Borrowing the title of one of Turgenev’s best-known works is a bold statement, directly implying a kinship between Gwendoline Riley’s fifth novel and the Russian master’s tale of an ill-fated love affair. But while Turgenev’s First Love is a linear exploration of the liminal state between childhood and maturity, Riley’s First Love is a more elusive, chronologically chaotic take on the power dynamics of love.
The novel – longlisted for this year’s Bailey’s women’s prize for fiction – opens with Neve unpacking boxes in the house she shares with her husband, Edwyn. The tone is melancholic but tender, the voice less dominated by an insistent “I” than in Riley’s previous fiction. Neve recalls waiting for Edwyn, looking down from the window to the street, watching him head home, how she meets him on the street, their “cuddles” on the stairs and in bed, their kisses and pet names (“little cabbage”, “little cleany puss”). The joys of such intimacy, the sympathy between two people in love are elegantly, beautifully written; Riley’s prose shimmering and luminous.
Riley's writing has always been clear, focused, still – rather like an Edward Hopper painting
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