I had heard of Penelope Lively. Of course I had. She wrote Moon Tiger, winner of the 1987 Booker Prize. People across the blogosphere raved about her. I used to work in a bookshop and have responsibility for fiction; I’ve shelved her books countless times. I even listened avidly in 2007 when her novel Consequences was Book at Bedtime on Radio 4. I thought to myself, ‘I must read her.’ But I didn’t. Other books, other events, other things got in the way.

Sometimes you need another little push to read someone you’ve always meant to get around to. On Saturday, Boyfriend and I were in a local charity shop, me poring over the books, him exclaiming over some Wings vinyl, when there, side-by-side in General Fiction, were two novels by Penelope Lively. They were 50p each. I didn’t even stop to read the back cover blurb. I had meant to read her for years, and now here she was right in front of me, extraordinarily reasonably priced. Hop into my bag, Penelope, you’re coming home with me.

“There is what you intend to happen, and there is what happens. Events slip from the grasp; people, above all, evade.” (p. 10)

Once home, I immediately made a start on Perfect Happiness, which is the story of Frances Brooklyn as she tries to come to terms her violent, all-consuming grief after the sudden death of her husband, Steven. To make the process harder, Steven was something of a celebrity, a well-known academic regularly asked to appear on television to comment on international affairs. Around her are her children – both in their late teens/early twenties, both trying to forge their own lives, both grieving too – and her sister-in-law, Zoe, a journalist. Over several months, Frances must not only fight to retain her own sanity, and her own self-hood, but also struggle with her bereavement in the glare of semi-celebrity. Other family dramas and revelations occur, and in confronting those, she also begins to glimpse light at the end of the tunnel.

I have never suffered the kind of bereavement depicted in the book, so I cannot pretend to understand the feelings the character experiences. I can, though, say that the portrayal was so realistic, so brilliantly written, that it read exactly how I imagine grief might be. The everyday, sudden reminders: Frances feeling guilty for making a new friend that her late husband would never know; the despair at the new puppy, bought for her by her son who worries she is lonely, ripping up the only copy of Steven’s inaugural lecture.

“During the early days and weeks of her solitude Frances had come to realize that grief like illness is unstable; it ebbs and flows in tides, it steals away to a distance and then comes roaring back, it torments by deception. It plays games with time and with reality… Time, that should be linear, had become formless; mercurial and unreliable, it took her away from the moment of Steven’s death and then flung her back beside it.” p. 102

The novel’s title is ironic. There can be no perfect happiness. There can be moments, of course, whole days even, but the ebb and flow of grief will always be there in the background, despite the hopefulness at the end of the book.

Penelope Lively’s writing is beautiful. I cried real tears four times over the day-and-a-half it took me to read Perfect Happiness. Within pages, I felt that I was grieving Steven Brooklyn too, and as family dramas and revelations occured as the pages flew past, I felt each jolt almost as if it were all happening to me. I gasped as one particular piece of information was quietly, unceremoniously revealed, and I worried how said character would take the news until it happened.

Good fiction teaches us things. This book gave me a heart-rending insight into that sort of bereavement. Now, days after finishing it, I’m still thinking about the characters. I still feel hopeful for Frances and her future, not to mention the futures of Zoe and the children, Tabitha and Harry. When a book comes along that you care that much about, you must implore the world to read it. So I implore you. Read Perfect Happiness.