens. it is ultimately a novel about desire: queer desire, desire to be understood, desire to connect, but mainly, the desire for a young woman to define her own identity.
the writing is stunning, poetic and melancholic, and the novel is laced with a vague sense of claustrophobia which keeps it compelling despite the fact that nothing much happens. it is ultimately a novel about desire: queer desire, desire to be understood, desire to connect, but mainly, the desire for a young woman to define her own identity.
August 28, 2023
when you’re in a yearning competition and find out your opponent is a lesbian
this probably should be more of a 3 since i couldn’t fully jive with the writing style and found it could become a bit of a slog to get through buuuuut when it did work, it worked (!) and i liked the ending a lot so im bumping it :)
this probably should be more of a 3 since i couldn’t fully jive with the writing style and found it could become a bit of a slog to get through buuuuut when it did work, it worked (!) and i liked the ending a lot so im bumping it :)
June 24, 2023
The best debut I've read since Eimear McBride's.
June 24, 2023
DNF at P.160
How can a book that is about some of my favourite subjects - gender, being queer, a relationship between an older and young woman, and is set on a campus - be so unbearably boring? I kept trying but after a while the annoying stylistic quirks - no quotation marks or even a new line for dialogue, for instance, and no one is given a name - became too much for me, coupled with the relentless tedium. I don't know how this missed the mark so badly!
How can a book that is about some of my favourite subjects - gender, being queer, a relationship between an older and young woman, and is set on a campus - be so unbearably boring? I kept trying but after a while the annoying stylistic quirks - no quotation marks or even a new line for dialogue, for instance, and no one is given a name - became too much for me, coupled with the relentless tedium. I don't know how this missed the mark so badly!
August 16, 2023
Mrs. S is the wife of the headmaster of an all-girls English boarding school. The unnamed narrator is a twenty-two-year-old Australian lesbian who works there as a "matron", some sort of supervisor.
This novel is fairly plotless, it mostly focuses on the narrator's obsession with the more sophisticated, mature woman. The prose is sparse and punchy. Nicolette Chin's brilliant narration made it sound better than it actually was.
This had potential as it was different, but upon finishing it, I didn't feel fully unsatisfied.
This novel is fairly plotless, it mostly focuses on the narrator's obsession with the more sophisticated, mature woman. The prose is sparse and punchy. Nicolette Chin's brilliant narration made it sound better than it actually was.
This had potential as it was different, but upon finishing it, I didn't feel fully unsatisfied.
July 8, 2023
Wonderfully pared-back prose and a sensous atmosphere, although at 300 pages rather longer than the slender plot justifies or the prose style supports.
I wrote the above then read this Guardian review which expressed similar sentiments more eloquently.
Early evening, the car park outside the largest boarding house is peaceful. I sit on the kerb, the dead author's novel at my feet. This book, carted from home, what is home, to here, her country. Didn't I want to try out the rain? The job, an easy way onto a visa. I have always been in pursuit of something. A kind of survival. To think one step ahead. Inside, The Girls go through their giggling preparations for bed. Ants pace across the tarmac. My mother would stop me when I was a child, pointing out their cargo as it was passed from one set of pincers to the next. She admired their hard work. We trap each other, my mother and I. She keeps me there. And I do the same, my mother, the woman obsessed with hard work, with building an honest life. A dog barks, told off sharply by its owner, then barks again. Tucked into my binder is the paper-wrapped stained glass. The risk of sitting, of not taking it straight back to my room, the tip almost at my belly. What am I doing? Everything compresses. My entire chest becomes glass. Imagine, me, see-through, held up to the sun. An image of perfection. No one else is around. Away from the windows I lift the binder. Fresh air. I take out the piece carefully. The snake's expression removed from its context, free to seduce no longer limited to Adam and Eve. I open my book and half-hide it inside. Against the pages it is just as irresistible, just as absurd.
I wrote the above then read this Guardian review which expressed similar sentiments more eloquently.
Early evening, the car park outside the largest boarding house is peaceful. I sit on the kerb, the dead author's novel at my feet. This book, carted from home, what is home, to here, her country. Didn't I want to try out the rain? The job, an easy way onto a visa. I have always been in pursuit of something. A kind of survival. To think one step ahead. Inside, The Girls go through their giggling preparations for bed. Ants pace across the tarmac. My mother would stop me when I was a child, pointing out their cargo as it was passed from one set of pincers to the next. She admired their hard work. We trap each other, my mother and I. She keeps me there. And I do the same, my mother, the woman obsessed with hard work, with building an honest life. A dog barks, told off sharply by its owner, then barks again. Tucked into my binder is the paper-wrapped stained glass. The risk of sitting, of not taking it straight back to my room, the tip almost at my belly. What am I doing? Everything compresses. My entire chest becomes glass. Imagine, me, see-through, held up to the sun. An image of perfection. No one else is around. Away from the windows I lift the binder. Fresh air. I take out the piece carefully. The snake's expression removed from its context, free to seduce no longer limited to Adam and Eve. I open my book and half-hide it inside. Against the pages it is just as irresistible, just as absurd.
