Celia works at the Ministry in the post-war England of 1949 and lives in a London suburb. Witty, fragile, quixotic, Celia is preoccupied with love – for her friends, her colleagues, her relations, and especially for her adored cousin Casmilus, with whom she goes on holiday to visit Uncle Heber, the vicar. Here they talk endlessly, argue, eat, tell stories, love and hate – moments of wild humour alternating with waves of melancholy as Celia ponders obsessively on the inevitable pain of love. In everything she wrote, Stevie Smith captured the paradox of pain in all human affections – nowhere more so than in this wry, strongly autobiographical tale.
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Reviews
It is some of the best writing about the pains of love I have ever read - an all-consuming, suffocating love pours from the pages of The Holiday
Extraordinary handling of conversation always fascinating and recounted with a perfect ear...
Those who find them [Stevie Smith's novels] entrancing ... find themselves on a hook which won't let go
