A review by book_concierge
The Queen of the Tambourine by Jane Gardam

3.0

This slim novel is written in epistolary style, as Eliza Peabody writes letters to her former neighbor who is presumably off on some world-wide adventure. As time goes on and Eliza tries to relate what is happening in the neighborhood it becomes clear to the reader that she is not fully connected to reality. At times the work is poignant, other times quite funny, occasionally puzzling, occasionally horrifying and mostly entertaining (if you can consider watching someone descend into madness as entertaining).

I’ve read a number of Gardam’s works and I really appreciate the way she draws her characters. But I felt I didn’t really get to know Eliza, her husband, or any of the other characters that populated this work. It just missed the mark for me as compared to other books by her that I’ve read. I liked it, but didn’t love it.

The novel won Britain’s Whitebread Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1991.