February 5, 2023
This book won't be for everyone. Some won't appreciate what could be perceived as jilted writing, stop-start, no flourishes. However, for me, it's what makes the story work so well. The narrator herself is very contained, uncertain, desperate for what she can't have and never satisfied with what she does. The urgency of youth (because yes, 22 is still VERY much young) is in full effect here, and it really reminded me how all-encompassing love, or what feels like it, can be at that age.
K Patrick has a wonderful ability to make the reader feel as desperate as the protagonist. The first 50% of the book, the tension is so palpable that I wanted to rip my hair out with anticipation. And yet, it was so delicious that I knew I needed to savor it. The "action," when it came, was out of nowhere and all at once and yet perfectly timed and long overdue. Again, very realistic.
Admittedly, I too would have been enamored with Mrs. S at that age. There's something so desirable about that which is just outside of your grasp. Again, K Patrick manages to portray this well. Same goes for the frenetic energy of The Girls at the school, their attention-seeking antics and bored indifference. What seems on the page to be an almost cliche set-up somehow feels entirely different in the author's hands. She managed to give a somewhat tired trope (all girls school = lesbianism!) a completely new and refreshing life.
I suppose the most heartening part of this book was the tenderness with which it's written. The narrator is still so fragile in many ways, still uncertain in her certainty and figuring out how she feels about the ways in which she presents herself. There's no judgment here, nor is there any pressure to explain or justify.
Obviously, I'm gay as hell so this was always going to appeal to me. However, I've read many LGBTQIA+ novels that really sucked (more often than not, in fact) and was pleasantly surprised this one didn't disappoint. It is indeed sensual, as the synopsis promises, but there's more to it than that. You'll have to read it yourself to see what I mean.
K Patrick has a wonderful ability to make the reader feel as desperate as the protagonist. The first 50% of the book, the tension is so palpable that I wanted to rip my hair out with anticipation. And yet, it was so delicious that I knew I needed to savor it. The "action," when it came, was out of nowhere and all at once and yet perfectly timed and long overdue. Again, very realistic.
Admittedly, I too would have been enamored with Mrs. S at that age. There's something so desirable about that which is just outside of your grasp. Again, K Patrick manages to portray this well. Same goes for the frenetic energy of The Girls at the school, their attention-seeking antics and bored indifference. What seems on the page to be an almost cliche set-up somehow feels entirely different in the author's hands. She managed to give a somewhat tired trope (all girls school = lesbianism!) a completely new and refreshing life.
I suppose the most heartening part of this book was the tenderness with which it's written. The narrator is still so fragile in many ways, still uncertain in her certainty and figuring out how she feels about the ways in which she presents herself. There's no judgment here, nor is there any pressure to explain or justify.
Obviously, I'm gay as hell so this was always going to appeal to me. However, I've read many LGBTQIA+ novels that really sucked (more often than not, in fact) and was pleasantly surprised this one didn't disappoint. It is indeed sensual, as the synopsis promises, but there's more to it than that. You'll have to read it yourself to see what I mean.
May 18, 2023
Wow - this is my favorite new release in a long time! An exquisite and decadent story about the power of desire. The setting alone-an all girls english boarding school-is enough to sell this book. But the precise observations, atmospheric imagery, and poetic writing blew me away.
August 29, 2023
2.5☆ - mrs. s is a seductive, illusive, and atmospheric 2023 release brimming with sapphic desire, yearning, and forbidden love
this novel is essentially plotless. we follow our unnamed narrator, a ‘butch antipodean’, as she begins to work as matron in an all-girls boarding school. a romance blossoms between our narrator and the headmaster’s wife. their affair is electric; it’s consuming and our narrator teeters on obsessive. mrs. s is a passionate “no plot, just vibes” novel that really should’ve worked for me. it’s sexy and erotic, but i think it loses itself in its attempt to be unique.
there were many small moments where i could see the beauty and the author’s genius, but those moments were fleeting. for the most part, this book was tedious and exhausting. from the decision to make every character nameless, to the relentless staccato style of writing that leads to intangible, ungraspable descriptions, as well as the lack of punctuation and grammar. this novel felt like a chore to get through.
i don’t think this was a bad debut by any means; it just didn’t work for me, unfortunately. i’m so sad about it.
this novel is essentially plotless. we follow our unnamed narrator, a ‘butch antipodean’, as she begins to work as matron in an all-girls boarding school. a romance blossoms between our narrator and the headmaster’s wife. their affair is electric; it’s consuming and our narrator teeters on obsessive. mrs. s is a passionate “no plot, just vibes” novel that really should’ve worked for me. it’s sexy and erotic, but i think it loses itself in its attempt to be unique.
there were many small moments where i could see the beauty and the author’s genius, but those moments were fleeting. for the most part, this book was tedious and exhausting. from the decision to make every character nameless, to the relentless staccato style of writing that leads to intangible, ungraspable descriptions, as well as the lack of punctuation and grammar. this novel felt like a chore to get through.
i don’t think this was a bad debut by any means; it just didn’t work for me, unfortunately. i’m so sad about it.
May 27, 2023
Gay enough to keep me going, so painstakingly stylized I did not enjoy more than a minute of it. Sometimes a novel is more about form and idea than it is about character. There are no quotation marks, and no paragraph breaks between lines of dialogue and narration. As you go along, this (I’m sure very carefully considered) affectation becomes familiar and it grows easier to parse out who is saying what, and what is going unsaid. But it’s a deliberately erected barrier, intended to add struggle to the experience of reading and a sense of being lost that fits the narrator but which is decidedly unfun.
