Published in 1946, this is the story of Deborah, who we first meet on the day her husband Graham is going off to the middle east for the war effort. He refuses to stay faithful, and as Deborah is rather a selfish woman, she takes this as permission not to stay faithful too.

Deborah gets a job in London, leaving her young son Timmy under the care of her housekeeper. She soon starts making her way through various affairs, social climbing and learning to appreciate what she sees as the "good things" in life, despite there being a war on. Being married with a child is rarely thought about, apart from when it can be seen as an advantage in getting a newer and better lover.

Deborah is ultimately a very selfish woman, with little commitment to her marriage vows once her husband has gone abroad, and when it seems that Graham is going abroad (or the housekeeper is threatening to quit) all she can think of is how this will affect her and the life she has managed to acquire.

This book isn't shocking, per se (there's no explicit sex scenes for instance) but considering the time it was published, covers a scenario that isnt discussed much - just how did women survive without "company" when the men were away? ( )

Oh my. This 1946 novel turns the image of the dutiful wife waiting patiently for her husband to come home on its head. When Deborah's husband goes off to war leaving her in the countryside with their 2 year old son, Deborah finds herself hopelessly bored. She finds a housekeeper/nanny for her son and takes a job and flat in London, coming home only on the weekends. While in London, she finds man after man to sleep with and buy her things, hiding her new lifestyle from her husband and son.

I'm no prude, but I was pretty shocked by her behavior. She sleeps with A LOT of different men and accepts a lot of money and gifts. And basically abandons her son. There's conjecture that of course the men who are off at war are sleeping around so why shouldn't she? I get that, but I still wasn't sure what to make of this book.

I liked it from the standpoint of being unexpected and making you think about reality for some women rather than just the conventional notions of what happened to wartime marriages. But it was rather sordid. ( )

Oh, the lies that we tell ourselves to allow us to behave however we choose.

She could only say defiantly, “Well, even if what you think its true it’s not all that wrong. You’ve never had to do without your husband, and in any case, you’re different from me. Some women can do without a man and some can’t, and I’m one of those that can’t.”

And the consequences that those lies can have.

“Deborah, said Joe, “I want to tell you what my wife said to me in New York just before I came away. she said, “Joe, you’re a normal man and we’re maybe going to be parted for a long time. It’s no good shutting our eyes to what’s going to happen, but I’m going to ask you one thing. Don’t cheapen our marriage. I’d hate you to think of you going with any cheap woman and then coming back to me. But if you ever find a girl you can really respect, like you do me, I wouldn’t mind so much, because it wouldn’t be cheap.”


To Bed With Grand Music is a story about those lies – ones that we sometimes don’t realise are untruths – and those consequences.

The story open with Deborah in bed with her husband Graham. He is about to go away and, though he does not offer the same, she promises loyalty and fidelity.

But that promise is swiftly broken. Deborah is bored at home and her mother and her housekeeper are more than willing to take care of her infant son. And so Deborah heads for London. To keep busy, to help the war effort, to be happier…

But Deborah meets Joe, a charming American, a family man without his family. A relationship develops. When Joe is sent overseas Deborah meets Sheldon, another American. And then Pierre, an older Frenchman.

“Pierre, said Deborah urgently. “Will you teach me to be a good mistress?”

“I tell you it is a question of temperament,” said Pierre, “and you do not understand, because you have not got that temperament. But you have got a lot of other things, beauty and freshness and naivety.”

“To hell with naivety,” though Deborah angrily, “I’m damned if I’m going to be put off learning what I want, just because Pierre likes me naive.”

I couldn’t find it in myself to like Deborah. But though it might seem that it would be easy to dismiss her as selfish and vacuous, it wasn’t.

There isn’t too much background, but it was fairly clear that Deborah was a trophy wife. A woman who could only see herself as significant in relation to her man. Her mother’s character strongly suggested that she had been brought up to be just that. She had no other interests, no idea how to occupy her time.

But she lied to herself about what she was doing, what the effects would be. Did she realise? I think she did, but I think she just lied to herself again so she could carry on.

Yes, she was selfish. She was vacuous. And she was responsible for her actions and their effects.

There would be more men as Deborah turns slowly from a faithless wife into a scarlet woman. Her journey was compelling and utterly convincing.

