(no subject)

[skygiants]

sovay described the plot of The Mysterious Mr. Ross to me a couple months ago when we were talking about unusual kid's books of our childhoods, and then rachelmanija wrote it up; both times I was intrigued, but the book is not available in either library system to which I belong. However, I recently discovered, it is available online through the Internet Archive's library service (scanned, ironically enough, from a BPL copy that does not appear to be available anymore) so now I have read it!

The plot: twelve-year-old Felicity, whose irritable mother owns her seaside town's local B&B (and whose father has been for some time out of work), goes out to the dangerous bit of the shore when she's not supposed to, and ends up rescuing a young man from the current.

The next day, the young man -- now comfortably settled at the B&B for recovery, his papers and identification having been all, tragically, washed away -- introduces himself as Mr. Albert Ross and begins ingratiating himself with Felicity's family and the townfolk, helped along somewhat by Felicity's own inflation of his story in a tempting fit of drama.

Some people, including Felicity's friend Bony, soon become suspicious of the stranger in their midst and his conveniently missing documentation and cheerfully helpless reliance on the townsfolk. Felicity's own suspicions vacillate back and forth in proportion to her desire to feel heroic, and her sense of responsibility towards both the mysterious Mr. Ross and the community to which she's brought him home; if Mr. Ross is not an unmixed good, then what does that mean for her, and her role in saving him?

Felicity is the kind of imaginative, selfish, intensely relatable preteen protagonist that I loved at the age of twelve and still love today. I suspect, at the age of twelve, I would have found the story's numerous loose ends and disinterest in solving the mystery of Mr. Ross frustrating; as an adult, I find it intriguing. I never read Vivien Alcock's books growing up and that definitely appears to have been an oversight.

Comments

[sovay]

I never read Vivien Alcock's books growing up and that definitely appears to have been an oversight.

I know for a fact that I didn't read The Mysterious Mr. Ross as a child and I'm still kind of confused by that; just between its protagonist, her sea-stray, and the ambiguous tricksterish numinous, it could have been reverse-engineered to have been formative on me.

I'm so glad you liked it!

[skygiants]

It really does seem like your smaller self must have somehow osmosed it in a dream or an alternate universe! (I feel that way about Idylls of the Queen, which I know for a fact I didn't read either.) Thank you again for the recommendation. :D

[rachelmanija]

I never read any of her books as a child but luckily they're still great as an adult, though like you I think I would have been frustrated earlier in life by this one's ambiguity.

[skygiants]

small me, shaking the book upside down like answers might fall out of it: IS HE A BIRD OR ISN'T HE?

As an adult the only thing I'm frustrated by is the relative disappearance of her sarcastic glamorous out-of-towner unwilling babysitter from the plot. I loved her! Where'd she go!

[kalloway]

Vivien Alcock rang so many bells that I had to google her and she wrote The Stonewalkers, which is probably one of the most unforgettable and unusual books I remember reading as a kid. I'd recommend that one as a weird and wild ride if you can find a copy.

[skygiants]

Thank you for the rec! I'm definitely going to be trying to hunt down her other work, I'll put The Stonewalkers at the top of my list.

[rachelmanija]

Yes, read it! I also really liked The Haunting of Cassie Palmer.

[antisoppist]

The Vivien Alcock that haunts me is The Cuckoo Sister where middle-class family life is disrupted by the return of a teenage older sister who was stolen from her pram as a baby, again through the eyes of the conflicted preteen sister. I can't even remember now whether she actually is the lost daughter or is only pretending to be her - it was the shifting, not-knowing atmosphere of the thing that stayed with me.

[sovay]

I can't even remember now whether she actually is the lost daughter or is only pretending to be her - it was the shifting, not-knowing atmosphere of the thing that stayed with me.

I just read that one yesterday! (There was a copy sitting in plain view in a library where I also was.) The not-knowingness is very good, and the way it would honestly make much more sense with a supernatural explanation, so the book refuses—unlike some other Alcock—to grant one and instead makes you stay with the characters and their human uncertainty.

[skygiants]

Oh man, I am ALSO definitely kicking that one up my list.