Patrick also chooses not to name anyone except Mr. and Mrs. S, which is as much as you learn of their names. The prose is aggressively focused on physical description, making a painting from which you have to sleuth out the internal workings of the deliberately iconic characters—whom I ultimately don’t like very much, perhaps in part because the author withholds them so much. It’s all affect by choice, and perhaps some people will find it all effective. It is also familiar as part of a not unpopular, ascetic school of fiction-writing, where committing a metaphor or an internal monologue that strays or that contains emotion is seen as an artistic weakness. To me this kind of fiction always seems so fearful, and so pleasureless.
Because of the deliberate distance and the passivity of the narrator, even the most heartfelt and messy elements of the story—illicit affairs, uneasy queerness, ill-advised drinking, estrangement of family—became distant episodes experienced by a stranger who remains a stranger for the entire book.
I can see so much of what the author was doing here, how deliberate and choreographed at every level. It’s not impenetrable, and it is consistent with its own purpose. The thing is, I didn’t like it. What is the point of fiction that picks all the meat off its own bones? If I’m going to read a bunch of hot illicit gay summer sex, could there please be some calories?
Patrick also chooses not to name anyone except Mr. and Mrs. S, which is as much as you learn of their names. The prose is aggressively focused on physical description, making a painting from which you have to sleuth out the internal workings of the deliberately iconic characters—whom I ultimately don’t like very much, perhaps in part because the author withholds them so much. It’s all affect by choice, and perhaps some people will find it all effective. It is also familiar as part of a not unpopular, ascetic school of fiction-writing, where committing a metaphor or an internal monologue that strays or that contains emotion is seen as an artistic weakness. To me this kind of fiction always seems so fearful, and so pleasureless.
Because of the deliberate distance and the passivity of the narrator, even the most heartfelt and messy elements of the story—illicit affairs, uneasy queerness, ill-advised drinking, estrangement of family—became distant episodes experienced by a stranger who remains a stranger for the entire book.
I can see so much of what the author was doing here, how deliberate and choreographed at every level. It’s not impenetrable, and it is consistent with its own purpose. The thing is, I didn’t like it. What is the point of fiction that picks all the meat off its own bones? If I’m going to read a bunch of hot illicit gay summer sex, could there please be some calories?
September 27, 2023
i ♥️ sapphic yearning
September 20, 2023
I very much enjoyed this novel 😊 I chanced upon it in one of the local libraries, and had no expectations of it, nor prior knowledge of it (and skipped the book cover blurb and endorsements til later 😉).
I liked the slight outsider perspective, the sense of relative isolation shrouding the main character narrator (an Australian working in England). and how maybe it mirrors their isolation as a gender-nonconforming butch dyke.
I liked the slowness, the details observed... the sense of languid summer, days and time drawn out 🌞🌸🌿🍃
the differently splayed threads of sexuality are nicely presented - the narrators sure and solid self, the house mistress's equal but different certainty, some of the girls/young women with their still partial understanding of selves and others, the headmaster's wife's subtlety/understatement and class-ed silence.
the night out with the house mistress 😃 two dykes, a trip to the nearest large ish town, to track down the one gay bar... 😆🙄🙃😆
🌈 so very reminiscent of some of the years of my youth 🙂🙃
(and still a reality in places).
I wasn't so into the drawn out build towards contact etc., but that's just me. I think it was done well. and I think if someone is looking for some only-mildly-angsty lesbian romance that's uncomplicatedly realised in some pretty good sex, alongside a story, it's likely a good novel for that 🙂
I did like how the author created the dynamic, and explored who is actually doing what, the shifting of response, action, reaction, control... how fluidly these things can shift within interactions and within sexual situations.
and the slow build, and the repeated moments of sex, worked well in shaping the building of a gentle proto-relationship/'love affair' - moving from vestry floor, to woods, to each of their beds in turn... from quick partings, to time spent relaxing and talking together after sex... with more time in their more personal and private spaces comes increasing emotional intimacy, stories and lives unfolding...
the conversation about gender and body - the limitations of language, which "requires how I feel to be a fixed state" - articulates well the difficulty of articulation, even when there's trust and desire to know another 💜
I thought it was a pretty good exploration of an instance of parts of yourself that you can't inhabit as is/as potentially externally perceived, parts of yourself you have to reshape in order to exist with any safety/surety of self. not a totality of differently-gendered/dyke/butch (or trans) experience, but one experience, and one that feels consistent with the character and within the novel.
🌟
I also liked how the novel touched on how much you give to another, emotionally, and in the act of sex...
and the existence of private and public selves, and these stepping across boundaries of identity, of gender, sexuality.
