Angel Pavement by J.B. Priestley – A Review

Published: 1930
Pages: 460

Priestley wrote Angel Pavement as a response to what became Great Depression. The novel is set in the sales office of a company that sells veneers. The company doesn’t seem to manufacture anything, but imports veneers and sells them. I think Priestley himself wasn’t entirely sure what the company does. Whatever it does, it doesn’t do it terribly well. The company is saved by the arrival of a man with access to cut-price veneers produced in Eastern Europe. The novel examines the effect this has on the staff and the owner of the business.

Each person working in the office represents a different level of society and Priestley shows their home lives with a bit more precision than their working lives. The owner of the company lives comfortably in a serviced flat in the west of London. He and his wife have friends round for dinner and have servant troubles. The finance manager lives with his wife and two teenage children (both at work), in a terraced house. The typist lives in a woman’s hostel whose occupants are constantly changing. The clerk lodges in the house of a couple who are only a little better off than he is. Each of them has a very precise address in different parts of London, underlining their social status.

There’s a fair amount of anti-semitism and misogyny in the book, which troubled me. Both were probably endemic at the time Priestley was writing, but from a man who made much of his social conscience, they’re hard to swallow. At a pinch, the anti-semitism could be passed off as reflecting the views of his characters, although I don’t think that’s the case. The misogyny is all his.

The novel is very long. Too long, I think. The third quarter is quite dull. In comparison, the final quarter is a whirlwind of action. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the actions leading to the climax made more sense. Unfortunately, I can’t explain why this was a problem without giving away the ending and I don’t like to spoil books for other people.

As a bit of social history, it’s an interesting book to read. If you want to know more about the importing of veneers into England in the late 1920s you’ll need to look elsewhere.

 

April Munday is the author of the Soldiers of Fortune and Regency Spies series of novels, as well as standalone novels set in the fourteenth century.

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