And so I found another Marghanita Laski book that I could argue with while reading. She is so good at that!

She’s great at characters and storytelling too, and she makes some very telling points along the way about double standards and the emotional effects of war.

And then there’s the ending. She is so so good at endings, and this one is stunning. War is over, and the implications of that do not suit Deborah one little bit. Even after everything that has gone before, it is a shock to realise what Deborah has become.

Little Boy Lost. The Village. The Victorian Chaise-Longue. To Bed With Grand Music.

Four novels by Marghanita Laski reissued by Persephone books.

All different and all excellent. ( )

"Happy are they that go to bed with grand music, like Pythagoras, or have ways to compose the fantastical spirit, whose unruly wanderings take off inward sleepe". So writes Sir Thomas Browne in his essay "On Dreams", and whose words accurately describe the main character in Marghanita Laski's wartime novel, TO BED WITH GRAND MUSIC.

When the reader first meets Deborah, she is bidding farewell to her husband Graham, who is leaving for military duty in Cairo as WW2 rages on. She is in her early 20's, and the couple have a toddler son named Timmy who is looked after primarily by the housekeeper Mrs. Chalmers. They live in a small, quaint village near Winchester, England - about an hour's train ride from London. As they are parting, her husband hopes that she will be faithful to him while he is gone, but confesses outright to Deborah that he will not be. He rationalizes to her, "God alone knows how long I may be stuck in Mid-East, and it's no good saying I can do with a woman for three or four years, because I can't. But I promise that I'll never let myself fall in love with anyone else, and I'll never sleep with anyone who could possibly fill your place in any part of my life" (pg 2). As the first months without her husband drag on, Deborah finds herself bored and restless, so she decides to go to London to find a job and some fun.

As you might suspect by now, Deborah doesn't have much in the way of a maternal instinct, and she relies heavily on Mrs. Chalmers to raise Timmy. In fact, when she goes to London, Deborah dumps Timmy on the housekeeper during the week and only comes home on weekends to spend time with him. This arrangement changes during the course of the novel, with plans eventually being discussed about enrolling Timmy in boarding school, all to allow Deborah more freedom in her lifestyle.

She first shares an apartment with a girlhood friend, Madeline, who is living an enviable life in London. She goes out most every night with different men, eating lavish meals, drinking, dancing, and enjoying the contraband gifts they can give her. Because this is wartime, things like hosiery, perfume, makeup, alcohol, and fashionable clothing are unavailable or cost a hefty sum. However, the men seem to be able to produce these goods without too much discernible effort. They key is in getting the man, according to Madeline. At first, Deborah plays the part of the dutiful wife, working her secretarial job during the day and staying in the flat at night. However, she is conflicted because she wants to have fun and get attention like Madeline, yet knows that she is a wife and mother and should maybe be acting like it. This all changes when she meets Peter, a wildly handsome Brit.

Madeline, her beau Robert, Deborah, and Peter double-date at a swanky club for dinner and dancing. After awhile, and after many drinks, Deborah ends up back at Peter's apartment where they share a few more drinks and, high on the attention she's getting from this man and the effects of the alcohol, they spend the night together. She's hungover and horrified at her behavior the next morning, but not enough to return permanently to her quiet, domestic life in Winchester. In fact, this begins a 2-year spree of Deborah sleeping her way around London with many, many men.

After Peter, she has affairs with a few American servicemen who are temporarily stationed in London. Joe is shockingly like her husband, and his wife is expecting their first child so he and Deborah talk a great deal about parenthood, among doing other things. This affair only ends when Joe is transferred elsewhere during the war. The other is Sheldon, a man who isn't interested in any particular friendship with Deborah, only a companion for dining, dancing, and his bed. After that, one of Madeline's previous beaus, a Frenchman named Pierre, seeks her out and they begin an affair that marks a turning point in Deborah's life.

Pierre was initially attracted to her because of her naivete and authenticity, which was different from most of the women he had dated in London. Deborah, on the other hand, wanted him to educate her in the art of seduction. She wanted to lose herself and become someone who would exist exclusively to please men, primarily in a sexual way, and receive gifts in return. This is important because it demonstrates just how far she has shifted from when the novel began. She berated her husband for declaring that he would have affairs when he was away at war, and now she is being serially unfaithful to him.