🌟
the lie and leaving is both unsatisfactory, sudden and believable (on the spot decision made by a young woman to support/defend her friend)(I found it useful throughout the novel to remember how young the narrator is, and to think back to myself at that age, especially as a young dyke finding my way... AND one dating older women)(tho not the headmasters wife 😉).
it is also nicely realistic wrt the (im)possibility of such honest queerness existing within the rigid school establishment in the novel ♥
the close of the novel supports this, with our narrator making a positive choice to leave - to leave the relationship (and fantasy of a relationship) with Mrs S. awa the school. to leave double lives to live toward a single truth 🙂❤️
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
I really liked the exploration of the narrators two main relationships within the novel. one of attraction and lust, containing also romantic love... in contrast with the almost friendship of convenience, with threads of solidarity, becoming a really sound, caring, loving friendship 😍 the latter the more honest of the two, and showing in relief the former's likeliness to never be more than a secret/contained possibility, whatever the emotions involved.
♥
at times I found the vagueness a little almost-annoying, but overall I thought it worked. the repeated references to the "dead author" sometimes left me intrigued - whether there was someone specific or it was more of an amalgamation - and provided a gentle thread of humour running through the novel 🙂😉
it maybe took me a while to realise that the main characters didn't have names, that their names never came, but I didn't find this troubling. I liked how the characters were left open like this - they were real/built characters, they were also at times stereotypes and/or archetypes, and they were also potentially anyone/anywoman/anyperson. they gave you space to inhabit/own any (and/or each) of them in your own way.
I especially liked how this played out around gender too - particularly how the main characters identity was never pushed into a particular, or limited, identity wrt gender and sexuality. I felt like this character could be related to from a wide range of positions/perspectives... lesbian/dyke/butch/queer/gnc/nb/female/male/genderqueer/trans/transmasc/ftm...
(this in itself a kinda false spectrum that doesn't contain us all). and including over a wide time period, in which even these terms can mean different things (then and now).
🌈
I noticed that this book has really mixed ratings and reviews on goodreads, so took a look after settling my own feelings on it.
one of the main things that seems to divide readers is the writing style, and I think in part I escaped some folks issues with it cos I was not reading a paper copy... and because the style *as it was read* really worked for me. I guess it's here that the tone in which you read it really impacts. the audiobook reader took their time, didn't rush the short sentences to create something staccato and undifferentiated... but used the punctuation as was to create the pauses and skips in train of thought and/or events, between the said and unsaid. read like this I think there's lots of feeling/thought within the gaps, the moments seemingly unfinished... and for me the novel had a kinda dreamy, meandering, observational (of self, others, situation, location) effect ❤️
and yeah, at one point I also thought the novel was abit long 😉 but it did go on to kinda redeem itself for me a bit after I reached that point, with abit more substance (I definitely didn't want to hang out in the dreamy summer will she/they, will she/they again, place for too long). I'm glad I was patient with it 😊
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 (at least 4)
accessed as a library audiobook, REALLY nicely read by Nicolette Chin 😁😍
I liked the slight outsider perspective, the sense of relative isolation shrouding the main character narrator (an Australian working in England). and how maybe it mirrors their isolation as a gender-nonconforming butch dyke.
I liked the slowness, the details observed... the sense of languid summer, days and time drawn out 🌞🌸🌿🍃
the differently splayed threads of sexuality are nicely presented - the narrators sure and solid self, the house mistress's equal but different certainty, some of the girls/young women with their still partial understanding of selves and others, the headmaster's wife's subtlety/understatement and class-ed silence.
the night out with the house mistress 😃 two dykes, a trip to the nearest large ish town, to track down the one gay bar... 😆🙄🙃😆
🌈 so very reminiscent of some of the years of my youth 🙂🙃
(and still a reality in places).
I wasn't so into the drawn out build towards contact etc., but that's just me. I think it was done well. and I think if someone is looking for some only-mildly-angsty lesbian romance that's uncomplicatedly realised in some pretty good sex, alongside a story, it's likely a good novel for that 🙂
I did like how the author created the dynamic, and explored who is actually doing what, the shifting of response, action, reaction, control... how fluidly these things can shift within interactions and within sexual situations.
and the slow build, and the repeated moments of sex, worked well in shaping the building of a gentle proto-relationship/'love affair' - moving from vestry floor, to woods, to each of their beds in turn... from quick partings, to time spent relaxing and talking together after sex... with more time in their more personal and private spaces comes increasing emotional intimacy, stories and lives unfolding...
the conversation about gender and body - the limitations of language, which "requires how I feel to be a fixed state" - articulates well the difficulty of articulation, even when there's trust and desire to know another 💜
I thought it was a pretty good exploration of an instance of parts of yourself that you can't inhabit as is/as potentially externally perceived, parts of yourself you have to reshape in order to exist with any safety/surety of self. not a totality of differently-gendered/dyke/butch (or trans) experience, but one experience, and one that feels consistent with the character and within the novel.
🌟
I also liked how the novel touched on how much you give to another, emotionally, and in the act of sex...
and the existence of private and public selves, and these stepping across boundaries of identity, of gender, sexuality.
