Living on the Edge

I found Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns as compulsive a read as Sisters By A River. It's an account, written completely without self pity and in the same naive style as the other book, of Bohemian hard times in 1930s London. Our heroine is married very young to an unspeakably selfish man who refuses to get a job and leaves all the work to her. The narrator's account of having a baby while she was desperately poor will have you feeling grateful for the NHS, despite its failings. Luckily, 'I was always optimistic' and by the end of the book things are looking brighter for her. The book is partly based on the author's own life, which is a horrifying thought.