Pierre, although fully disgusted with the woman Deborah has become, devotes three weeks to training her in the way a mistress should dress, what she should eat and drink, and other kinds of style and form to attract a man - the way to behave as a prostitute outside of the bedroom. He eventually breaks the affair and introduces Deborah to a Brazilian named Luis Vardas, a man who is willing to teach her the kinds of athletics she wants to learn. Luis finishes what Pierre began; Deborah's transition to a whore is complete. She is no longer the woman she was at the start of the story. The novel ends with a bit of ambiguity about her own future, but she is shown taking another women, much like Deborah used to be, under her wing. The reader is left to assume that she leads the woman down the same path, as Madeline did for Deborah.

Throughout the novel, the author makes interesting statements about parental responsibilities, different nationalities, and life during WW2. Deborah's home village is always seen as a safe place, somewhere she could escape from the complexities and stresses of life in London. During The Blitz, many families made the difficult decision to send their children out to the country, often times staying with complete strangers or friends-of-friends-of-the-family in the hope that they wouldn't be bombed by the Axis Powers. Deborah, instead, leaves this safety and security for what she thinks will be the excitement and adventure of London. Her concerns are almost entirely for herself, while she leaves her very young son at home with Mrs. Chalmers. She would rather play at the single life in the big city than accept and embrace her parental duties at home. It's possible to think that Deborah was just enjoying herself while she was still young...she was married to a man that she didn't wholly know and accepted a life that she didn't entirely want. But, in truth, she was ignoring her responsibilities - almost pretending they don't exist. When she does go home to visit Timmy, she focuses on showing him a good time and devoting attention to him, but when she goes back to London, it is up entirely on Mrs. Chalmers to raise, discipline, educate, and fully raise the child. She is much more of a mother to him than Deborah.

When reading about Deborah's various affairs, it's worth considering why the author chose the specific nationalities for the men as she did. She and her husband are both British, and the first man she sleeps with is also British - and in many ways similar to her husband. She is having an affair that allows her to, with some mental and moral gymnastics, to feel as though she isn't cheating at all. It would be interesting to think if their affair would have continued, and therefore if she would have had any of the other experiences that she ends up having, if Peter hadn't been called away. The next two men are both Americans but have very different in temperaments. One is interested in developing a real relationship, with romance and intimacy in addition to the sex. The other man is purely interested in Deborah in a physical way. The next man is French, and regarded as an expert in what a mistress should be and do. The French are stereotypically seen as being hedonistic, interested in worldly pleasures of food, wine, and romance, so it seems like the author is playing into those stereotypes here. The next man, a Brazilian, is seen as someone with so much sexual prowess that an affair with him would be like earning a university degree in the subject. The final man who is specifically mentioned in the cavalcade is Ken, who worked with Deborah's husband in Egypt during the war. He comes bearing a package of trinkets for Deborah and Timmy to enjoy, and wants to get to know her because of how highly her husband had talked about her. They spend an evening together, and she brings him back to her apartment and seduces him. In the morning, he feels taken in by her and has a complete revulsion to her. It seems that Ken functions as a "substitute Graham", because his response to her loose sexual behavior affects her much more deeply than have any of the other men she's slept with. She doesn't care about their opinions, but Ken's opinion matters a great deal...so much so that she takes tremendous action (much of it using behavior she assumedly learned from Pierre) to change Ken's mind about what kind of woman she is. He doesn't forget what she has done, but is willing to see her in a more favorable light as he departs.

One of the most interesting things that the author does in TO BED WITH GRAND MUSIC is challenge the dominant and enduring narrative of what people were like during WW2, especially Londoners during The Blitz. When modern audiences think about life during this time in history, we think of people sacrificing luxuries for The Greater Good, keeping the home fires burning, and being friendly and restrained. This book shows that, in truth, life couldn't have been like that. Men and women still crave attention, and some people may be willing to take moral lapses in order to obtain it. While many things were rationed or banned, if one knew the right person you could get just about anything you wanted. People who were selfish and self-centered before the war weren't much different during it. There was some sense of community, but not nearly to the level that history would have us believe.