🌟
the lie and leaving is both unsatisfactory, sudden and believable (on the spot decision made by a young woman to support/defend her friend)(I found it useful throughout the novel to remember how young the narrator is, and to think back to myself at that age, especially as a young dyke finding my way... AND one dating older women)(tho not the headmasters wife 😉).
it is also nicely realistic wrt the (im)possibility of such honest queerness existing within the rigid school establishment in the novel ♥
the close of the novel supports this, with our narrator making a positive choice to leave - to leave the relationship (and fantasy of a relationship) with Mrs S. awa the school. to leave double lives to live toward a single truth 🙂❤️
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟
I really liked the exploration of the narrators two main relationships within the novel. one of attraction and lust, containing also romantic love... in contrast with the almost friendship of convenience, with threads of solidarity, becoming a really sound, caring, loving friendship 😍 the latter the more honest of the two, and showing in relief the former's likeliness to never be more than a secret/contained possibility, whatever the emotions involved.
♥
at times I found the vagueness a little almost-annoying, but overall I thought it worked. the repeated references to the "dead author" sometimes left me intrigued - whether there was someone specific or it was more of an amalgamation - and provided a gentle thread of humour running through the novel 🙂😉
it maybe took me a while to realise that the main characters didn't have names, that their names never came, but I didn't find this troubling. I liked how the characters were left open like this - they were real/built characters, they were also at times stereotypes and/or archetypes, and they were also potentially anyone/anywoman/anyperson. they gave you space to inhabit/own any (and/or each) of them in your own way.
I especially liked how this played out around gender too - particularly how the main characters identity was never pushed into a particular, or limited, identity wrt gender and sexuality. I felt like this character could be related to from a wide range of positions/perspectives... lesbian/dyke/butch/queer/gnc/nb/female/male/genderqueer/trans/transmasc/ftm...
(this in itself a kinda false spectrum that doesn't contain us all). and including over a wide time period, in which even these terms can mean different things (then and now).
🌈
I noticed that this book has really mixed ratings and reviews on goodreads, so took a look after settling my own feelings on it.
one of the main things that seems to divide readers is the writing style, and I think in part I escaped some folks issues with it cos I was not reading a paper copy... and because the style *as it was read* really worked for me. I guess it's here that the tone in which you read it really impacts. the audiobook reader took their time, didn't rush the short sentences to create something staccato and undifferentiated... but used the punctuation as was to create the pauses and skips in train of thought and/or events, between the said and unsaid. read like this I think there's lots of feeling/thought within the gaps, the moments seemingly unfinished... and for me the novel had a kinda dreamy, meandering, observational (of self, others, situation, location) effect ❤️
and yeah, at one point I also thought the novel was abit long 😉 but it did go on to kinda redeem itself for me a bit after I reached that point, with abit more substance (I definitely didn't want to hang out in the dreamy summer will she/they, will she/they again, place for too long). I'm glad I was patient with it 😊
🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 (at least 4)
accessed as a library audiobook, REALLY nicely read by Nicolette Chin 😁😍
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 17, 2023
When I saw the blurb on this book, I preordered it. And then life happened and it took me several months to get around to reading it. When I did finally pick it up, I finished it in an afternoon.
The novel was everything it promised to be—and so much more.
K Patrick's prose is glorious. Their mastery of language and metaphorical complexity brought the story to life with every carefully crafted word. I found the character of Mrs. S to be seductive, mysterious, charming, infuriating... everything I am seeking in a forbidden love affair.
The choice of linguistic style will not be for everyone. The lack of use of quotation can, at times, make it difficult to differentiate the speaker, and offer a confusing point of view. I, however, loved the stylistic decision. I found it creating a vagueness between description and dialogue, permitting the reader to frame their own definition of the text.
If you are looking for something different, something beautiful, something compelling—give this book a chance.
The novel was everything it promised to be—and so much more.
K Patrick's prose is glorious. Their mastery of language and metaphorical complexity brought the story to life with every carefully crafted word. I found the character of Mrs. S to be seductive, mysterious, charming, infuriating... everything I am seeking in a forbidden love affair.
The choice of linguistic style will not be for everyone. The lack of use of quotation can, at times, make it difficult to differentiate the speaker, and offer a confusing point of view. I, however, loved the stylistic decision. I found it creating a vagueness between description and dialogue, permitting the reader to frame their own definition of the text.
If you are looking for something different, something beautiful, something compelling—give this book a chance.
August 24, 2023
A masterclass in writing about nonbinary lesbianism! Mrs. S is quiet and reserved while somehow simultaneously expansive and feverish. It's one of those books that just inexplicably works. The sentences felt so sparse while also incredible poetic. The solidarity and friendship between the narrator and The Housemistress made me smile at my book. Just so so so good.
February 23, 2023
'Miss'. That is what the girls of this elite boarding school call her. It fits her as ill as the official title of 'Matron'. 'Mrs. S' is what they term the headmaster's wife and the lovely roll of letters suit her confidence in the space she takes up in this world. These two figures differ so greatly and yet are helplessly borne into the other's orbit, to either shatter against each other or conjoin completely.
This is a book of extraordinary sorrow and delightful beauty. Upon each page is etched such longing that it pierces the reader's heart. Sensual and sexual, this is a novel that awakens the senses with its sublime abundance.
The two women at the centre of it strike such opposing figures and portray stereotypical female roles. Watching their awakening, in the arms of the other, was a beautiful sight to witness. It was, also, always painful; sometimes brutal in its violence and other times agonising in its aching longing. The overflowing emotions ensured this a novel I tore through and one I will also return to, many times.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, K. Patrick, and the publisher, Europa Editions, for this opportunity.
