No Fond Return of Love

Another understatedly comic novel from Barbara Pym, this one with a number of self-referential “metafictional” touches – the people (who don't know they are characters in a novel) talk about how different things would be if they were in a novel, and so forth. One of Pym's own books is found in a bookcase, characters from a previous novel make a brief appearance, and an unnamed woman novelist visits a hotel the characters are frequenting (and who else could it be but Pym herself?). I've enjoyed all the novels from Pym's first publishing phase, and will now take a break before tackling the ones published after her long exile from the literary scene.