Overall, TO BED WITH GRAND MUSIC was a surprising and thought-provoking read. The author tackles a subject, marital fidelity during wartime, and does so in interesting ways. Through the women and men that Deborah meets, she learns something that contributes to her moral decline and fall. It gives the reader pause to see if he/she would, if found in similar circumstances and of a similar age, behave in the ways that Deborah does. She has a fantastical spirit - to almost a childish level - and her life takes many unruly wanderings. Deborah is entirely happy to go to bed with grand music. ( )

To bed with Grand Music first published in 1946 just a year after the end of WW2 caused something of a mild sensation in some circles. Marghanita Laski (then writing under the name Sarah Russell) had probably struck something of a nerve. Families were coming back together again after years apart, and therefore the story of a young married woman, who goes right off the rails, and begins quite simply a tart, must have made some very uncomfortable reading. Deborah Robertson and her husband Graham promise constancy and loyalty to one another as Graham prepares to leave for a safe job in the Far East. However it soon becomes apparent that the village life existence of a young army wife will not be enough for Deborah. She was still the girl who had gone to the Slade, in London, purely for the social opportunities it had offered.

“When the noise of Graham’s taxi had died away, Deborah’s first sensation was of relief. The strain of his embarkation leave had been almost intolerable, and now that he had inevitably gone, the release from emotional tension was immediate. She had plenty to do. Mrs Chalmers, her mother’s help, dealt with all the cooking and housework of the cottage, but in caring for Timmy, making his clothes, working in the garden, Deborah found her days sufficiently filled. Now that Graham had gone and her week’s isolation with him was ended, there were again the normal social occupations of the village: the evening’s bridge at the doctor’s, the morning a week at the hospital canteen, the swapping over of children so that one or the other mother could get to see the new film in Winchester.”

Deborah’s mother and housekeeper Mrs Chalmers hatch a plan for Deborah to get a job to keep her fulfilled. However they hadn’t really reckoned on the life that Deborah finds for herself. Instead of Winchester, Deborah decides on London, sharing a flat with the sophisticated Madeleine, whom she knew from her Slade days. Madeleine is married, her marriage all but over she has no regrets and enjoys a fairly hedonistic existence. She is happy to instruct Deborah in the ways of her world, and Deborah’s corruption is soon complete. However Deborah is no innocent, she knows what she is about, and is very good at justifying her behaviour to herself. She is a selfish, even manipulative woman, embarking on a series of affairs, while her husband serves his country abroad, and her toddler son stays in the country with the housekeeper. Deborah goes home to the country and her young son at the weekend, but inevitably he becomes closer to Mrs Chalmers than to his mother.

“Very quickly Deborah’s life with Joe achieved a recognisable pattern. Now that she was definitely his mistress, she had a relationship with him that was accepted by his friends as formal and permanent within the limits imposed by war. Now he would bring his friends home to drink at the flat, now he would take her out to dine with his friends and their mistresses, so that the regular tempo of a married life imposed itself upon them. Very soon, the situation was admitted to Madeleine and accepted by her, so that social life inside the flat became more communal and general.”

Deborah is not a very sympathetic character, although I am sure there were plenty of women just like her at this time. The changes and uncertainties of life during the war years, made it inevitable that people, men and women went looking for fun and excitement. What Laski has done so well in this novel is to create a wonderful antithesis to the usual, jolly hockey sticks stiff upper lip we’ll fight them on the beaches sort of attitude, that one finds in WW2 novels. There may well have been plenty of such women, they were undoubtedly the backbone of this country in those days. Women who quite literally did keep the home fires burning, but Deborah Robertson is not like them. She is frustrated by the absence of her husband, bored by the country village where she lives, and manages to convince herself that her son will be happier if she is happy and fulfilled. What Deborah has to ask herself, and what the reader will also be asking themselves – is what will happen after the war, can Deborah really just go back to being a good country wife of a returned army Captain?

I have to say I disliked Deborah intensely, though she is a fascinatingly flawed character. To bed With Grand Music is the third of Marghanita Laski’s novels I have read and although I think I loved The Village and Little boy Lost rather more, it is a brilliant read and a fascinating glimpse of a different wartime attitude. ( )