This is a book of extraordinary sorrow and delightful beauty. Upon each page is etched such longing that it pierces the reader's heart. Sensual and sexual, this is a novel that awakens the senses with its sublime abundance.
The two women at the centre of it strike such opposing figures and portray stereotypical female roles. Watching their awakening, in the arms of the other, was a beautiful sight to witness. It was, also, always painful; sometimes brutal in its violence and other times agonising in its aching longing. The overflowing emotions ensured this a novel I tore through and one I will also return to, many times.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, K. Patrick, and the publisher, Europa Editions, for this opportunity.
April 9, 2023
Mrs S is a poignant, immersive and gut wrenching story full of queer love, longing and finding ones self.
This book was tender, yet tough. A fascinating account of one matron's desire, longing and adoration for Mrs S and the affair that ensues between them. First and foremost, the stream of consciousness narrative was both exhilarating yet challenging, evoking so much emotion into the characters and their communication despite the lack of dialogue. It made for such a unique reading experience and ultimately aided my love for the book.
Placing a dark academia setting as a backdrop to this novel was also AMAZING. I adored the imagery that blossomed from this atmosphere! With classic 'dark academia' motifs, the environmental and religious antidotes laced throughout the pages, all cleverly reflected the characters experiences and feelings towards one another. This is such a special book, that is unique and experimental in its narrative and heart wrenching at its core.
I would highly recommend!
This book was tender, yet tough. A fascinating account of one matron's desire, longing and adoration for Mrs S and the affair that ensues between them. First and foremost, the stream of consciousness narrative was both exhilarating yet challenging, evoking so much emotion into the characters and their communication despite the lack of dialogue. It made for such a unique reading experience and ultimately aided my love for the book.
Placing a dark academia setting as a backdrop to this novel was also AMAZING. I adored the imagery that blossomed from this atmosphere! With classic 'dark academia' motifs, the environmental and religious antidotes laced throughout the pages, all cleverly reflected the characters experiences and feelings towards one another. This is such a special book, that is unique and experimental in its narrative and heart wrenching at its core.
I would highly recommend!
June 19, 2023
A gorgeous, sensual debut from one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists this year, Mrs. S charts the uneasy territory of queer desire, identity, and dissonance in the remote and rigorous environs of an elite boarding school. Set in an undefined period (purportedly the 1980s, but purposedly unspecified in a way that allows the author to pursue the story without stating their politics), it is narrated by an unnamed protagonist (save for the titular Mrs. S, everyone in this novel remains unnamed; the students simply ‘The Girls’, the Housemistress referred to as such, and even the dead author who once attended the school and under whose shadow the story unfolds betrays naming or recognition) who arrives from Australia to serve a one-year placement as the school’s new matron – a post as antiquated as the setting it seeks to qualify. But our protagonist is no more matronly than the next 22-year-old butch: though greeted as ‘Miss’ by The Girls, and wary of correcting them, she* wears a binder and is recognisably different from those around her – what in today’s parlance may be trans-masc, or non-binary, but content, here, without the fuss of pronouns or labels – just the word ‘lesbian’, which she keeps rolled up under her tongue.
With not much to do except overseeing The Girls, her attention wanders – her accent, her body, her professional persona out of place – and comes quickly to rest on the headmaster’s wife, the glamorous, charismatic, and assuredly enigmatic Mrs. S. In a place where she is constantly vying to uncover signs of concealed queerness (in the dead author’s misery, in the short nails and strong arms of the object of her lust), and in the backdrop of The Girls preparing to stage a production of La Casa de Bernanda Alba (a play where, too, men are largely absent, and which is centered around an affair) begins a slow-burn romance that would be sickly with cliché (queer and otherwise) were it written by a less capable hand: there are roses, secret trips swimming near a waterfall, and passion behind the stained-glass secret of the school chapel and in the kitchen at a dinner party with clams on offer, but Patrick injects these scenes with a refreshing sense of vulnerability, attempting to sketch out the delicate balance between the desire to be looked at and to be seen that is recognisable to all queer folks.
As stated elsewhere, the author set out to write a “horny” novel, and their protagonist feels that Mrs. S and herself are ‘fucking each other into being’ – bringing different versions of themselves to the fore without shame, violence, or diffidence. But physicality is also important to this book in other ways: physicality, the habits and appearance that allow a person to be seen as more butch, more masculine, more themselves – and not the labels that Mrs. S seeks to divest itself of – is what the narrator desires to ingratiate herself to her identity with, as is the being seen itself. Perhaps that is why she is there, at the boarding school – away from the denied recognition from her parents and her past.
Though the romance offers respite and blooms over the heat of the summer, there is a finitude to it. Mrs S is, after all, the headmaster’s wife, and the sexual permissiveness of her relationship with the protagonist is in contrast with her motherly duties and her heterosexual, public-facing persona. This contrast is what brings the two to a break: as the protagonist says, their loneliness is not the same (It has been easier to pretend that it is.), and only one of the two is tired of separating the body from the mind. The novel offers its prickly crux to the reader in just a single moment, a blow crested with pain: Mrs. S probes the matron about her binder, asks if it is to make her feel more ‘manly’, more ‘like a man’. Whereas language and understanding is her strong suit with The Girls, the nuances of gender, of masculinity, fail her. The narrator recoils from this moment, sees the propriety that preceded it, and inches towards the decision that is, inevitably, to be made.
