''Second Fiddle'' (1988) is a best-selling novel by British author

Mary Wesley Mary Aline Siepmann CBE (24 June 191230 December 2002), known by the pen name Mary Wesley, was an English novelist. During her career, she was one of Britain's most successful novelists, selling three million copies of her books, including ten ...

Plot summary

Twenty-three years old Claud Bannister has just failed his exam to be an accountant and is determined to give up his studies and become a writer. He is introduced to Laura Thornby at a concert. Laura is forty-five, single and a notorious meddler. When she hears about Claud's plans, and learns that he is living with his mother, Laura immediately starts rearranging his life. In no time Claud finds himself installed in a rented loft and making a living by selling antiques from a stall in the market. Laura becomes so interested in Claud's welfare, and her own, that she even ends up in bed with him. When Laura isn't visiting Claud in his loft, and he isn't working in the market, he is busy working on his novel, just as Laura had planned. But even Laura Thornby cannot foresee everything. Her affairs have always been brief and she has always been in total control, but with Claud she begins to lose control. When she sees what Claud has written, she realizes that he has a talent, and that she herself merely is playing second fiddle to his fictional characters.

Major characters

* Laura Thornby: 45, single, the daughter of Nicholas and Emily Thornby. * Claud Bannister: 23, single, aspiring writer. * Margaret Bannister: Widow. Claud's mother. * Emily and Nicholas Thornby: Twins and the parents of Laura Thornby. * Helen and Christopher Peel: A married couple. Christopher was Laura's childhood friend; they had an affair when they were young. * Martin Bengough: Works for the intelligence service. Is in love with Laura Thornby. * Clug: A Romanian composer and conductor. * Mavis: Aspiring actor, works as a waitress. * Ann Kennedy: Mavis's mother; lets a loft to Claud Bannister. * Brian and Susie: A married couple. Sell vegetables from their stall in the market.

Major Themes

One of the most important recurring themes in Wesley's fiction is the conflict between ambiguity and identity originating in the question of illegitimacy. Laura Thornby is painfully aware of the village gossip suggesting that Nicholas is not just her uncle, but also her father. When Laura as a teenager first learned about it, she had not confronted her mother, but had set off abroad, working her way across Europe. In a state of resentment against Nicholas and Emily she had stayed there for years. "Then with acceptance came resignation...a mode of survival". Laura feels haunted by guilt in the relationship with her parents. When Nicholas and Emily are ill and ask her to come and look after them, she immediately feels responsible and rushes off to be with them. She tries to justify their behaviour and begins to reproach herself: "She had neglected...Emily and Nicholas, while enjoying herself...". "She had denied them love. Emily has grown old, Nicholas is old too". "Better...to love them as they are, stop judging". Wesley's heroines often seem to have an air of elusiveness about them (the young Calypso in ''

The Camomile Lawn ''The Camomile Lawn'' is a 1984 novel by Mary Wesley beginning with a family holiday in Cornwall in the last summer of peace before the Second World War. When the family is reunited for a funeral nearly fifty years later, it brings home to the ...

'', Rose in ''

Not That Sort of Girl ''Not That Sort of Girl'' (1987) is a novel by British author Mary Wesley. The novel is set in Southern England and takes its beginning in the late 1930s and follows the life of Rose Peel throughout 48 years of marriage. Plot summary At the age ...

'', Hebe in ''

Harnessing Peacocks ''Harnessing Peacocks'' is the third novel by Mary Wesley, published in 1985 when the author was 73 years old. In 1992 it was adapted for television. Plot summary As a baby, Hebe lost her parents in an air crash; her grandparents have brought ...

'' and Laura Thornby in ''Second Fiddle''). Laura Thornby is never totally committed in her relationships, she is afraid of "getting-close" and consequently she always cuts her affairs short. "Intimacy is not my genre", she says. "I am emotionally parsimonious".Mary Wesley, Second Fiddle, p. 233.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Fiddle (novel) Novels by Mary Wesley 1988 British novels Novels about writers Macmillan Publishers books