Mrs. S is a mesmerising novel: one that beautifully bears witness to queer emotion, one that is endlessly literary even as it strips back form and seeks to do away with the conventions of time, place, character, and even dialogue. There is, as others have said, something Woolfian about it, and something of Garth Greenwell in it too, but Patrick makes their own voice stand out. The story is virtually flawless – the tension almost unbearably delicious – and while the style, with its notable lack of line breaks and speech markers may not work for all readers, it facilitates the novel staying true to the promise of queering life by centering its lack of definite boundaries and its refusal of the customary. Everything put together, this is a novel that continues to grow beyond its pages: here I am, as evidence, still wondering what the matron got onto after the end, and what Mrs. S may be thinking. I won't ever find out for sure, but I will read anything Patrick puts their name on.
______________________________
* While reading, I often felt like addressing the protagonist with they/them, but in their own words, there isn't always a point to 'the grammar of belonging'. What pronouns would the matron prefer is up for guesswork and interpretation, but there is a whole lot of gesture in the book to tell us who they – she in my review – felt and knew they were and could be.
With not much to do except overseeing The Girls, her attention wanders – her accent, her body, her professional persona out of place – and comes quickly to rest on the headmaster’s wife, the glamorous, charismatic, and assuredly enigmatic Mrs. S. In a place where she is constantly vying to uncover signs of concealed queerness (in the dead author’s misery, in the short nails and strong arms of the object of her lust), and in the backdrop of The Girls preparing to stage a production of La Casa de Bernanda Alba (a play where, too, men are largely absent, and which is centered around an affair) begins a slow-burn romance that would be sickly with cliché (queer and otherwise) were it written by a less capable hand: there are roses, secret trips swimming near a waterfall, and passion behind the stained-glass secret of the school chapel and in the kitchen at a dinner party with clams on offer, but Patrick injects these scenes with a refreshing sense of vulnerability, attempting to sketch out the delicate balance between the desire to be looked at and to be seen that is recognisable to all queer folks.
As stated elsewhere, the author set out to write a “horny” novel, and their protagonist feels that Mrs. S and herself are ‘fucking each other into being’ – bringing different versions of themselves to the fore without shame, violence, or diffidence. But physicality is also important to this book in other ways: physicality, the habits and appearance that allow a person to be seen as more butch, more masculine, more themselves – and not the labels that Mrs. S seeks to divest itself of – is what the narrator desires to ingratiate herself to her identity with, as is the being seen itself. Perhaps that is why she is there, at the boarding school – away from the denied recognition from her parents and her past.
Though the romance offers respite and blooms over the heat of the summer, there is a finitude to it. Mrs S is, after all, the headmaster’s wife, and the sexual permissiveness of her relationship with the protagonist is in contrast with her motherly duties and her heterosexual, public-facing persona. This contrast is what brings the two to a break: as the protagonist says, their loneliness is not the same (It has been easier to pretend that it is.), and only one of the two is tired of separating the body from the mind. The novel offers its prickly crux to the reader in just a single moment, a blow crested with pain: Mrs. S probes the matron about her binder, asks if it is to make her feel more ‘manly’, more ‘like a man’. Whereas language and understanding is her strong suit with The Girls, the nuances of gender, of masculinity, fail her. The narrator recoils from this moment, sees the propriety that preceded it, and inches towards the decision that is, inevitably, to be made.
Mrs. S is a mesmerising novel: one that beautifully bears witness to queer emotion, one that is endlessly literary even as it strips back form and seeks to do away with the conventions of time, place, character, and even dialogue. There is, as others have said, something Woolfian about it, and something of Garth Greenwell in it too, but Patrick makes their own voice stand out. The story is virtually flawless – the tension almost unbearably delicious – and while the style, with its notable lack of line breaks and speech markers may not work for all readers, it facilitates the novel staying true to the promise of queering life by centering its lack of definite boundaries and its refusal of the customary. Everything put together, this is a novel that continues to grow beyond its pages: here I am, as evidence, still wondering what the matron got onto after the end, and what Mrs. S may be thinking. I won't ever find out for sure, but I will read anything Patrick puts their name on.
______________________________
* While reading, I often felt like addressing the protagonist with they/them, but in their own words, there isn't always a point to 'the grammar of belonging'. What pronouns would the matron prefer is up for guesswork and interpretation, but there is a whole lot of gesture in the book to tell us who they – she in my review – felt and knew they were and could be.
September 8, 2023
Unlike any book I’ve read in a long while, if ever. From the short sentences to the inner thoughts that scattered. I had to focus more than a traditional sapphic book because there were no quotes when the characters were talking, and also how there were a lot of different thoughts and things happening, but I didn’t think it was a bad thing. Just different.
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June 21, 2023Set in an old-fashioned boarding school, Mrs. S tells the story of a nameless Australian who has moved to England for work. There, she meets the headmaster’s wife, the titular Mrs. S, and begins a journey of growing obsession.
Our protagonist is unsure of herself. She wears a binder and enjoys being seen as masculine, but she doesn’t have the language to express how she feels or what she wants for herself.
She identifies as a lesbian and begins to see Mrs. S as more than an object of obsession — perhaps this beautiful, charming woman might be able to guide our protagonist to her true self, unlock something in her.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/must-read-sap...
Our protagonist is unsure of herself. She wears a binder and enjoys being seen as masculine, but she doesn’t have the language to express how she feels or what she wants for herself.
She identifies as a lesbian and begins to see Mrs. S as more than an object of obsession — perhaps this beautiful, charming woman might be able to guide our protagonist to her true self, unlock something in her.
My full thoughts: https://booksandbao.com/must-read-sap...
September 21, 2023
Mrs S… what a conundrum! I haven’t concentrated on a book word-for-word since reading The Fundamentals of Nursing at uni. It was a heady experience living a summer in the matron’s head. This type of writing. I am blown away!
Picture this, a time and tested theme, a lesbian pining over a married woman and yet, the experience was so different from any other story told. The author created their own style of writing and went, fck the rules, I wanna write my story this way and you will either love it or hate it. I do not know of any book/author able to get away with a full length novel without proper names!!! Amazing!
Sensual, intimate, tactile, poetic and seductive. With that being said, it’s an adjustment to read the author’s style of writing. However, it’s worth the confusion for me.
Picture this, a time and tested theme, a lesbian pining over a married woman and yet, the experience was so different from any other story told. The author created their own style of writing and went, fck the rules, I wanna write my story this way and you will either love it or hate it. I do not know of any book/author able to get away with a full length novel without proper names!!! Amazing!
Sensual, intimate, tactile, poetic and seductive. With that being said, it’s an adjustment to read the author’s style of writing. However, it’s worth the confusion for me.
August 2, 2023
rep: butch lesbian mc & side character, sapphic li
tw: drug use, underage drinking, internalised homophobia
sublime! the writing is gorgeous, makes the atmosphere almost palpable; somehow it's simultaneously claustrophobic & freeing. you know how it's gonna end, it can only end one way, but you're still on the edge of your seat - and nothing even really happens.
makes me think of the awakening by kate chopin, with the way the women reach for the things that make them burn inside. (and, for obvious reasons, of olivia by dorothy strachey, but an adult, more brazen version.)
all the talk about butchness is absolutely delicious, too.
tw: drug use, underage drinking, internalised homophobia
sublime! the writing is gorgeous, makes the atmosphere almost palpable; somehow it's simultaneously claustrophobic & freeing. you know how it's gonna end, it can only end one way, but you're still on the edge of your seat - and nothing even really happens.
makes me think of the awakening by kate chopin, with the way the women reach for the things that make them burn inside. (and, for obvious reasons, of olivia by dorothy strachey, but an adult, more brazen version.)
all the talk about butchness is absolutely delicious, too.
March 20, 2024
In the past I dealt with beauty by assuming it was too good for me. Now, who knows.4.5/5
Without waiting for me she removes her white shirt. Each button a piece of my own spine, undone.
My rating for this book went from a 3.5 to a 4.5 in the last thirty or so pages. That should tell you something about my hopes for this work, as this is one of those rare pieces of literature where it does make a certain amount of sense to break it down high school English style into scenes, characters, motifs, and then build it back up again into a greater holistic triumph. As such, the ending would make or break all that came before it in terms of a cop out or the transfigurative (emphasis on the trans) meaning that certain choices and instances led me to believe was being constructed, and I have to say, Patrick came through for me. Of course, they came through for a heavily read, heavily interior, heavily thoughtful queer who takes questions of whether or not to bind, whether or not to love, whether or not to build solidarity as one more conventionally does questions of faith, loyalty, and life passions, so if you have more of a life than I do and don't give much of a fuck about theory, this piece might weigh you down. It didn't rate a five star in my book, but I do have to say, I love what the author had to say about queerhood in terms of the age old question of, do I want to fuck them, or do I want to be them, and did so in such a way that means all the more to my 30+ years old self. Also, and I don't say this often about the books I read, this would make for an absolutely gorgeous film, with the set scenes, the subtle yet sure innuendos, and the explicitly rendered details of elegant aesthetics complicating the playing field of vulgar language and thrusting bodies (especially the play within a play scenes afforded by Lorca's 'The House of Bernarda Alba'). In any case, this certainly isn't a work for everyone, not even the queer ones. However, I went out of my way to ensure that public library I librarian at has a copy (through properly vetted channels, of course), and I have to say, I'm more than pleased that I made the effort.
Who does she want to be? If I ask her that, she might fall apart. If I ask her that, I must be willing to live through the answer.
July 22, 2023
I want a steamy and tense sapphic boarding school novel as much as the next person but there was so much prose styling going on that I found it a pleasureless read. I’m never happy: no style and I hate it, too much style and I hate it. Here, Patrick’s use of style forced a distance between the reader and any emotional response they may have to the work. And I prefer it when a writer holds my hand to the flame.
December 2, 2023
4.5⭐️
simply lovely
simply lovely
December 3, 2023
if i could take away all the stars ive given to all the other books ive read and give them to this one, i would. i feel like i am a changed person after reading this
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